Brown, Carlton Henry
Army Sergeant

Carlton Henry Brown, age 21, from Powhatan County Virginia.

Parents: Jennie B. Taylor

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Wednesday, March 7, 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 First Class Carlton Henry Brown, who joined the U.S. Army from Virginia, served with Battery B, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on December 1, 1950, as his artillery unit supported 2nd Infantry Division troops withdrawing south to Kunu-ri. He was marched northward to the Pukchin-Tarigol Valley where he died of malnutrition and pneumonia on March 7, 1951, while under the care of a captured Army doctor. His remains have not been identified among those returned to U.S.custody. Today, Sergeant First Class Brown 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, Richmond News Leader (1951)