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.
Joseph D. Toomey Jr.
December 31, 1926 – unaccounted for since November 28, 1950 (died in captivity February 1951)
Born Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Loss location: en route to POW Camp 5, Pyoktong, North Korea (captivity death location)
First Lieutenant, U.S. Army; Headquarters Company, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division; Chongchon River withdrawal near Pongmyong-ni, November 28, 1950
Missing in action — DPAA lists 1st Lt. Joseph Daniel Toomey Jr. as Unaccounted For (Deferred), profile a0Jt00000004nXBEAY (verified 2026-09-26). Wounded and captured during the November 28, 1950 withdrawal of 5th Cavalry elements from Pongmyong-ni under Chinese attack along the Chongchon; transferred toward POW Camp 5 at Pyoktong; died en route in February 1951 of malnutrition and wounds; remains not associated with any returned by North Korea. Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall. Birth date and Boston/Suffolk home from Hall of Valor public record (West Point Class of 1949). Deferred is not a recovered grave.
Joseph Daniel Toomey Jr. was born in Boston on December 31, 1926, and went into the Army from Massachusetts after West Point — Class of 1949. By late November 1950 he was a first lieutenant in Headquarters Company of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, holding the Chongchon line while Chinese forces tried to roll the division back to the coast.
On November 28 the regiment's battalions and headquarters pulled out of Pongmyong-ni under continuous attack. The withdrawal road was already ambushed. Toomey was wounded and taken prisoner in that fight. He was moved north toward Camp 5 at Pyoktong and died on the march in February 1951 of malnutrition and his wounds. Recovery teams have not reached the burial ground, and his name has not been tied to remains later returned by North Korea. Earlier that summer, near Waegwan, he had already earned a Silver Star for leading a river crossing under fire and carrying wounded men clear.
DPAA profile a0Jt00000004nXBEAY still lists him Unaccounted For, analytical category Deferred. He is on the Courts of the Missing in Honolulu and on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall. A march death without a returned body is not a closed grave.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1950-023
- Content hash
- 91f803a8 36e00a1f c19f16e9 ccf690b7 676dc60d 367326a6 84d71886 7cb9db69
- Base anchor
- 0x178bda 29d56e7d 48391d64 89f191f2 4ee8e1c9 15514ab0 3584be98 2a7a5468 1b
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.