Minnesota soldier killed in Korean War to be buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery

A Minnesota soldier who was reported missing in action during the Korean War will be returned home for a burial next week, 74 years after he went missing, military officials said.

U.S. Army Cpl. William E. Colby of Minneapolis was a member of Dog Company, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He was 19 years old when he went missing during a Dec. 2, 1950 attack by Chinese forces while the 7th Infantry Division was retreating near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea, the Army said in a news release.

According to military records, there is no evidence the corporal was taken as a prisoner of war.

Colby was among 55 boxes of remains that North Korea returned to the U.S. in 2018 after a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) said it identified Colby’s remains in May of this year using “anthropological and isotope analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence.” An analysis of his DNA was also used in the process.

Colby will be lowered to his final resting place at Fort Snelling National Cemetery on Dec. 3.

Colby’s name is engraved on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu; a rosette is now placed by his name to signal he has been accounted for, according to the DPAA. He is also recognized at the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington.