Fred Thomas Chatfield from Whitley County Pleasant View, Kentucky .
Parents: T. B. Chatfield
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 Fred Thomas Chatfield, who joined the U.S. Army from Kentucky, served with Battery D, 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. He was captured on December 1, 1950, as his unit provided direct fire support to 2nd Infantry Division troops withdrawing from Kuni-ri to Sunchon, North Korea. He was marched to Camp 5, on the Yalu River near Pyoktong, where he died of dysentery on an unspecified date in late April or early May 1951. Although he was buried near the camp by his companions, his remains were not identified among those returned to U.S. custody after the war. Today, Sergeant Chatfield 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, Knoxville News Sentinel (1951)