Campbell family finds closure in return of sergeant’s remains
Waterford — More than 60 years after he was declared dead, a Waterford soldier has come home.
The remains of James L. Campbell, who went missing during the Korean War, arrived at Byles Memorial Home in New London just after 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Rhode Island State Police escorted the remains from T.F. Green Airport to the Connecticut border, where Connecticut State Police took over. Patriot Guard Riders also were part of the escort.
Campbell, known by his friends as Jimmy, enlisted in the Army in October 1949 at the age of 17.
He was sent to Japan in April 1950 and assigned to the Seventh Division’s 32nd Regiment. When the Korean War broke out, his division was one of the first to be sent into the fight, according to a Jan. 8, 1954, article in The Day.
He was one of 2,500 U.S. soldiers who, along with 700 South Korean soldiers, made up the 31st Regimental Combat Team, better known as Task Force MacLean, which had assembled on the east side of the Chosin River in North Korea.
The Chinese People’s Volunteer Force surrounded and attacked the 31st RCT the night of Nov. 27, 1950, and continued attacks in the following days, forcing the Americans to retreat.
About 1,500 soldiers were evacuated by Dec. 6; those remaining behind were either captured or killed, according to the Army.
Campbell was reported missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950. At the time he was declared missing, he was a corporal.
After checking POW lists and talking with repatriated Americans, the Army declared him dead as of Dec. 31, 1953, and posthumously promoted him to the rank of sergeant.
He also was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart, among other medals.
“We didn’t know a whole lot,” John Campbell said of his uncle’s death.
The family received an annual newsletter from the Army but “never a lot of information,” John Campbell said.
Between 1990 and 1994, North Korea returned 208 boxes of “heavily” commingled remains to the U.S., according to Staff Sgt. Kristen Duus, a spokeswoman for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
The remains of 600 service members who fought during the Korean War were in the boxes, which were sent to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.
Duus compared the process of identifying the remains with piecing together a jigsaw puzzle.
Scientists use military records and forensic identification tools, including DNA analysis, to try to identify the remains.
The Army says 7,802 Americans still are unaccounted for from the Korean War.
In the case of James Campbell, scientists were able to positively identify his remains using both military records and DNA provided by a brother, H. Roger Campbell, and sister, Doris C. Smith of Waterford.
The Army said it notified the Campbell family last month of its discovery.
At first, the family was in shock and disbelief that James Campbell had been identified, his nephew John Campbell said.
“It was finally the closure that the family needed, especially for his sister, Doris. Sadly, his three other brothers are not able to see their brother come home to his family,” he said.
James Campbell’s sister is the only sibling still alive. His brothers, John Andrew Campbell Jr., H. Roger Campbell and Robert Campbell, all are deceased.
Smith did not want to speak with the news media but relayed to John Campbell, her nephew, that her brother James always was wearing a smile on his face.
He was a prankster, “full of the dickens,” she told her nephew, and wonderful around children.
While in the Army, he wrote to his mom regularly, and also to his aunt and sister.
Campbell was born on Oct. 8, 1932, in New London to the late John Andrew Campbell Sr. and Claire (Dimmock) Campbell, but he grew up in Waterford.
His obituary described him as “a popular youth with green eyes and an infectious smile.”
He graduated in 1947 from Great Neck School, attended Chapman Technical High School before enlisting in the Army, and was a member of the First Baptist Church in Waterford.
While attending school, he worked part time on the family farm, Dimmock Dairy.
Campbell will be interred with full military honors at 11 a.m. Friday at the West Neck Cemetery, 198 Great Neck Road, Waterford.
The public is invited to attend to the ceremony.