Saint Francis County Arkansas

Elmer Lee Coleman from Saint Francis County Arkansas.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Friday, December 1, 1950
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 Elmer Lee Coleman, who joined the U.S. Army from Arkansas, served with Battery C, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He went missing in action on December 1, 1950, as his unit made a fighting withdrawal through several CCF roadblocks en route from Kunu-ri to Sunchon. No one saw him fall, and he was not reported to be a prisoner of war. The chaos of the battlefield prevented the immediate recovery of his body, and although the North Koreans have returned some remains from the Kunu-ri battlefield to U.S. custody, Corporal Coleman has not been identified among them. Corporal Coleman 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