Remains of Wisconsin Korean War Veteran Identified

Slowly but surely the remains of veterans listed as missing in action from the Korean War are being identified:

A soldier from La Crosse will be buried next week in Arlington National Cemetery almost 65 years after he went missing during the Korean War.

Francis Knobel was a 20-year-old corporal in the U.S. Army in the winter of 1950, when his 31st Infantry Regiment took part in fierce battles around the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea.

On Dec. 12, at the end of the 17-day battle, Knobel was reported missing, one of 154 U.S. forces declared killed that day, according to military records from the National Archives.

There’s little official record of Knobel’s early life. He was born in 1930. His father is listed in city directories as a laborer; his mother worked at the Electric Auto Lite factory. His name does not appear in city high school yearbooks.

Knobel enlisted when he was 19. About five months later he went overseas and took part in the battle of Inchon, the invasion that led to the recapture of South Korea, according to a story in the La Crosse Tribune when he was declared missing.

Knobel’s father died in 1952. His mother and sisters later moved to Arizona.

In 1954, communist forces turned over the bodies of almost 1,900 service members during an exchange known as Operation Glory. According to the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, there were 25 boxes of remains from the area where Knobel was lost, but he could not be identified and was buried among nearly 850 unknown soldiers buried in Hawaii’s National Memorial Cemetery, known as the Punchbowl.

Last year, after re-examining old records, the Department of Defense exhumed the remains and identified them as Knobels through a combination of dental records, chest X-rays and circumstantial evidence.

All told, there are some 7,847 U.S. troops in the Korean War still unaccounted for, according to the POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Remains of 310 have been recovered and identified.  [LaCrosse Tribune]

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