Jodie Silas Jr. Reese, age 22, from Pittsburg County McAlester, Oklahoma .
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Unknown
Death details: On August 10, 1950, members of the 3rd Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment combined with Battery C of the 15th Field Artillery Battalion as Task Force Bradley. The task force was directed to defend the city of P’ohang-dong, and Yonil Airfield, South Korea, from an impending attack by North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) forces. Late that day, Task Force Bradley moved along the main road toward P’ohang-dong and Yonil. Much of the task force reached Yonil shortly before midnight; however, during the early hours of August 11, NKPA fighters ambushed one company and four vehicles from Battery C were ambushed by NKPA fighters, preventing the ambushed men from reaching their destination.
Private First Class Jodie Silas Reese Jr., who joined the U.S. Army from Oklahoma, served in Battery C of the 15th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on August 11, 1950, when his unit, attached to Task Force Bradley, was ambushed near Angang-ni. He was marched north to Seoul and from there towards P’yöngyang, but was killed by guards when they massacred 100 prisoners near Sunch’ön for unknown reasons. When U.N. forces reached Sunch’ön and P’yöngyang two months later, they buried PFC Reese at the U.N. Military Cemetery in P’yöngyang; however Chinese Communist Forces then overran North Korea, and the remains in the cemetery became inaccessible. Private First Class Reese’s remains have not been identified among those returned to U.S. custody. Today, Private First Class Reese 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, Tulsa World (1951)
