Tag: Pensacola Florida

Ithiel Ezell Whatley, age 19, from Pensacola, Florida, Escambia county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Wednesday, July 12, 1950
Death details: On September 7, 2022, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Private First Class Ithiel Ezell Whatley, missing from the Korean War. Private First Class Whatley entered the U.S. Army from Florida and served in M Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. This unit was part of Task Force Smith, the first U.S. ground element to engage North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) troops during the conflict. On July 11, 1950, the 21st Infantry Regiment held defensive positions near the town of Chochi’won, South Korea. An attack by NKPA forces forced the under-strength regiment to withdraw to avoid being surrounded. PCF Whatley was reported missing in action on July 12th, but the exact circumstances of his loss are unknown. In October 1950, after the U.S. Army regained territory lost to the enemy, remains believed to be of U.S. service members were recovered from the area. Those that could not be identified with the tools available at the time were interred as unknowns in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2019, DPAA personnel exhumed one set of these remains for further study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established the remains as those of PFC Whatley.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency