Soldier's Remains Finally Headed Home

Elmira Star-Gazette - Elmira, NY, USA

Elmira Heights Army sergeant reported missing in Korean War

By Roger Neumann • rneumann@gannett.com • January 14, 2009

After more than 58 years, the three sisters of a soldier from Elmira Heights who was killed in the Korean War will get to bury the remains of their brother.

The women were notified recently by the Department of Defense that DNA testing had identified the remains of Army Sgt. Dougall Espey Jr. He was reported missing, along with more than 300 others from his unit, on Nov. 2, 1950, after days of fierce fighting with Chinese forces near Unsan, North Korea.

Now the sisters are completing plans for Sgt. Espey's burial, with full military honors, at Woodlawn National Cemetery in Elmira. He'll be laid to rest April 3, which would have been his 80th birthday.

"We've waited so long for this, never thinking that it would ever happen," one of the sisters, Margaret "Peggy" Stowell of Elmira, said Tuesday.

The young soldier, known as Sonny to family and friends, was a corporal when he went off to war. He was 21 when he died, and he was posthumously promoted to sergeant.

On the day before Thanksgiving in 1950, the family was informed that he was missing in action when a young rider on a bicycle pulled up to the Espey home on McCanns Boulevard in Elmira Heights and handed over a telegram.

"I heard this terrible screaming," Mariam "Bobbie" Espey, now of Mount Laurel, N.J., recalled in 2000. "I came downstairs, and my mother was hysterical. My father was crying, holding this paper in his hand."

It wasn't until Dec. 31, 1953, that the Army officially declared the soldier dead. And it was only a few months ago, on Sept. 27, that the family was notified that his remains had been identified from among those of hundreds of others that were turned over by North Korea from 1991 to 1994.

Over the years, the family - especially Bobbie Espey and her father, Dougall Sr. - tried to learn more about Sgt. Espey's fate. She also worked with other families of those missing in action and, inspired by her brother, became an Air Force nurse.

The elder Espey and his wife, Agnes, have since died, both in their 80s.

"My parents never got over it," said Peggy Stowell. "He was their only son, and he was loved by all."

Said Bobbie Espey: "I'm sure they're up there looking down."

Stowell said the sisters are just glad the news of their brother came while they are still alive. Espey is 78 now, Stowell is 73 and a third sister, Kathleen McMahon of Elmira, is 68.

"We're all up there in years," Stowell said. "We were just hoping that some day we'd hear."