Coffee County Tennessee

Franklin D. Johnson from Tennessee, Coffee county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Saturday, December 2, 1950

Death details: 

On the evening of November 27, 1950, Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) launched a massive attack against the U.S. and United Nations troops stationed in the Chosin Reservoir area in northeast North Korea, resulting in a seventeen-day conflict that became known as the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. At the time of the initial CCF attack, members the U.S. Army’s 31st and 32nd Infantry Regiments were defending the area north of Sinhung-ni, on the east side of the reservoir. The defenders were overwhelmed by the numerically superior CCF, and on December 1, were forced to withdraw to friendly lines at Hagaru-ri. Chinese roadblocks from Sinhung-ni to Hagaru-ri along with the constant enemy fire from the surrounding high ground, made the withdrawal route extremely dangerous. Eventually, the column was broken into separate segments, which the CCF attacked individually. Many men were lost or captured during the moving battle, with survivors reaching friendly lines in Hagaru-ri on December 2 and 3.

First Lieutenant Franklin Dewey Johnson, who entered the U.S. Army from Tennessee, was a member of  Battery D, 15th Antiaircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalion, 7th Infantry Division. First Lieutenant Johnson was reported missing in action near the Chosin Reservoir on December 2 during the withdrawal to Hagaru-ri. Specific details regarding 1LT Johnson’s loss are unknown; he was not reported as a prisoner of war and he remains unaccounted-for. Today, First Lieutenant Johnson is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency