TAUNTON, Mass. (WLNE) – The remains of a Taunton, Massachusetts native, who died as a prisoner of war during the Korean War, have been located. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Pfc. Joseph R. Travers, 24, of Taunton, were accounted for on June 20, 2024. Travers’s family recently received their full briefing on his identification. In early  1951, Travers was a member of Dog Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was reported missing in action on April 22, 1951, after his unit had engaged with enemy forces near the village of Undam-Jang, Republic of Korea, on November 30th following the Battle of Ch’ongch’on. Several POWs, who returned during Operation Big Switch in 1953, reported that Travers had been a prisoner of war and died on December 1951 at Prisoner of War Camp #1. In the late summer and fall of 1954, during ‘Operation Glory,’ North Korea returned remains reportedly recovered from the Prisoner of War Camp #1. None of those remains were associated with Travers. There was one set of remains dug up from Camp #1 that were returned during ‘Operation Glory’ and designated ‘Unknown X-14197.’ The remains were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. In August 2019, the DPAA disinterred the remains known as ‘Unknown X-14197’ and sent them to laboratory for analysis as part of their proposed plan to disinter 652 Korean War Unknowns from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Scientists from the DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as chest radiograph comparison, to identify Travers’s remains. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA analysis. Travers’s name is recorded on the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, along with others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will now be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Travers will be buried in Taunton, Massachusetts, on a later date. Categories: News