HYDEN, Ky. — Becky Barclay and Patty Shay are going to the airport in Cincinnati this week to help pick up an uncle they never met.
That’s when the remains of U.S. Army PFC Rodger Engle Fields will finally come home from Korea — 75 years after his death at the frozen Chosin Reservoir.
The two Ontario women and more than a dozen other family members will be there when Fields is buried with full honors in Kentucky Veterans Cemetery South East in Hyden, Ky., less than 30 miles from his birthplace in Busy.
For the two sisters, both of whom served in the U.S. Air Force, finally welcoming home their uncle will unleash a wide gamut of emotions.
“I am so happy they have finally identified his remains,” said the 71-year-old Barclay, who came to the area three years ago to be close to her sister.
“But it’s sad … all that he missed in life. He never got to get married, to have children. He never had a chance to have a life … him and all the others who died in Korea.”
Shay, 68, echoed her older sister’s thoughts.
“It’s a relief he is finally coming home, almost to where he was born, and to know they have finally found his remains,” said Shay, who moved to the Mansfield area in 1995.
Improved science led to identification
Fields was killed in action on Dec. 1, 1950, near the Chosin Reservoir during a battle described as a bloodbath. That struggle bought precious time for the U.S. Marine 1st Division that the overwhelming Chinese forces planned to annihilate as temperatures reached 40-below zero.
Due to the chaos on the battlefield, his body was not recovered at that time. U.S. forces never again controlled the area where he fell before the war ended in 1953.
In 1954, during Operation GLORY, the post-war exchange of the dead, about 2,944 sets of remains believed to be U.S. service members were returned to United Nations command. After processing, those remains which could not be identified were transported to the Central Identification Unit at Kokura, Japan, for further examination.
In late 1956, all unidentified remains from the CIU were transferred to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu and interred there as Unknowns.
In March 2021, as part of Phase Three of the Korean War Disinterment Plan, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency personnel disinterred one Korean War Unknown and sent the remains to the laboratory for scientific analysis.
Based on the laboratory analysis and totality of circumstantial evidence, the remains were identified as those of Fields on May 15, 2025.
“DNA science had gotten better. It was not as good as it is now. They called me from Hawaii on May 15 and said they were updating contact information (for Fields),” Barclay said.
“On May 22, me and Patty and her husband Jack were at her daughter’s house in Pennsylvania. They called and said, ‘We have identified your uncle’s remains.’
“We were just in shock. I sat on the stairs and just cried. We thought we would never see the day where his remains were identified,” she said.
Fields is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., which was updated in 2022 to include the names of the fallen.
Fields was born to be a soldier
Barclay and Shay don’t know much about their uncle, who died at age 20, just two years after enlisting into the Army in 1948.
Both said their mother and grandmother didn’t talk a great deal about Fields.
“With his death … it was just too sad,” Barclay said. “No one really talked about him. I would have loved to have known more about him.”
But given the fact almost everyone in their family joined the military, it’s a safe bet Fields was born to be a soldier. Growing up in the mountains and hills and woodlands of eastern Kentucky, he likely hunted and fished and loved the outdoors.
His birthplace in Busy, Ky., is a small place.
The unincorporated site didn’t get a post office until 1924. The community was so named on account of its enterprising citizens, not for a growing presence east of the Daniel Boone National Forest.
The community still just merits two paragraphs on a Wikipedia page.
The 18-year-old Fields enlisted into the Army three years after the end of World War II on Nov. 17, 1948. Like others in his family, he wanted to serve his country, even during what was expected to be a period of post-war peace.
A heavy weapons infantryman, Fields was assigned to Company D, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division.
It’s likely no one, including Fields, foresaw what was about to happen on the Korean peninsula nearly 7,000 miles from his boyhood home.
(Two soldiers of the U.S. Army 7th Infantry Division at the Chosin Reservoir. (Credit: U.S. Army photo)
War begins on the Korean Peninsula
To understand the overwhelming horrors of the fight that Fields and his mates faced at the Chosin Reservoir, one must understand how they got there.
The 32nd Regiment served in Korea after World War II, assisting in the surrender of Japanese troops.
But Fields likely joined his brothers-in-arms late in 1948 after the 7th Infantry Division loaded onto ships and sailed to Japan where its zone of occupation responsibility included almost half of the total land area of Japan.
The 32nd replaced the 11th Airborne Division. During its stay in Japan, the strength of the regiment dropped by almost half of its authorized strength during an expected period of peace.
But after five years of simmering tensions on the Korean peninsula, the war began on June 25, 1950. That’s when the Northern Korean People’s Army invaded South Korea in a coordinated general attack at several strategic points along the 38th parallel, the line dividing communist North Korea from the non-communist Republic of Korea in the south.
The government in the north sought to conquer the south and unify the country under a communist regime, perhaps encouraged by the Soviet Union and Communist China.
President Harry S. Truman committed U.S. air, ground, and naval forces to the combined United Nations forces assisting the Republic of Korea in its defense. Truman designated Gen. Douglas MacArthur as commanding general of the United Nations Command.
The North Korean forces took the city of Seoul and pushed all the way to the Pusan Perimeter deep inside South Korea. It appeared the war may be over quickly as Republic of Korea troops in the south were overwhelmed.
The 32nd began immediate preparation for deployment from Japan, going ashore at Inchon on Sept. 16, 1950.
United Nations forces, led by the United States, pushed back the North Korean troops.
‘The bloodbath at the Chosin Reservoir’ begins
In October, the United Nations, urged by the U.S. government, approved the movement of U.N. forces across the 38th parallel into North Korea in an effort to unify the country under a non-communist government.
In spite of warnings issued by the Chinese government, U.N. forces moved toward the Yalu River, marking the North Korean border with Manchuria. Discounting the significance of initial Chinese attacks in late October, MacArthur ordered an offensive, taking the forces to the Yalu.
On Nov. 27, the Chinese officially entered the war and launched a surprise attack in full strength, triggering a brutal 17-day battle in below-zero temperatures. About 120,000 Chinese soldiers encircled and attacked about 30,000 U.N. troops, ordered by Mao Zedong to be destroyed near the man-made, frozen Chosin Reservoir.
The fact is many of the U.S. Army forces, pulled from occupation duty in Japan, had little training before shipping out to Korea. Many were wearing cotton uniforms with little insulation from the 40-degree-below-zero temperatures.
Fields’ unit was part of what was called Regimental Combat Team 31 on the northeast side of the Chosin Reservoir, a force of about 3,200 men, including 600 South Korean soldiers.
Fighting off wave after wave of Chinese attackers, RCT 31 was surrounded.
Lt. Col. Donald Faith, who served in the 82nd Airborne during World War II, had taken command after the wounding and capture of Col. Allan MacLean.
Task Force Faith seeks to escape
Faith realized his team was on its own.
On Dec. 1, he ordered all of his wounded into trucks to begin a perilous eight-mile journey back to American lines through twisting mountain passes. The reservoir ice was deemed too thin and Faith didn’t want his troops to be caught out in the open.
The Chinese were waiting, according to an article at the Warfare History Network website.
Faith’s column finally moved out at 1 p.m. was almost immediately under fire. U.S. Marine Corsairs tried to provide air cover, but one of the first napalm canisters landed near the front of the column that engulfed a dozen Americans, creating panic in the soldiers. Faith fought to restore order.
As the column battled its way south, Faith himself was critically wounded by the fragments of a Chinese grenade. His men managed to prop him up on the hood of his jeep, and the column began moving slowly forward once again.
However, despite his efforts and those of his few remaining officers, the column began to come apart, halted for good by another Chinese roadblock just north of Hudong-ni village.
The Chinese intensified their attacks, throwing white phosphorous grenades into stalled vehicles loaded with wounded, setting some of them on fire. Faith, hit again by rifle fire, died of his wounds. He received the Medal of Honor posthumously.
At about 10 p.m. in total darkness, Task Force Faith ceased to exist. Those who could escape ventured out onto the ice and began the arduous march to the Marine lines.
During the night of Dec. 1, the shattered remnants of Task Force Faith trickled into Hagaru-ri, and by dawn 670 soldiers had been taken to the hospital or warming tents. More than 300 more were rescued by Marines, many suffering from wounds, frostbite and shock.
Of the 1,050 survivors that reached the Marine lines, only 385 of them were considered able-bodied.
Somewhere on that bloody and frozen Dec. 1 march, PFC Rodger Engle Fields fell mortally wounded. The soldier from eastern Kentucky died during a heroic attempt with his comrades to escape from overwhelming Chinese forces, seeking to live to fight another day.
In the end, more than 17,000 U.N. forces were killed or wounded or missing in action, or died of wounds during the battle. The Chinese suffered three times that amount.
Historical reports show it was not until recent years have Task Force Faith’s men been appreciated.
An examination of Chinese records revealed the men were greatly outnumbered, and it was realized that their duel with the Chinese kept considerable pressure off the U.S. Marines, enabling them to conduct an orderly retreat.
In 1999, Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig awarded the unit a Presidential Unit Citation. In 2000, veterans of the task force were invited by the Marine Corps to attend anniversary ceremonies for the Chosin campaign.
‘Grandma knew …’
Shay said her grandmother knew Fields had been killed, even before the family was notified he was missing in action and feared dead.
“When he got killed, I guess, or several days before then, who knows how long before they notify you, my grandma dreamt one night he had been shot and killed. My mom said (my grandma) got up on the bed and was trying to climb the walls, just like going crazy.
“Then they got notified he was MIA. But she already knew (he was killed) because she dreamt about it,” Shay said.
According to a story in the Georgetown (Ky.) News-Graphic, the remains will fly out of Honolulu on Monday, Aug. 11. They will arrive in Cincinnati the following day before being transported in a processional to Maggard Brothers Funeral Home in Hazard.
A dignified handoff will take place and Fields will be buried Thursday with full military honors in Kentucky Veterans Cemetery South East, a 42-acre facility in Leslie County.
A distant cousin of Fields who recently became a U.S. Army chaplain will officiate the funeral.
William Fields of Kentucky, a nephew who also served in the U.S. Army, told the Georgetown newspaper things have fallen into place for his uncle and his family.
“It seems like everything just, I don’t know. God’s will, or whatever. It fell into place. It makes you a little emotional.”