Skeens, Irvin Kelly
Army Private

Irvin Kelly Skeens from Loudoun County Giles, Virginia .

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Thursday, July 20, 1950
Death details: On July 20, 1950, the 3rd Battalion of the U.S. 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, was holding a defensive line in South Korea overlooking the Taejon Airport, northeast of the city. When enemy tanks broke through the line near the airport, U.S. troops were ordered to fall back through Taejon. The 3rd Battalion was ordered to lead the convoy out of Taejon, but ran into a series of collapsed structures and roadblocks that broke up the column. U.S. forces were unable to break through these roadblocks, and to avoid capture soldiers moved off-road and began filtering through the countryside in small groups. Private Irvin Kelly Skeens joined the U.S. Army from Virginia and was a member of L Company, 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces during the fighting in and around Taejon on July 20. As a prisoner of war, Private Skeens was marched to a prison camp in North Korea, where he died of malnutrition on March 20, 1951. He has not been identified among remains returned to U.S. custody after the conflict’s ceasefire, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Private Skeens 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 (1954)