Cates, James Gerald
Army Sergeant 1st class

James Gerald Cates, age 29, from Mississippi, Neshoba county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Sunday, December 3, 1950
Death details: On May 31, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) accounted for Master Sergeant James Gerald Cates, missing from the Korean War. Master Sergeant Cates, who entered the U.S. Army from Georgia, was a member of I Company, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. On December 3, 1950, he was reported missing in action as a result of enemy combat actions as his unit withdrew from the eastern side of the Chosin Reservoir to Hagaru-ri, North Korea. MSG Cates was never reported to be a prisoner of war, and remained unaccounted-for following the incident. In 1954, as part of the exchange of war dead known as Operation GLORY, the North Korean government returned a set of remains recovered from isolated burial sites east of the Chosin Reservoir. One set of these remains that could not be identified at the time was renames Unknown X-15903 and interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2013, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, a predecessor organization to DPAA) disinterred X-15903 for re-examination. Advances in forensic techniques eventually allowed these unknown remains to be identified as those of MSG Cates. Master Sergeant Cates is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency