Army Pfc. Billy A. DeBord was a member of F Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Eighth U.S. Army. He was reported missing in action July 25, 1950, at 18 years old. (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
(Tribune News Service) — The remains of Army Pfc. Billy A. DeBord, a soldier killed during the Korean War, are scheduled to be interred at Highland Memorial Cemetery in Miamisburg, Ohio, on Nov. 11.
DeBord, who hailed from Miamisburg, was a member of F Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Eighth U.S. Army. He was reported missing in action July 25, 1950, at 18 years old, while his unit was engaged in battle with the North Korean People’s Army near Yongdong, South Korea, the U.S. Army Human Resources Command said in a release.
“Because of the fighting, DeBord’s body was not recovered and there was never any evidence that he was a prisoner of war,” said the Army’s HRC. “The Army issued a presumptive finding of death for him of Dec. 31, 1953.
Swart Funeral Home in West Carrollton will perform graveside services preceding the interment.
On Oct. 21, 2019, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency disinterred a set of remains designated Unknown X-945 — for laboratory analysis — from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.
The remains were buried in the Punchbowl after being recovered near Yongdong in 1951.
DeBord was accounted for by the DPAA April 28 after his remains were identified using chest radiograph comparison as well as dental, anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis. His name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl along with the others still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
More than 7,500 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War.
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