Edward Harley Collins from Adams County Brooks, Wisconsin .
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Unknown
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 First Class Edward Harley Collins, who joined the U.S. Army from Wisconsin, was a member of Medical Company, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by the CCF during the fighting withdrawal from Kunu-ri on December 1, 1950. He was marched north, eventually arriving at Camp 5, a prison camp on the bank of the Yalu River in Pyoktong, North Korea. He died there of illness in June or July 1951, and his comrades buried him on a hill overlooking the camp. His remains were not recovered or identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Sergeant First Class Collins 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
