Trail, Joseph Hayes
Army Corporal

Joseph Hayes Trail, age 19, from Frederick County Knoxville, Maryland .

Parents: Clarence Trail

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Saturday, January 20, 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. Sergeant Joseph Hayes Trail, who joined the U.S. Army from Maryland, served with the Headquarters, Headquarters and Service Company, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces as his unit fought through a heavily defended roadblock during their withdrawal to Sunchon. Sergeant Trail was held with other prisoners near Sunchon for several weeks while their captors waited for word that a holding camp farther north was available to accommodate the prisoners. On January 20, 1951, SGT Trail died of malnutrition while near Sunchon. There is no record of a burial location, and his remains have not been identified among those returned to the U.S. following the war. Today, Sergeant Trail is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Frederick News (1951)