Korean War veteran William Herrington of Alliance, Ohio

FORT KNOX, Kentucky – The remains of a Korean War veteran from northeast Ohio, identified more than seventy years after he was declared missing, will now be buried with full military honors on American soil.

U.S. Army Cpl. William J. Herrington, 19, of Alliance, was a member of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was reported missing on Dec. 2, 1950, during a series of “major battles” with the Chinese army in North Korea, according to a news release Wednesday from the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which identified the man’s remains two years ago.

According to the press release, Chinese communist forces attacked US and UN troops in the Chosin Reservoir in November. The fighting lasted 17 days and is now known as the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.

Herrington’s regiment defended the east side of the reservoir but was outnumbered and “overwhelmed,” the release said. Faced with roadblocks and “constant enemy fire,” they were forced to withdraw on Dec. 1. Over the next two days, many men were captured or lost their lives, including Herrington, who did not rejoin his unit, the agency said.

Three years later – months after a ceasefire ended the fighting but not the war, which never formally ended – Army officials assumed Herrington was dead. Three years later, they discovered that his remains could not be recovered.

But in 2018, after a summit between supreme leader Kim Jong Un and former President Donald Trump, the North Korean government handed over 55 boxes allegedly containing the remains of American soldiers killed in the war, a press release said. The agency used dental, anthropological and DNA analysis to identify the remains in August 2022.

More than 7,600 U.S. veterans who served in the war were listed as missing or captured and later declared dead, according to U.S. casualty records.

Herrington’s remains are scheduled to be interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia later this month, according to the press release. His name will soon be added to the missing persons markers at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu with a rosette indicating that he has been found. His name will also be engraved on the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.