James Henry Monroe from Idaho, Ada county.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Sunday, July 16, 1950
Death details: On the evening of July 15, 1950, the U.S. Army’s 19th Infantry Regiment held defensive positions along the south bank of the Kum River. As dusk approached, North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) tanks appeared on the opposite shore and began firing on the U.S. positions. Although U.S. troops repulsed the attacks that evening, the next morning the NKPA crossed the river and launched a major attack against the 19th Regiment. As the regiment began withdrawing south to Taejon, the North Koreans pushed deep into their defensive lines and set up a roadblock en route to Taejon. When retreating American convoys could not break through the roadblock, soldiers were forced to leave the road and attempt to make their way in small groups across the countryside. Of the 900 soldiers in the 19th Infantry when the Battle of Kum River started, only 434 made it to friendly lines. Corporal James Henry Monroe entered the U.S. Army from Idaho and served with Company C, 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on July 16, 1950, during the Battle of Kum River, and then was marched by stages to prison camps on the bank of the Yalu River in North Korea, known as the “Apex Camps.” CPL Monroe died of unknown causes in September 1950, along the route to the Apex camps, and north from Man’po, North Korea. The disposition of his remains is unknown, and he was not identified among remains returned to U.S. custody after the war. Today, Corporal Monroe is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency