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Remains of Korean War soldier will be buried in Arizona

U.S. Army Pvt. Felix M. Yanez was killed in the Korean War decades ago. His remains will soon be brought back to Arizona to be buried in Tucson.

TUCSON, Ariz. — The remains of a U.S. Army soldier from Douglas, Ariz. killed in the Korean War will soon be buried in Tucson, officials said.

U.S. Army Pvt. Felix M. Yanez will be laid to rest on Sept. 2.

According to the Army, Yanez was a member of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division in July 1950. He was killed in action fighting the North Korean People’s Army along the Kum River, north of Taejon, South Korea, on July 16, 1950.

Due to the fighting, his body could not be recovered at that time, officials said.

In 1956, 848 unidentified sets of Korean War remains at CIU-Kokura were sent to Hawaii, where they were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu. 

In August 2019, DPAA disinterred Unknown X-789 as part of Phase Two of the Korean War Disinterment Project and sent the remains to the DPAA laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, for analysis.

Yanez was accounted for by using dental and anthropological analysis, as well as chest radiograph comparison and circumstantial evidence in July, officials said.

Credit: U.S. Department of Defense
U.S. Army Pvt. Felix M. Yanez of Douglas, Arizona

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