Yelsky, Bernard
Army Corporal

Bernard Yelsky, age 21, from Ohio, Cuyahoga 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. Sergeant Bernard Yelsky, who joined the U.S. Army from Ohio, served with Headquarters Battery, 987th Field Artillery Battalion, 40th Infantry Division. He was was one of the men lost when the outpost collapsed, and his remains were not identified among those later returned to U.S. custody. He is still unaccounted-for. Today, Sergeant Yelsky is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency