Army Corporal Louis A. Damewood, of Carroll County, Maryland, was 21 when he was taken prisoner during the Korean War and subsequently died in a prisoner of war camp.
He was a member of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, on February 13, 1951 when he was declared missing.
In 1953, an American prisoner of war reported that Damewood had passed away in the Changsong prisoner of war camp in June 1951. The US Army declared him dead as of June 15, 1951.
In 1954, the United Nations and communist forces exchanged the remains of those who died in the war. The exchange was known as Operation Glory. All of the remains received from the exchange were sent to the Army’s Central Identification Unit to be analyzed.
The remains that could not be identified were interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. “Unknown X-14160” was the designation of one set of those remains.
“Unknown X-14160” was sent to the central identification laboratory on November 6, 2013 to be analyzed. DPAA scientists used dental, chest radiograph comparison and anthropological analysis to match the remains to Damewood’s records. They also used circumstantial evidence to help positively identify his remains, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency reported.
Damewood’s remains will be returned to his family for a burial with full military honors.
There are 7,751 Americans still unaccounted for from the Korean War. Analysis continues on the remains returned by the North Korean government and on those recovered by American recovery teams.