Ronald Wayne Hagen, age 19, from Grand Forks County North Dakota.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Monday, April 30, 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. Private First Class Ronald Wayne Hagen, who joined the U.S. Army from North Dakota, served with the Headquarters Battery, 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on December 1, 1950, as his unit provided direct fire support to 2nd Infantry Division troops withdrawing south from Kunu-ri to Sunchon, North Korea. He was marched with other prisoners to Camp 5 at Pyoktong, where he died of pneumonia, malnutrition, and dysentery on April 30, 1951. Although his companions buried him near the camp, his remains were not identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war. Today, Private First Class Hagen 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