PFC Sterling Geary, Jr., U.S. Army, served with B ("Baker") Company, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th ("Tropic Lightning") Infantry Division. He was captured during combat on November 27, 1950 and a repatriated Prisoner-of-War (POW) reported that he had died while in enemy hands in March 1951. His body has never been recovered. He is part of Field Search.

By mid-November 1950, the combined American, Republic of Korea, and United Nation forces had reached the high-water mark of their counter-offense against the North Koreans. They collectively drove the enemy from South Korea, and then the American and U.N. forces followed their ROK allies in their drive north of the 38th Parallel in an effort to reunite the two Koreas. As the allied forces raced northward towards the Yalu River, more than 180,000 "volunteers" from the Chinese Army were sneaking south into the North Korean hills. They were hiding in preparation of a massive surprise attack against the allied forces. The CCF finally received that order to attack the allies on November 25th. All night, and night after night for the next to weeks, the CCF attacked, overwhelmed, and displaced allied units along a 60-mile front.

When the CCF onslaught began, PFC Geary and the other members of the 35th Regiment were astride the Unsan-Pakch'on road, just south of the town of Unsan and west of the Kuryong River. They were among the northern most units of the 8th Army. They didn't know that they were just miles away from a concentration of 90,000 soldiers of the Communist Chinese Force. They were attacked that night by an entire Chinese division. After putting up a vigorous defense during which they killed more than 375 Chinese soldiers, they succeeded in driving the CCF division back into the hills. Elsewhere, other CCF attacks were much more successful. The communist delivered severe blows to the other regiments in the 24th, 25th, and 27th divisions, forcing them to retreat. The Division Commander, General Kean, was compelled to order all three regiments to withdraw. It is always difficult to withdraw in the face of a strong enemy, but it is nearly impossible to successfully withdraw in the face of an enemy force that controls the surrounding countryside, which significantly outnumbers the retreating force. Yet that is what the brave men of the 25th Division did. They had begun a grinding series of desperate fighting retreats. This involved attacking their way southward during daytime, stopping at dusk to establish makeshift defensive positions, launching brief but sharp attacks on communist positions to blunt impending Chinese night attacks, fighting all night long to ward of the Chinese attacks. When the morning came, another fight to withdraw southward would begin.

So on that evening, the men of B Company were hastily holding their defensive positions in the village of Tong-Dong. At nightfall, the CCF attacked the 25th company position from two-sides. After heavy fighting the CCF successfully infiltrated the American positions. At that point, the surviving Americans had to retreat to other positions in the village of Tong-Dong. They could only hold that new position briefly before the CCF attacks forced the remainder of B Company to retreat even further southward. The night fighting had been brutal, and B Company lost 58 men which were either killed or captured. PFC Geary was one of those captured.

Unfortunately, as deadly as the fighting withdraw had been, the American POW's were in for even a harder, and more deadly ordeal. The CCF weren't prepared to handle, nor were they concerned about the welfare of the men they captured. They quickly marched the POW's northward. During the march, the POW's began to feel the effects of Chinese mistreatment. They received little bits of food every 48 hours, but no water. Many men drank rice-paddy water to slake their thirst. From this, those men contracted dysentery and cholera as a result. The POW's were marched from 8:00 p.m., until 4:00 a.m., over rolling hills. Many hills had crested over 1,000 ft. high, and temperatures that were 20 - 30 degrees below 0. During the day, they were crammed (up to 22 men per 7' by 7' rooms) into unheated, windowless Korean homes. There, men had to take shifts to simply sit down. At times, they were held in temporary holding camps (many of which named "Death Valley" by the men). Over time PFC Geary and some of the other survivors of the deadly marches were taken to a "permanent" POW camp in the North Korean village of Pyoktong that was called Camp 5. That camp was located on the southern bank of the Yalu River. The difficulties of the marches were only partially ameliorated at the "permanent" POW camps. The food was not much better, and the care was still primitive. Unfortunately, by the time PFC Geary and many of his comrades reached the camp, they were suffering from malnutrition and various other illnesses. It was at Camp 5 where PFC Geary died in late March 1951 from malnutrition. He was buried in a cemetery across a creek from the camp.

In an effort to recover all missing U.S. servicemen, DPMO has negotiated with the government of North Korea for access to crash sites, battlefields, and prison camp cemeteries. To this date, we have never gained access to the POW camp cemeteries. DPMO and the Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii's (CIL-HI) excavations in northwest North Korea and from 1996 through 2000 have resulted in the recovery and repatriation of remains of over 120 U.S. servicemen. That effort still continues to this day. The North Koreans have also authorized limited access to their main military museum and national library in Pyongyang for POW/MIA-related research. U.S. researchers have not located information on PFC Geary during these archival research visits from 1997-1999. We continue to actively seek information about the loss of PFC Geary and will forward new discoveries to family members through the U.S. Army Casualty Office.