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.
John S. Walmsley Jr.
January 7, 1920 – unaccounted for since September 14, 1951
Born Baltimore, Maryland
Loss location: Near Yangdok, North Korea (crash location)
Captain, 8th Bombardment Squadron, 3rd Bombardment Wing (Light); B-26 Invader, night interdiction, Korea
Missing in action — DPAA lists Capt. John Springer Walmsley Jr. as Unaccounted For. On September 14, 1951, he piloted B-26 Invader 41-34314 (call sign Skillful 13) from Kunsan on a night armed reconnaissance. The Medal of Honor citation and the DPAA case file record a crash after he used the aircraft searchlight to mark a supply train near Yangdok. Remains have not been returned. A presumptive finding of death in 1954 is not a recovery.
John Springer Walmsley Jr. left Baltimore for the Army Air Forces and then the Air Force. He spent the 1940s as an instructor and occupation bomber pilot. In June 1951 he went to Korea with the 8th Bombardment Squadron and flew the B-26 Invader at night against the rail lines the service called interdiction.
On September 14, 1951, his Invader attacked a supply train near Yangdok. The Medal of Honor citation states that when the ammunition was gone he kept the searchlight on the target so another bomber could finish the work, and that the airplane was hit and crashed into the mountains. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency still lists him unaccounted for. The case file records no American recovery of his remains and no later prisoner report that closed the name.
An administrative finding of death in 1954 put a date on paper. It did not produce a grave. He is named on the Courts of the Missing in Honolulu. Memorial stones elsewhere are markers. This page will not invent the last seconds in a lighted valley or borrow a private family's sentences. The documentation is a night crash report, a public citation, and a ledger that is still open.
No rights-safe official portrait is hosted here. The file is a Baltimore captain, a named Invader, and a mountainside the United States has not brought home.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1950-006
- Content hash
- 86198a73 f8b0991f 2e51ae99 d425844b d5bb0c3a a3edede6 36daccaf 5f7bf801
- Base anchor
- 0x9431c8 f49ca962 c38e2eb0 20802205 eafbf81b 805227fd 4b3a4307 d4c94bba b6
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.