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Casualty Info
Home Town Geary, Kansas
Last Address Korea (Body not recovered).
Casualty Date Feb 28, 1951
Cause MIA-Died in Captivity
Reason Illness, Disease
Location Korea
Conflict Korean War
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Wall/Plot Coordinates Plot: Memorial Section A Site 384
Description The Battle of Osan was the first engagement between United States and North Korean forces during the Korean War, on July 5, 1950. Task Force Smith, a U.S. task force of 400 infantry supported by an artillery battery, was moved to Osan, south of the South Korean capital Seoul, and ordered to fight as a rearguard to delay advancing North Korean forces while additional U.S. troops arrived in the country to form a stronger defensive line to the south. The task force lacked both anti-tank guns and effective infantry anti-tank weapons, having been equipped with obsolescent 2.36-in. rocket launchers and a few 57 mm recoilless rifles. Aside from a limited number of HEAT shells for the unit's 105-mm howitzers, crew-served weapons capable of defeating the T-34 Soviet tank had not been distributed to U.S. Army forces in Korea.
A North Korean tank column equipped with ex-Soviet T-34/85 tanks overran the task force in the first encounter and continued its advance south. After the North Korean tank column had breached U.S. lines the Task Force opened fire on a force of some 5,000 North Korean infantry approaching its position, temporarily holding up the North Korean advance. North Korean troops eventually flanked and overwhelmed American positions and the remnants of the Task Force retreated in disorder.
