American War Hero · Korean War · Notice Nearby
No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the service and the writing, not an invented face.
Charles H. Barker
April 12, 1935 – unaccounted for since June 4, 1953
Born Pickens County, South Carolina
Loss location: Near Sokkogae / Pork Chop Outpost approach, Korea DMZ (loss location)
Private First Class, Company K, 3rd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division; combat patrol near Sokkogae adjacent to Pork Chop Hill, June 4, 1953
Missing in action — DPAA lists Pfc. Charles Heyward Barker as Unaccounted For (Deferred), profile a0Jt0000007WhvtEAC (verified 2026-09-21). Last seen June 4, 1953, covering his patrol's withdrawal near Sokkogae in what is now the DMZ; remains not recovered. Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall. Deferred is an analytic category, not a recovered grave.
Charles Heyward Barker entered the Army from South Carolina and was still a private first class in Company K, 3rd Battalion, 17th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division, when the Korean War's last months were being fought along the outpost line. On June 4, 1953, a twelve-man patrol from the regiment went onto a ridge near Sokkogae — ground that ran adjacent to Pork Chop Hill — and found Chinese troops digging in.
When the fight went against the patrol and ammunition ran short, the order was to pull back. Barker volunteered to cover the withdrawal. The Medal of Honor citation records open ground, rifle and grenade work, and a last sight of him in hand-to-hand combat. He was never reported as a prisoner. The loss ground is now inside the Demilitarized Zone. Remains have not been recovered.
DPAA profile a0Jt0000007WhvtEAC still reads Unaccounted For, analytical category Deferred. He is on the Courts of the Missing in Honolulu and on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall. This page will not invent a DMZ recovery the public file does not carry. A finding of death is not a grave at Pork Chop.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1950-014
- Content hash
- ac3a65ad 027c9777 409e4b01 a257fae5 0c27a741 33c90bbb 9ca706e3 7e8d1b1f
- Base anchor
- 0x5c1593 a907fba4 339688da 8e8ccc1a 247f0518 ccd98da2 71be839a ef9e08d7 c3
Base stores the content hash, publication number, memorial id, and timestamp — not the full obituary text. The complete memorial remains on Notice Nearby. This is not a legal affidavit.