The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today
that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been
identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Pfc. Maximo A. Troche, 24, of New York, will be buried on Dec. 17, in Hartsdale,
N.Y. On Feb. 4, 1951, Troche and soldiers from the I Company, 3rd Battalion, 19th Infantry
Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, fought against Communist forces near Yangpyeong, Kyonggi
Province, South Korea. After the battle, Troche was listed as missing in action.
Following the end of the Korean War, returned prisoners reported that Troche had been
held as a prisoner of war in Suan Bean Camp in North Korea, and died from dysentery sometime
in April 1951. In the fall of 1954, during Operation Glory, Communist forces turned over
remains of U.S. servicemen who died in the Korean War, but Troche was not included among
those remains.
On Dec. 21, 1993, North Korea gave the United Nations Command 34 boxes believed to
contain the remains of U.S. servicemen. The remains were recovered from Suan County, North
Hwanghae Province, North Korea, which is where Troche had reportedly died as a prisoner of
war. In 1996, the remains could not be identified given the technology of the time.
Along with forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and AFDIL used dental records and mitochondrial DNA
– which matched that of Troche’s cousins—in the identification of the remains.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing
Americans, visit the DPMO web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.