Apollo sergeant lost in Korean War finally comes home

Joseph Snock’s capture in battle haunted his twin

WASHINGTON — Army Sgt. John W. Snock of Apollo had a head injury and his company was still under heavy fire, but that didn’t stop him from running to get help for his more seriously injured identical twin, who served alongside him during the Korean War.

By the time John returned with help, his brother Joseph, 21, had been captured by the North Koreans, and John never saw him alive again.

Sixty-five years later, government scientists identified the remains of captured Sgt. Joseph Snock and returned them to his family for burial Monday at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

John, whose DNA was used in the identification, had died in 2007 without ever being sure what had happened. His DNA had been collected years before as part of the Army’s effort to identify hundreds of veterans whose remains had been returned to the U.S. in the 1990s.

“He was the last person to see him. It haunted him.” said Linda Finlay, daughter of the twins’ sister, Barbara Karp. “I think it would have been easier for him to know just where it ended for his brother. It affected him his whole life.”

Mrs. Karp of Murrysville is in poor health and could not be interviewed Thursday but she often spoke to her children about their “Uncle Joey,” who died before they were born.

They knew him to be an upstanding young man who followed rules, stayed out of trouble and made his parents, Joseph and Helen Snock, proud.

Hanging from her grandparents’ living room wall had always been a framed certificate that declared him missing in action and presumed dead.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which identified the remains, said Sgt. Snock died from malnutrition and lack of medical care about a month after he was captured near the Chosin Reservoir on Nov. 29, 1950. That information came from other American prisoners of war who were returned to the U.S. during Operation Big Switch in 1953, according to the agency.

It would take another four decades before the sergeant’s remains would come home and even longer for them to be sorted and identified by anthropologists at DPAA’s lab in Honolulu.

Sgt. Snock’s remains were among hundreds of sets that North Korea returned to the United States in 208 boxes during the early 1990s. Scientists were told each box contained one set of remains but soon discovered that there were hundreds of individuals represented in the boxes, and in many cases a single set of remains was scattered among several boxes.

“When we opened the boxes there were two right arms, for example, so we quickly found out there was more than one individual per box,” said Jennie Jin, the DPAA forensic anthropologist in charge of identifying Korean War remains in what has become known as the K208 Project.

“The North Koreans didn’t have good reason to properly process these remains, so they didn’t,” Ms. Jin said in an interview in March in the K208 laboratory in Honolulu.

The brothers had served in the 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, 31st Regimental Combat Team, historically known as Task Force Faith.

“We’re really pleased his remains are going to Arlington because his life ended with the military,” Ms. Finlay said.

About 20 relatives, including Sgt. Snock’s widow, Nancy Snock, are expected to attend.

“There’s a sense of relief that’ he’s being returned home. It does give closure to everything,” Ms. Finlay said.

“He was the last person to see him. It haunted him. I think it would have been easier for him to know just where it ended for his brother. It affected him his whole life.” — Linda Finlay, daughter of Sgt. John Snock’s sister