By Daniela Vestal, U.S. Army Human Resources Command

FORT KNOX, Ky. – The remains of U.S. Army Sgt. Thomas J. O’Brien, 23, who died as a prisoner of war during the Korean War, will be cremated in Newhall, California before returning to his hometown of Emly, Ireland for interment.

In late 1950, O’Brien was a member of Headquarters Battery, 90th Field Artillery Battalion, Division Artillery, 25th Infantry Division. He was reported killed in action by tank fire on Oct. 26, 1950, after his unit was attacked by Korean People’s Army forces while moving through the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Following the end of hostilities, there was no information to suggest O’Brien was being held as a prisoner of war, and there was no body recovered.

O’Brien was one of 28 Irish-born service members who did not survive service in the Korea War.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency accounted for O’Brien on Sept. 27, 2024.

For more information on DPAA’s efforts to locate and identify O’Brien, please visit: https://www.dpaa.mil/News-Stories/ID-Announcements/Article/4337243/soldier-accounted-for-from-korean-war-smith-l/

U.S. Army Human Resources Command’s Past Conflict Repatriations Branch plays a vital role in the process of identifying, locating and contacting subsequent generation family members of Soldiers missing or killed in action during WWII and the Korean War to positively identify previously undiscovered or unknown remains.

Media interested in covering and/or obtaining more information about the funeral and interment should contact Eternal Valley Memorial Park & Mortuary, 661-259-0800.

DPAA Service Member Profile

On Nov. 14, 2025, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency identified the remains of U.S. Army Cpl. Lawrence Arthur Smith, missing from the Korean War. 

Smith entered the Army from Ohio and served with C Company, 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He was reported missing on Aug. 6, 1950, after as his unit tried to dislodge enemy forces from high ground near the Naktong River in South Korea. No one saw him fall in battle, and he was not reported as a prisoner of war. Searches conducted for his remains were unsuccessful at the time of his loss. In November 1950, a team of the 565th Graves Registration Company recovered an unknown set of remains near Yongsan, South Korea, which could not be positively identified at the time, and which in February 1956 were interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu as an Unknown. In October 2019, the DPAA proposed a plan to disinter 652 Korean War Unknowns from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. As part of Phase Three of the Korean War Disinterment Plan, the unidentified set of remains from Yongsan was disinterred and sent to the DPAA laboratory for forensic analysis. There, based on the laboratory testing and the total circumstantial evidence available, this Unknown was identified as Smith.

He 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, DC, which was updated in 2022 to include the names of the fallen.