On the run
by David Simon
News-Post Staff

	This insignia represents Cpl. Manville Dagenhart's rank at the time of his disappearance.
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U.S. Army Cpl. Manville E. Dagenhart was on the run.

It was cold and dark and he'd been fighting Chinese Communist Forces soldiers for days, eventually retreating with thousands of U.S. soldiers from the Kunu-ri area in central North Korea.

He never made it to safe ground.

Chinese forces captured Dagenhart, a 19-year-old kid from Myersville, on Nov. 30, 1950.

Army officials believe he died in POW camp No. 5, on the south bank of the Yalu in the village of Pyoktang, in February 1951.

By late November 1950, American forces had dislodged the North Koreans from South Korean soil and pursued them north toward the Yalu River, the natural border between North Korea and China.

As United Nations forces advanced toward the Yalu, thousands of soldiers in the Chinese People's Volunteer Army infiltrated South Korea and prepared to attack.

Dagenhart was serving in the 2nd Infantry Division, 38th Infantry Regiment, I Company, when the enemy struck just north of the Chongch'on River, about 60 miles south of the Yalu.

U.N. forces were unprepared for the attack; a rapid advance had left the units stretched thin across the 60-mile front.

On Nov. 25, 1950, Dagenhart's regiment was holding the division's right flank as the Chinese attacked that night, as well as the next, overwhelming and scattering some allied forces along the front lines.

From dusk to dawn each night, the unrelenting attacks pushed American soldiers back, until, on the night of Nov. 27, the 2nd Division was pushed south of the Chongch'on.

By the morning of Nov. 29, Dagenhart, still with his regiment, had trekked to an assembly area near the town of Kunu-ri. Shortly after they arrived, they were ordered to establish new positions to the east of the town, to cover the start of the division's retreat.

The 38th barely had consolidated its forces when the Chinese attacked again; it was nearly dark before its soldiers succeeded in fighting their way back into Kunu-ri.

As the 2nd Division began retreating toward the town of Sunch'on, 17 miles to the south, American soldiers discovered that large numbers of Chinese forces had infiltrated deep behind allied lines and established a 3-mile-long series of well-defended roadblocks.

The roadblocks began 4 miles south of Kunu-ri and as American soldiers retreated, they realized they were surrounded, with enemy forces driving them from the north into the roadblocks. The roadblocks slowed the retreat enough to where Chinese forces were able to kill American troops piecemeal.

The 2nd Infantry was devastated by the tactic, losing more than 5,000 men - one-third of its strength. Dagenhart was taken prisoner during the retreat.

The Chinese soldiers were ill-prepared to handle large numbers of prisoners. They received a bit of food every 48 hours but were not given drinking water. With no clean drinking water, the men were forced to eat snow and drink from rice paddies. Many contracted dysentery; some, cholera.

The difficulties of Dagenhart's march were alleviated, only somewhat, when he arrived at POW Camp No. 5 in Pyoktang. The prisoners were suffering from malnutrition and many had exposure-related illnesses such as pneumonia. Their food supply was limited and of poor quality, and they received no medicine.

After the war, a fellow prisoner reported Dagenhart died of unknown causes in 1951. Lacking an exact date, the U.S. Army assigned Feb. 28, 1951, as his date of death, because that was the last day he could have been alive in that month.

In September 2006, the U.S. Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office met with representatives of the Chinese People's Liberation Army archives. They have promised the U.S. government access to the archives to help with the search for missing service members.

A team will be scouring for applicable records and U.S. officials hope those will be able to shed more light on losses during the Korean War.

As part of the office's oral history program, former Korean War prisoners have been interviewed, including several 2nd Infantry veterans between 2004 and 2006.

No one was able to provide more information about Dagenhart's death.