Chesnut, Fred Dennis
Army Major

Fred Dennis Chesnut, age 33, from San Diego County San Diego, California .

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Sunday, July 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. Major Fred Dennis Chesnut, who joined the U.S. Army from California, was a member of the Headquarters Company of the 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. On November 29, 1950, the 38th Infantry Regiment was ordered to defend the area east of Kunu-ri, to cover the start of the 2nd Division’s retreat. The CCF attacked as the 38th Infantry consolidated their defenses, forcing the defenders to fight their way back to Kunu-ri before joining the withdrawal to Sunchon. A series of moving battles ensued, and MAJ Chesnut was captured at some point during the fighting. He joined a column of prisoners who were forced to march to a CCF prison camp near the village of Pyoktong, known as Camp 5. Returning ex-prisoner reports indicate that MAJ Chesnut died of malnutrition at Camp 5 on July 15, 1951. His comrades buried him at the edge of the camp. American search teams have not been given access to work at Camp 5, and MAJ Chesnut could not be associated with any remains returned to U.S. custody after the war. During Operation Glory in 1954, the Chinese suggested one of the sets of remains they returned from Camp 5 were those of Major Chesnut, though the Army’s Central Identification Unit at Kokura, Japan determined the remains to be those of another soldier. Today, Major Chesnut 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, Los Angeles Times (1953)