Wanted: Veteran accepts mission to find relatives of servicemen missing in Korea
BY DENNIS MAGEE, COURIER REGIONAL EDITOR
Editor's note: Harold Davis looks for relatives of U.S. servicemen missing in action during the Korean War. Monday he called the Courier in his ongoing effort to spread the word. One of the names on Davis' list of Iowans --- Sgt. Alfred Martin of Waterloo --- is the uncle of Courier employee Dave Martin.
The story continues from there.
WATERLOO --- Thousands of Americans went to Korea in the 1950s. Not all of them came home.
The United States signed a cease-fire agreement with North Korea on July 27, 1953. After exchanging prisoners, more than 8,100 servicemen were still missing in action. Some of those left behind were from Iowa.
Harold Davis of Wilmington, N.C., has never been to this state. He has been in Korea.
"I have no connection to Iowa. My connection is with fellow veterans who were lost over there."
Davis was a member of the Army's 40th Infantry Division for 11 months.
"And most of that time was on the front lines," he says.
His tour of duty included the winter of 1952-53. It was cold, and the U.S. military faced a determined force from North Korea and China. The lowest temperature he heard reported was 35 degrees below zero.
Frostbite nipped Davis' fingers and toes.
"That was the only hurt I got, and I'm very grateful," he said.
Thousands of colleagues held as prisoners of war endured the same conditions, only without the heavy coats and food available to American fighting forces. Others died in combat.
"They gave everything they had and they did it in a terrible way," Davis said.
That should count for something. At a minimum, he said, this country should make every effort to bring these people home.
"I wouldn't want to be forgotten over there."
About five years ago, Davis got involved. He hunts down family members of missing servicemen and women. He starts with public information available from the U.S. military's Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii, the organization charged with finding and identifying remains.
He is effective.
"I actually made up a little folder here because he's given me so many contacts," Linda Baublitz said.
She is a native of Emmetsburg but works in the Army Casualty Office in Alexandria, Va.
Davis' efforts began close to home.
"When he first started he was looking for some young men from his area in Wilmington," Baublitz said.
Recently, Iowa's missing sons attracted some of Davis' attention.
The Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command designates as urgent six cases involving Iowans who fought and died but whose bodies were never recovered. The missing soldiers are:
• Pvt. John C. Cavil of Polk County, a member of the 25th Infantry Division, Korea
• Cpl. William H. Fisher of Webster County, a member of the 1st Cavalry Division, Korea
• 1st Lt. Hal T. Gibson of Polk County, a member of the 25th Infantry Division, Korea
• Sgt. Phillip D. McAughan of Caldwell, a member of the 7th Infantry Division, Korea
• Cpl. Leigh W. Widell of Woodbury County, a member of 2nd Infantry Division, Korea
• Williams Collins, 596th Bomber Squadron, World War II.
The urgent designation means remains are available and researchers need DNA samples from family members to aid identification. It could also mean investigators at the Central Identification Laboratory are working with remains but have multiple names to consider.
The researchers, however, would also like DNA samples for 45 other servicemen from Iowa who died during World War II, the Korean War or Vietnam War. The majority --- 38 --- served in Korea.
Names on Davis' list include Sgt. Alfred J. Martin, 21, of Black Hawk County, a member of the 2nd Infantry Division, and Pvt. Eugene Jones, 21, of Buchanan County, a member of the 3rd Infantry Division.
Davis knows little about the men.
"Alfred Martin. He was regular army. He volunteered."
Military records indicate Martin was taken prisoner during combat near Kunu-ri, which is now in North Korea. He reportedly died in February 1951 after about three months in captivity.
Jones, according to his service number, was drafted. Military records indicate he was killed in action June 14, 1953.
"I really can't give you anything more on that. It's hard to get any kind of information on these people," Davis says.
Family
Dave Martin, 55, of Waterloo, knows the feeling. Alfred was his uncle but the events in Alfred's short life played out before Dave was born.
"I don't know that much about it, and his generation is all gone," Dave said.
Dave's father, also named David, wound up with letters from Alfred and official documents related to his death. Dave now holds the collection, which includes notes in Alfred's own hand to his sister, Ruth Kurtenbach of Gilbertville.
8 Nov 1950
Korea
Dear Duck Legs,
Well here (is) that one man army again. Hell broke loose a few days ago but everything is well in hand again so I still might get home before too long.
We were machine gunned by Russian type aircraft the other day. Lucky no one was hit.
... It's cold over here now. I sure hope we leave here soon. Well I better get to chow. I'll write again soon.
Send some more snapshots.
Love, Al
There is also a letter from Maj. Gen. William Bergin.
"I sincerely regret that this message must carry so much sorrow into your home, and I hope that in time you may find sustaining comfort in knowing that he served his country honorably," Bergin wrote to Alfred's mother.
And in a telegram, military officials warned Anna of Alfred's capture and possible death but leaving open the possibility of a Communist propaganda fraud. Dave remembers his grandmother decades later clinging to that notion and to her son.
"She still had this hope that he was going to show up some day," Dave said.
Almost 60 years later, the family is still waiting.
Dave Martin is not eligible to donate a family reference sample because tests require mitochondrial DNA, which passes through a family's maternal lines. Following the call from Davis, however, Martin notified cousins who are eligible. One has since agreed to provide a sample.
Lt. Col. Mark Brown at the Accounting Command in Hawaii describes the process as relatively simple. Donors call the service casualty office for the varying branches of the military. In Alfred Martin's case, that would be the Army.
Officials will send a kit to collect the sample.
"It's kind of like a big toothbrush, and you rub it on the inside of your mouth," Brown said.
The casualty office will also provide a prepaid mailer to return the DNA kit.
"It's not that hard to do," Brown said.
Many people around the country learned about the process because of Harold Davis.
"He is one of the pioneers. He took a lot of initiative to go around the counties and look up records trying to find these people to get a family reference sample," Brown said.
Inspired by Davis' efforts, Brown began the Iowa Project. His interest stemmed from Brown's own roots: He is a native of Le Mars and graduated from Iowa State University.
"Iowa's a close-knit community. I've found people have really gotten on board," Brown said.
"I might be a little biased, but I always thought Iowans were special."
Through his initiative, the lieutenant colonel saturated media outlets in the state two years ago with names of Iowa's missing servicemen. Groups have since expanded the idea in Missouri, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
"I'd like to get this going in all 50 states if I could, but of course Iowa is near and dear to me," Brown says.
The Iowa Project has so far led to at least one success story.
"Clem Boody was one of the ones that we put the name out for," Brown said.
Cpl. Boody, a native of Buchanan County, reportedly died in combat in 1950 near the Chinese border. Family members were finally able to bury his remains in December at Williams Cemetery near Independence.
"He was not on the hot list. He was one of the guys on the main list," Brown said.
A family member donated mtDNA, which provided the needed evidence. And after 57 years, Boody received full military rites and acknowledgment long overdue.
"We are one of the only countries on earth that we have the belief that no one should be left behind," Brown says. "We still owe families answers. The families deserve the answers. That's not asking too much at all."
Hope
Brown hesitates to characterize the odds of matching DNA with any particular name on the missing list. He has experienced families raising hope only to lose it again.
So it is with Alfred Martin.
"He's one of those that if we could get the DNA sample from the family, there just might be a chance ... that we would get a cross match," he says.
Brown can provide additional information Dave Martin never knew about his uncle.
"He was 6 foot 2, 180 pounds. Brown hair. Blue eyes ... We've had remains brought back from the area he was fighting in," Brown said.
Military records indicate Alfred Martin was at the Pukchin-Tarigol Main prison camp.
"He was one of the guys who was caught by the Chinese when the Chinese just poured over the border," Brown said.
The collection of documents might also provide clues.
"We did identify a guy once from letters he sent home. We were able to get DNA off a letter he licked," Brown says.
Harold Davis works with officials at the Accounting Command, not for them.
"I'm just a veteran out here, a matchmaker," he said.
Despite his effectiveness in finding families, Davis is still waiting to attend a funeral for a serviceman he helped identify.
"I hope to do it. I hope I am able to do it," he said. "It'll come some day. I've had some close calls."
Davis is 77 but feels no urgency to complete his self-assigned task.
"The mountain is so high that you just take it as you come to it," he said.
"I realize how old I am and I know it could come any day. I'm going to do what I can, and that's all."