Army Master Sgt. Roy E. Head : Korea

Soldier Missing From Korean War Identified​

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The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Army Master Sgt. Roy E. Head of Clinchport, Va., will be buried Saturday in Duffield, Va. Head was assigned to Headquarters Company, 49th Field Artillery Battalion. After the 1953 armistice, it was learned from surviving POWs that he had been captured in February 1951, marched north to a POW camp in Suan County, North Korea, and died of malnutrition a few months later. Between 1991 and 1994, North Korea gave the United States 208 boxes of remains believed to contain the remains of 200-400 U.S. servicemen. North Korean documents turned over with one of the boxes indicated the remains were exhumed near Suan County. This location correlates with Head’s last known location.
Analysts from DPMO developed case leads with information spanning more than 58 years. Through interviews with surviving POW eyewitnesses, experts validated circumstances surrounding the soldier’s captivity and death, confirming wartime documentation of his loss.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used dental comparisons and mitochondrial DNA – which matched that of two of his brothers -- in the identification of the remains.
More than 2,000 servicemen died as prisoners of war during the Korean War. With this accounting, 8,025 service members still remain missing from the conflict.




Master Sgt. Roy E. Head - WEBER CITY, VA.

WEBER CITY, Va. — Master Sergeant Roy E. Head died on April 30, 1951, in Suan Bean Prison Camp in North Korea.

Roy was born on May 10, 1922 in the Grit Hill section of Scott County, Virginia. He was the eldest of 5 sons born to the late Catron & Mary Lawson Head. Roy graduated from Rye Cove High School before joining the United States Navy on December 4, 1942.

Mr. Head served in World War II on the USS Pensacola (the Grey Ghost of the Pacific). His rank was Fire Controlman Third Class. He was engaged in seven major battles, which included Gilbert Island Operation, Marshall Island Operation, Battle for Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima Operation & Okinawa Operation.

Roy Head was discharged from the US Navy on December 16, 1945. Upon returning home he enrolled at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville to become a dentist. The call of the military was far too great; therefore he left college and enlisted in the United States Army in early 1947.

Roy was in the 49th Field Artillery Battalion, 7th Infantry Division. MSG Head was stationed with his wife, Ann, in Fort Riley, Kansas. Orders came in 1950 to go to Korea, where he was captured by the Chinese Communist Army on February 11, 1951, in North Korea. As a prisoner, he and others marched north to Suan Bean Prison Camp, where he died.