Carpenter, Robert Evans
Army Corporal

Robert Evans Carpenter, age 20, from Garfield County Oklahoma.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Thursday, February 15, 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 Robert Evans Carpenter, who joined the U.S. Army from Oklahoma, served with A Company, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He went missing in action on December 1, 1950, as he and his unit withdrew from Kunu-ri to Sunchon while under attack by the CCF. A former prisoner of war remembers seeing SGT Carpenter at Camp 5, Pyoktong, North Korea, and reports that SGT Carpenter died there on February 15, 1951; however, it is possible the account may have been about another prisoner with the last name of Carpenter. SGT Carpenter’s fate remains uncertain, and his remains have not been recovered. Today, Sergeant Carpenter is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency