WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) -- an agency within the US Department of Defense charged with tracking and identifying Americans who went missing while serving our country -- has accounted for a South Carolinian killed in the Korean War.
The remains of 31-year-old Army Pfc Michaux Turbeville, of Dillon, were accounted for on February 16, 2021. The Turbeville family was recently notified of the confirmation of his remains.
According to reports, Turbeville was a member of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division in late 1950. He was reported Missing in Action (MIA) on December 1, 1950, after his unit was attacked by enemy forces as they attempted to withdraw near the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea.
On July 27, 2018, the North Korean government turned over 55 boxes said to contain the remains of American service members killed during the Korean War. DPAA was given the remains for identification.
Scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis and circumstantial evidence to identify Turbeville's remains, along with mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome analysis from the Armed Services Medical Examiner System.
Turbeville will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. The date has yet to be determined. Meanwhile, Turbeville's name, along with others still missing from the Korean War, has been recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawai'i.