Goudlock, David Joseph
Army Corporal

David Joseph Goudlock, age 23, from Buncombe County Asheville, North Carolina .

Parents: David J. Goudlock Sr.

Service era: Korea
Schools: Stephens Lee High graduate, Tuskegee Institute

Date of death: Friday, January 5, 1951
Death details: By mid-November 1950, U.S. and Allied forces had advanced to within approximately sixty miles of the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and China. On November 25, approximately 300,000 Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) “volunteers” suddenly and fiercely counterattacked after crossing the Yalu. The 2nd Infantry Division, located the farthest north of units at the Chongchon River, could not halt the CCF advance and was ordered to withdraw to defensive positions at Sunchon in the South Pyongan province of North Korea. As the division pulled back from Kunu-ri toward Sunchon, it conducted an intense rearguard action while fighting to break through well-defended roadblocks set up by CCF infiltrators. The withdrawal was not complete until December 1, and the 2nd Infantry Division suffered extremely heavy casualties in the process. Sergeant David Joseph Goudlock Jr., who joined the U.S. Army from Pennsylvania, served with Battery B, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on December 1, 1950, as his unit made a fighting withdrawal from Kunu-ri south to Sunchon, North Korea. He was forced to march north to the Pukchin Tarigol Valley, where he died of exhaustion, malnutrition and dysentery in a small, unidentified village on January 5, 1951. His remains have not been identified among those returned to U.S. custody. Sergeant Goudlock is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC, which was updated in 2022 to include the names of the fallen.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Asheville Citizen Times (1951)