Body of Georgia soldier missing in Korean War identified 7 decades later

ATLANTA (WANF/Gray News) - It’s been about seven decades since then 19-year-old James Wilkinson was presumed dead in Korea during the Korean War. But now, his body has been identified — and his remains are coming home to Georgia.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced on Wednesday that Wilkinson, who was a first sergeant in the U.S. Army, was accounted for on Dec. 5. He was originally reported mission in action along the Naktong River in September 1950 and presumed dead in 1953, according to a statement from the accounting agency.

In 1951, the Army started to excavate remains from the area’s United Nations Military Cemetery Tanggok — including Unknown X-1588. After being inspected and declared unidentifiable, the body was re-buried with others in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Then in 2018, the accounting agency dug up more than 600 bodies from the burial site in hopes of identifying them. Scientists used dental, anthropological and DNA analysis to determine that the remains are Wilkinson’s.

He will be buried in Barrow County on Sept. 16.