Michael James Barra, age 19, from Tompkins County New York.
Parents: Lena C. Barra
Service era: Korea
Schools: Ithaca High (1949)
Date of death: Tuesday, February 20, 1951
Death details: On October 23, 2014, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Sergeant Michael James Barra, missing from the Korean War. Sergeant Barra, who joined the U.S. Army from New York, was a member of C Company, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. On December 1, 1950, he was captured while fighting through a series of Chinese Communist Forces roadblocks near Kunu-ri, North Korea. He died of unknown causes on February 20, 1951, while at POW Camp 5 in Pyokdong, North Korea. He was buried at the camp, and his remains were not returned to the U.S. immediately following the conflict’s ceasefire. Between 1991 and 1994, the North Korean government turned over to the United States boxes of human remains, including some recovered from the vicinity where SGT Barra died. U.S. analysts used modern forensic techniques to eventually identify SGT Barra from among these remains. Sergeant Barra is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Cemetery: Burial November 22, 2014 at the Calvary Cemetery
Source: National Archives, Ithaca Journal (1954)
