From his wheelchair, Michael Northey observes his father’s grave in silence, placing a flower there for the first time. This is the closest I’ve been to him in 70 years, which is absurd, he remarks with a bittersweet humor.
Michael was born into a struggling family in Portsmouth and was just an infant when his father, the youngest of thirteen siblings, went off to serve in the Korean War.
Tragically, he lost his life in combat and was never identified. For many years, his remains rested unmarked in a grave at the UN cemetery in Busan, Korea, with only a plaque that read Member of the British Army, known unto God.
Now it has been updated to include his name: Sergeant D. Northey, who died on April 24, 1951, at the age of 23. Sergeant Northey is among four previously unidentified British soldiers from the Korean War who have now been recognized. Michael joins other families at a ceremony to honor their loved ones by renaming their graves.
For years, Michael dedicated himself to uncovering the location of his father’s grave, but ultimately he had to let go of that hope. With my health declining and not much time left, I accepted that I might never know, he reflects.
However, a few months back, he received an unexpected phone call. Unbeknownst to him, investigators from the Ministry of Defence had been looking into the matter on their own. When he learned the news, he cried out in joy for 20 minutes straight.
I can’t put into words how liberating that felt, he shares with a grin. This mystery had weighed on me for seven decades. I truly felt for the poor woman who called me!
On the other end of the line was Nicola Nash, a forensic researcher affiliated with the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre in Gloucester. Her usual focus is on identifying individuals who perished during the First and Second World Wars, but she had been assigned to a new challenge: locating those who died in the Korean War.
This required her to begin anew by creating a list of 300 British soldiers still unaccounted for, among whom 76 were interred in a cemetery located in Busan. By examining burial records, she discovered that only one soldier buried there bore sergeant stripes from the Gloucester Regiment, alongside one major.
Through extensive research involving national archives, eyewitness testimonies, family correspondence, and military reports, Ms. Nash successfully identified these individuals as Sergeant Northey and Major Patrick Angier.
In April 1951, during the renowned Battle of Imjin River, both individuals lost their lives as the Chinese Army, allied with North Korea, attempted to drive the allied forces back down the peninsula to reclaim Seoul.
Despite being heavily outnumbered, these soldiers managed to hold their ground for three days, allowing their fellow troops enough time to retreat and successfully defend the city. Ms. Nash notes that due to the intense violence of the battle, most soldiers were either killed or taken prisoner, leaving no one available to identify them afterward.
The enemy had removed and scattered their dog tags. It wasn’t until after the release of prisoners of war that they could recount their experiences from the battle. Until recently, no one had thought to reconstruct this history.
For Ms. Nash, this project has been a six-year passion project that has been somewhat facilitated by having some children of those men still living; this connection has added a meaningful dimension to her work.
These children have lived without knowing what happened to their fathers, and for her to facilitate bringing them here to honor their graves and find closure is profoundly significant, she expresses.
During the ceremony, families gather on chairs among the lengthy rows of small stone markers that honor the numerous foreign soldiers who fought and perished during the Korean War. They are joined by active-duty soldiers from their loved ones’ former units.
Major Angier’s daughter, Tabby, now 77 years old, along with her grandson Guy, stands to share excerpts from letters he sent while stationed at the front lines. In one of his last letters to his wife, he expresses: Lots of love to our dear children. Please tell them how much Daddy misses them and will return as soon as his work is done.
Tabby was just three when her father departed for war, and her memories of him are fragmented: I can recall someone in a room with canvas bags accumulating, which must have been his gear for Korea. But I can’t visualize his face, she reflects. At the time of her father’s passing, discussions about wars were avoided, Tabby notes.
Instead, residents in her small village in Gloucestershire would say things like: Oh, those poor children; they’ve lost their father. She recalls thinking that since he was missing, they would eventually locate him.
However, as time went on and she learned more about what transpired, she found out that her father’s remains would never be recovered; the last indication of his location suggested that he lay beneath an overturned boat on the battlefield.
Tabby had previously visited the cemetery in Busan twice in search of closeness to her father—unaware that his actual grave had been there all along. I think it will take a while for this to fully register, she says from beside his freshly decorated gravesite.
For 25-year-old Cameron Adair from Scunthorpe, the revelation has been particularly profound. His great-great-uncle, Corporal William Adair, is one of the two soldiers from the Royal Ulster Rifles identified by Ms. Nash; the other being Rifleman Mark Foster from County Durham.
Both soldiers lost their lives in January 1951 while retreating from a platoon of Chinese troops. Corporal Adair had no children, and after his wife’s passing, his memory faded away, leaving Cameron and his family unaware of his legacy. Learning that his ancestor played a role in liberating many people fills Cameron with immense pride.
He expresses that experiencing this history in person has made it all the more real for him. Now at an age similar to that of his uncle when he died, Cameron feels motivated and expresses a willingness to serve if necessary.
Meanwhile, Ms. Nash is collecting DNA samples from relatives of the remaining 300 missing soldiers in hopes of providing more families with the same sense of closure and happiness she has given to Cameron, Tabby, and Michael.
If there are still British personnel unaccounted for, we will continue our search, she states.