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.
Otis M. Harwell
April 22, 1931 – unaccounted for since November 27, 1950
Born Bakersfield, Kern County, California
Loss location: Hill 1419, Chosin Reservoir area, North Korea (loss location)
Private First Class, C Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division; Hill 1419 defense, Battle of Chosin Reservoir, November 27, 1950
Missing in action — DPAA lists Pfc. Otis Merle Harwell as Unaccounted For (Deferred), profile a0Jt0000002XnkAEAS (verified 2026-09-24). Killed in action November 27, 1950 fighting on Hill 1419 during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir; field-buried near the hill; remains not recovered and not identified among postwar returns. 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. Distinct from Pfc. Elton J. Harwell (NN-HERO-1950-017) already on this register.
Otis Merle Harwell was born in California on April 22, 1931 — Bakersfield and Kern County in the home-of-record line — and entered the Marine Corps from that state. By late November 1950 he was a private first class in C Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, holding high ground around the Chosin Reservoir while Chinese forces tried to cut the road to the coast.
On November 27 his company fought on Hill 1419. Harwell was killed in that fight and buried near the hill. When the division fought its way out to Hungnam, his remains did not come with the column. He was never reported as a prisoner. After the armistice his name was not among the remains returned to American custody.
DPAA profile a0Jt0000002XnkAEAS 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 field burial note is not a grave this country has brought home.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1950-018
- Content hash
- a92def7d cd5f5e98 e934af07 268db0f5 4713a4d6 7ab3d466 371f0976 1df689aa
- Base anchor
- 0xeb8d34 230b7488 baac513b bfc8b4eb 2b3bdfdf 621e889f a7e8670f 3231025a 4e
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.