Heath, Leslie Ray
Army Corporal
Leslie Ray Heath, age 18, from Bridgeport, Illinois, Lawrence county.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Saturday, June 30, 1951
Death details: On May 9, 2005, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Corporal Leslie Ray Heath, missing from the Korean War. Corporal Heath joined the U.S. Army from Illinois and was a member of A Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Regimental Combat Team, 24th Infantry Division. On April 23, 1951, he was captured by Chinese Communist Forces, along with eighty other members of his unit. CPL Heath was taken to the Suan POW Camp Complex in North Korea, where he died in June 1951. He was not identified among remains returned to U.S. custody immediately after the conflict’s ceasefire. On July 16, 1993, the North Korean government returned seventeen boxes of remains from the Korean War to the U.S. One of these boxes contained several sets of remains and two of CPL Heath’s identification tags. Forensic analysis eventually identified CPL Heath from among these remains. Corporal Heath is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Cemetery: Buried in 2005 in Bridgeport, Illinois
Source: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Douglas County Herald (2005)