Vercolen, Albert Louis
Army Sergeant

Albert Louis Vercolen, age 29, from Monroe County Rochester, New York .

Parents: Judith Vercolen

Service era: Korea
Schools: Edison Technical and Industrial High

Date of death: Wednesday, July 12, 1950
Death details: Members of the U.S. 34th Infantry Regiment were among the first U.S. ground troops to arrive in South Korea following the North Korean Peoples Army (NKPA) invasion on June 25, 1950. The 34th, which had been on garrison duty in Japan, was undermanned and under-equipped and had little field experience. It’s mission was to delay the NKPA’s surge to the south as long as possible so that reinforcements could arrive. On July 6 the NKPA attacked the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 34th Infantry north of the town of Chonan, South Korea. The U.S. troops withdrew slowly back to Chonan, and established defensive lines there. Sergeant First Class Albert Louis Vercolen entered the U.S. Army from New York and served with B Company, 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces near Suwon, South Korea, on July 6, 1950, and marched north to the Apex Camps near the Yalu River. A repatriated American prisoner of war (POW) later reported that SGT Vercolen died a short time after his capture in South Korea on July 12, 1950. His remains were not identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Sergeant First Class Vercolen 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, Democrat and Chronicle (1950)