Kittson County Minnesota

Knutson, Richard Arthur
Army Chief warrant officer

Richard Arthur Knutson, age 22, from Hallock, Minnesota, Kittson county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: January 8, 1973
Death details: On October 27, 1995, the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Richard Arthur Knutson, missing from the Vietnam War.
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Knutson joined the U.S. Army from Minnesota and was a member of the 62nd Aviation Company. On January 8, 1973, he was the pilot of a UH-1H Iroquois (tail number 69-15619) on a support mission over Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. The Iroquois was shot down during the mission, and CWO3 Knutson was killed in the incident. Enemy presence in the area prevented ground searches for him or the crash site. In 1994, a joint U.S. and Vietnamese investigative team recovered remains from a site associated with this loss. In 1995, forensic analysis identified the remains as those of CWO3 Knutson.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

Peterson, Philip O.
Army Private

Philip O. Peterson, age 17, from Minnesota, Kittson 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. Private First Class Phillip Orlean Peterson, who entered the U.S. Army from Minnesota, was a member of Company B, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was reported missing in action on December 2, 1950, during the withdrawal to Hagaru-ri, though specific details regarding his loss are unknown. He was never reported as a prisoner of war, and his remains were not identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the ceasefire. Today, Private First Class Peterson is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

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