James W. Maddox from Kentucky, Ohio 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.
Sergeant First Class James Woodburn Maddox entered the U.S. Army from Kentucky and was a member of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was captured on December 2, 1950, near the Chosin Reservoir, during the withdrawal to Hagaru-ri. A repatriated American prisoner of war later reported that SFC Woodburn died of pneumonia on or around December 20, while being held by the CCF in an POW holding area known as “Death Valley #1,” near a river just north of the Chosin Reservoir. Specific details regarding the burial of his remains are unknown and he was not identified among remains returned to the U.S. following the war. Today, Sergeant First Class Maddox is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency