Overend, James Edward
Army Master sergeant

James Edward Overend, age 43, from Kings County Brooklyn, New York .

Spouse: Teresa Overend
Children: Dennis, infant

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Wednesday, February 7, 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. Master Sergeant James Edward Overend, who joined the U.S. Army from New Jersey, served with A Company, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on December 1, 1950, as his unit was withdrawing from Kunu-ri to Sunchon. He was marched with a large group of prisoners to the Pukchin-Tarigol Valley in North Korea, where he died of malnutrition and cardiac failure on February 7, 1951. He was under the care of a captured Army doctor at the time of his death, but no mention is made of his burial. His remains have not been recovered. Master Sergeant Overend is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Jersey Journal (1953)