Detroit Army corporal killed in Korean War identified 73 years later

The remains of an 18-year-old Army corporal from Detroit who was killed in the Korean War in 1950 have been identified, officials said Thursday.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced that Cpl. Lewis W. Hill was accounted for on May 22 after agency scientists identified his remains using dental and anthropological analysis and other means.

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Hill went missing in action after his unit was forced to retreat from around Taejon, South Korea, on July 20, 1950, and his body could not be recovered, the agency said. The Army issued a presumptive finding of death more than three years later, on Dec. 31, 1953, the agency said.

After regaining control of Taejon in the fall of 1950, the Army began recovering remains from the area and temporarily interring them at a United Nations military cemetery. A tentative association was made between Hill and a set of remains recovered at that time, but definitive proof could not be found, and the remains were determined to be unidentifiable, the agency said. They were sent to Hawaii, where they were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

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On July 15, 2019, the agency disinterred the remains and sent them to its laboratory for analysis, where they were accounted for as Hill’s, it said.

Hill will be buried in Imlay City, Michigan, at a future date, the agency said.

A telephone message seeking information on possible family members of Hill was left with the Army Casualty Office.

Hill’s remains are the second set from Michigan identified this month by the agency. It announced on Sept. 8 that the remains of Army Air Forces Flight Officer Chester L. Rinke of Marquette, Michigan, had been identified. He died when a bomber crashed in India following a World War II bombing raid on Japan.