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News Release

Press Release | April 26, 2023

Medal of Honor Soldier Accounted For From Korea (Story, L.)

WASHINGTON   –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that Army Cpl. Luther H. Story, 19, of Americus, Georgia, killed during the Korean War, and posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, was accounted for April 6, 2023.

In late 1950, Story was a member of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. On Sept. 1, 1950, Story was reported killed in action after his unit was engaged by the Korean People’s Army near Naktong River, South Korea. There is no indication his remains were recovered after the battle, and he was never recorded as a prisoner of war. The Army issued a presumptive finding of death on Sept. 1, 1953, and his remains were determined to be nonrecoverable in January 1956.

In October 1950, 11 sets of remains were recovered near Sangde-po, South Korea, eight were identified. One set remains designated X-260 Tanggok thought to be Story, but investigators at the Central Identification Unit-Kokura in Japan didn’t have enough identifying data to positively ID the remains. X-260 was later transported with all of the unidentified Korean War remains and buried as an Unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In July 2018, the DPAA proposed a plan to disinter 652 Korean War Unknowns from the Punchbowl. In June 2021, the DPAA disinterred X-260 as part of Phase Three of the Korean War Disinterment Plan and sent the remains to the DPAA laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, for analysis.

To identify Story’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Story’s name is recorded on the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, along with the others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Story will be buried in Andersonville, Georgia, on May 29, 2023.

For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.

To see the most up-to-date statistics on DPAA recovery efforts for those unaccounted for from the Korean War, go to the Korean War fact sheet on the DPAA website at: https://www.dpaa.mil/Resources/Fact-Sheets/Article-View/Article/569610/progress-on-korean-war-personnel-accounting/.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, or find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa or https://www.linkedin.com/company/defense-pow-mia-accounting-agency.

Read the joint statement from the Presidents of the United States of America and the Republic of Korea on the Identification of Medal of Honor Recipient from Korean War on Cpl. Story at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/26/joint-statement-from-the-presidents-of-the-united-states-of-america-and-the-republic-of-korea-on-the-identification-of-medal-of-honor-recipient-from-korean-war/.