Hesseltine, Herbert Asa
Army Corporal

Herbert Asa Hesseltine, age 19, from Grafton County New Hampshire.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Wednesday, January 31, 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 Herbert Asa Hesseltine Jr., who joined the U.S. Army from New Hampshire, served with Headquarters Battery, 38th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was taken prisoner of war during his unit’s fighting withdrawal from Kunu-ri to Sunchon, North Korea. After his capture, he was marched to a temporary holding camp in the Pukchin-Tarigol Valley where he died of malnutrition on or before January 31, 1951. His remains were not recovered at the time, and he has not been identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war. Today, Sergeant Hesseltine 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