Lester Vincent Barchesky, age 44, from King County Washington.
Spouse: Ruth M. Barchesky
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Saturday, February 17, 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 First Class Lester Vincent Barchesky joined the U.S. Army from Washington and was a member of Battery D, 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalion. On December 1, 1950, he was captured by enemy forces near Kunu-ri as his unit made their fighting withdrawal toward Sunchon. Sergeant First Class Barchesky was marched to the Death Valley prison camp in North Korea, where he died on February 17, 1951. He was not identified among remains returned to U.S. custody after the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Sergeant First Class Barchesky 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, Tacoma News Tribune (1951)
