Albert Ellsworth Boothroyd, age 17, from Tolland County Tolland, Connecticut .
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Wednesday, January 31, 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 Albert Ellsworth Boothroyd, who joined the U.S. Army from Connecticut, served with the Service Battery, 38th Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was taken prisoner of war on November 30, 1950, as his unit was fighting through a roadblock while en route to Sunchon, North Korea. After his capture, he was marched to a holding camp at the Pukchin Tarigol Valley where he died of malnutrition on or before January 31, 1951. His remains were not recovered at the time, and he has not been identified among those remains returned to U.S. custody since the ceasefire. Today, Corporal Boothroyd 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
