Private First Class Thomas A. Smith (Image courtesy of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
SEOUL, May 17 (Korea Bizwire) – The remains of two United States Army soldiers who went missing as 17-year-olds during the Korean War have finally been identified, more than seven decades after their disappearance, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on May 15.
The agency confirmed the identities of Private First Class Thomas A. Smith and Corporal Richard Seloover, both of whom were just 17 years old when they went missing in 1950.
Pfc. Smith, a native of Michigan, was reported missing in action near Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, while engaged in combat operations during the summer of 1950. The DPAA stated there was no evidence suggesting he had been captured as a prisoner of war, and his remains could not be recovered immediately after the battle.
Cpl. Seloover, from Illinois, is believed to have perished in September of that year during fighting near the Nakdong River. However, due to intense combat in the area, his body could not be retrieved, leading to his designation as missing in action.
Corporal Richard Seloover (Image courtesy of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
Both soldiers were declared deceased in 1953, three years after their disappearances, and their names were inscribed on the Missing in Action memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
In the late 1950s, as part of efforts to recover remains from the Korean War, the U.S. military discovered two sets of remains in the regions where Smith and Seloover went missing. However, lacking the technology to identify them at the time, the remains were designated as “X-5077″ and “X-348″ and interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.
It wasn’t until 2018 that the DPAA launched a project to exhume and identify over 600 unidentified soldiers buried at the cemetery. Through this initiative, the remains labeled “X-5077″ and “X-348″ were finally confirmed as belonging to Pfc. Smith and Cpl. Seloover, respectively, who had been missing since 1950.
The remains will be returned to their hometowns in Michigan and Illinois for burial, according to CBS News, which reported that the DPAA did not disclose whether Smith and Seloover have any surviving relatives.
To date, the DPAA has accounted for and returned the remains of over 450 U.S. service members killed in the Korean War to their families. However, more than 7,000 soldiers remain unaccounted for, and hundreds of unidentified remains have been designated as “unrecoverable” by the agency.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
