Private Joseph E. Boyd, 17, was reported missing on January 25, 1951, while serving with Company A, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, near Chigu‑ri, South Korea. The DPAA announced on June 10, 2026, that forensic analysis had linked his remains, previously buried as Unknown X‑1642, to his identity, and the burial is scheduled for October 21, 2026, in Owings Mills, Maryland.
The remains were first recovered in February 1951 by a local villager near Saemal, South Korea, and were taken to the Central Identification Unit in Kokura, Japan, where investigators could not establish identity. In 1956, the unidentified skeleton was interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, a site known as the Punchbowl, which holds hundreds of unnamed American service members.
In 2018, the DPAA launched a program to disinter 652 unknown Korean War soldiers for renewed examination; Unknown X‑1642 was exhumed in November 2023 and shipped to a DPAA laboratory. Scientists used dental, anthropological, and mitochondrial DNA analyses to match the remains with service records and missing‑person reports, thereby confirming Boyd’s identity without relying solely on DNA.
Boyd’s mother, 84, who had been waiting for any news of her son for decades, expressed relief and gratitude when the DPAA provided a full briefing. The burial will include a rosette with his name on the Courts of the Missing, and the ceremony is expected to draw veterans, local officials, and the Boyd family, marking a closure after more than seventy‑five years.
The DPAA’s work continues to aim at resolving the cases of over 7,000 Americans still unaccounted for from the Korean War, as it combines historical research, field investigations, and laboratory science to provide answers to families worldwide.