Korean war soldier who died in North Korean POW camp accounted for

A soldier from Massachusetts who went lacking throughout the Korean Conflict and was later reported to have died in a prisoner of conflict camp has been accounted for utilizing trendy scientific methods, navy officers stated.

Military Cpl. Joseph J. Puopolo, 19, of East Boston, was accounted for in August, in keeping with a press release Friday from the Protection POW/MIA Accounting Company.

It was the information his household — together with his now 99-year-old sister Elizabeth Fiorentini — has been awaiting for many years, Fiorentini’s grandson and Puopolo’s grandnephew, Richard Graham, stated in a phone interview Saturday.

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“Now we have all heard about him, and all of us knew of him, and all of us knew he was a conflict hero. We all the time hoped we might discover him,” he stated. “However I by no means thought my grandmother could be right here for it.”

Fiorentini had not seen her brother since she was in her 20s, and had combined reactions on listening to the information that his stays had been recognized.

“In her thoughts it was like he died once more,” Graham stated.

Military Cpl. Joseph J. Puopolo, 19, of East Boston, is survived by his 99-year-old sister who was shocked to listen to the information that his stays have been recognized after practically 70 years.
(U.S. Protection Division by way of AP)

Puopolo, an artilleryman with the eighth Military, was reported lacking in motion on Dec. 2, 1950, after his unit tried to withdraw from Kunu-ri, North Korea, following the Battle of Ch’ongch’on, in keeping with the navy. 4 former POWs reported in 1953 that Puopolo had died at a POW camp in February 1951.

After the conflict, the perimeters exchanged stays, however not all could possibly be recognized and people have been buried on the Nationwide Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, the company stated.

A set of beforehand unidentified stays have been disinterred in December 2019, and recognized as being these of Puopolo via dental and anthropological evaluation, mitochondrial DNA evaluation and circumstantial proof, the company stated.

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The household hopes to carry a burial service for Puopolo in one other month or so both in a household plot in Malden or the veterans’ cemetery in Bourne, Graham stated. Puopolo was one in all six youngsters, all of whom had giant households of their very own, and as many as 60 or 70 family members may present.

“He has not been forgotten,” Graham stated.