Monticello Indiana

Robert Vernon Estes from White County Monticello, Indiana .

Parents: Harry Stockdale, mother died shortly after he was declared missing.

Service era: Korea
Schools: Lincoln school

Date of death: Unknown
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. Corporal Robert Vernon Estes joined the U.S. Army from Indiana and was a member of Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. On November 30, 1950, he was captured by enemy forces outside of Kunu-ri, as his unit conducted its fighting withdrawal toward Sunchon. Corporal Estes was marched to a prisoner of war camp in North Korea known as the Mining Camp, where he died in January of 1951. He was not identified among remains returned to U.S. custody after the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Corporal Estes 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, Monticello Daily Herald Journal (1954)