Stine, Percy E. Jr.
Army Private 1st Class

Percy E. Jr. Stine, age 20, from Illinois, Cook county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Friday, June 12, 1953
Death details: During the last two years of the Korean War, the opposing forces were arrayed across the 38th Parallel, with neither side able to make much progress into the other’s territory. Both sides maintained forward observer outposts, and these often proved to be targets of opportunity to the opposing force. On June 12, 1953, Battery A of the 987th Armored Field Artillery Battalion was manning an outpost southeast of Kumsong-ni when Chinese Communist Forces began bombarding the outpost with heavy mortar fire. The outpost collapsed, killing the three soldiers inside. Corporal Percy Ellwood Stine Jr., who joined the U.S. Army from Illinois, served with Battery A, 987th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 40th Infantry Division. On June 12 he was serving as the radio telephone operator at this forward observer outpost, and was reported missing in action after the outpost collapsed under enemy shelling. His remains could not be immediately recovered, and after the war they were not identified among those returned to U.S. custody. Today, Corporal Stine is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency