Maurice Patrick Gardner, age 18, from Franklin County Saint Albans, Vermont .
Parents: Irene and Alvarez Gardner
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Sunday, January 28, 1951
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 Maurice Patrick Gardner, who joined the U.S. Army from Vermont, served with Battery B, 38th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured by enemy forces on November 30, 1950, as his unit made a fighting withdrawal from Kunu-ri southward to Sunchon. He was marched with a large group of prisoners to Hofong Camp, where he died of malnutrition and pneumonia on January 28, 1951. His remains have not been identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war. Today, Corporal Gardner 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, Saint Albans Daily Messenger (1951)