The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Marine Pfc. Henry E. Ellis, 22, of Roanoke, Virginia, killed during the Korean War, was accounted for Sept. 29, 2020.
In late 1950, Ellis was a member of Headquarters Company, 1st Service Battalion, 1st Marine Division. He was killed in action on Nov. 30, 1950, while defending the convoy of which he was a member near Koto-ri, North Korea. His body was not immediately recovered.
Following the end of hostilities, the U.S. and North Korea engaged in an exchange of war dead known as Operation GLORY. One set of remains that were returned as part of this exchange were reportedly recovered from the United Nations Military Cemetery in Koto-ri.
These remains could not be identified at the time and were buried as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
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During Operation GLORY in 1954, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea returned the remains of just over 4,200 individuals, of which nearly 3,000 were determined to be American. During the subsequent processing and identification of these remains, none were associated with Ellis, and he was declared non-recoverable Jan. 16, 1956.
At the end of the identification process, 848 unidentified remains, including one designated X-13631 Operation GLORY, were interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In March 2012, historians, anthropologists, and odontologists at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a predecessor to DPAA, conducted in-depth research to support the exhumation of X-13631, narrowing down the possibility of who that unknown might be to two Marines, one of which was Ellis.
On Nov. 5, 2018, DPAA disinterred X-13631 and seven other unknowns as part of the Korean War Identification Project. These remains were transferred to the DPAA Laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for analysis.
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To identify Ellis’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
Ellis’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
Ellis will be buried Aug. 23, 2021 in Salisbury, North Carolina.
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