Harris, Richard Louis
Army Sergeant

Richard Louis Harris, age 23, from Alameda County California.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Monday, January 22, 1951
Death details: On January 20, 2012, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Sergeant First Class Richard Louis Harris, missing from the Korean War. Sergeant First Class Harris entered the U.S. Army from California and served in Company L, 3rd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by the enemy on or about November 30, 1950, as his unit engaged with Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) during the Battle of Chongchon River. SFC Harris was interned at the Pukchin-Tarigol POW Camp in Noth Korea and died from malnutrition and dysentery shortly after arriving to the camp in early 1951. His remains were not returned to the U.S. immediately following the war. In 2005, a joint U.S./North Korean investigative team excavated a large gravesite near Unsan, North Korea, and recovered the remains of several U.S. service members. In 2012, analysts identified SFC Harris from among these remains. Sergeant First Class Harris 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