MA Soldier Missing During Korean War Identified

MALDEN, MA — A U.S. Army soldier who died as a prisoner of war during the Korean War may soon be buried in Malden after he was accounted for late last month, the federal Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced on Friday.

Scientists from the accounting agency identified Cpl. Joseph J. Puopolo, 19, of East Boston through a program launched in July, 2018 to reexamine unknown remains of more than 650 people buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii after the Korean War.

Speaking to the Associated Press (AP) last week, Puopolo’s grandnephew, Richard Graham said this news came after decades that his family spent hoping for an identification.

“He has not been forgotten,” Graham told the AP.

Puopolo was reported missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950 three days after he and his unit attempted to withdraw from Kunu-ri, North Korea after the Battle of Ch’ongch’on, according to the accounting agency's statement.

In 1953, the agency continued, a group of prisoners of war returning home as part of coordinated repatriations said Puopolo had died while imprisoned in February of 1951 at Prisoner of War Camp #5, also known at Pyoktong.

North Korea returned remains said to be recovered from Pyoktong in 1954, according to the accounting agency. None were associated with Puopolo.

At least one set of remains from the prisoner of war camp, though, was disinterred and designated as unknown. Those remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, according to the accounting agency.

In July of 2018, 64 years after that burial, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency drafted plans for new identification efforts. The accounting agency said scientists began examining Puopolo’s remains after December, 2019, identifying him using dental and anthropological analysis as well as what the accounting agency described as “circumstantial evidence” and DNA analysis.

The accounting agency said last week that Puopolo would be buried in Malden at a date to be determined.

Speaking with the AP, Graham said the family has a family plot in Malden. The family is also considering holding a service at a veterans cemetery in Bourne, though, according to Graham via the AP.