Eklund, Edwin Gustaf Jr.
Army Captain

Edwin Gustaf Jr. Eklund, age 29, from Hennepin County Minneapolis, Minnesota .

Parents: Edwin G. Eklund
Spouse: Rosann N. Eklund

Service era: Korea
Schools: Graduate of the University of Minnesota medical school

Date of death: Wednesday, February 28, 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. Captain Edwin Gustaf Eklund Jr., who joined the U.S. Army from Minnesota, was a member of B Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured during the fighting withdrawal from Kunu-ri on December 1. He was marched to a holding village at the Pukchin-Tarigol Valley in North Korea, where he died of exhaustion and pneumonia in January 1951. His remains have not been recovered, and he was not identified among remains returned to U.S. custody after the end of the war. Today, Captain Eklund 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, Minneapolis Star (1953)