Rome Georgia

Dewey Earl Jr. Robertson from Floyd County Rome, Georgia .

Parents: Margaret Clark

Service era: Korea

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. Sergeant Dewey Earl Robertson Jr., who entered the U.S. Army from Georgia, was a member of A Company, 2nd Engineers Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured at Kunu-ri on December 1, 1950, at some point during his unit’s attempt to fight through a heavily defended enemy roadblock. A repatriated prisoner of war (POW) reported that SGT Robertson died in February 1951, while being moved to the ‘Mining Camp’ prison facility in the Pukchin-Tarigol valley. He remains unaccounted-for. Today, Sergeant Robertson is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Atlanta Journal (1951)