Cavender, William Edward
Army Sergeant

William Edward Cavender, age 20, from Ingham County Leslie, Michigan .

Parents: Phillip J. Cavender

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Tuesday, November 28, 1950
Death details: On May 19, 2020, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) accounted for the remains of Sergeant William Edward Cavender, missing from the Korean War. Sergeant Cavender, who entered the U.S. Army from Michigan, served with the Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was reported missing in action on November 28, 1950, during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir when his unit’s headquarters building was attacked by the Chinese Communist Forces. He did not survive this action, but his remains were not recovered at the time. In 2018, following a meeting between leaders of the two nations, North Korea returned 55 boxes of war dead remains to U.S. custody. These remains were subsequently accessioned into the DPAA Laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for identification. Using anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence, once set of these remains were identified as those of SGT Cavender. Sergeant Cavender 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: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Lansing State Journal (1951)