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.
Robert E. Afflerbach
September 21, 1930 – unaccounted for since June 12, 1953
Born Winters, Runnels County, Texas
Loss location: near Kumsong-ni, North Korea (loss location)
Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army; Battery A, 987th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 40th Infantry Division / IX Corps; forward outpost near Kumsong-ni, June 12, 1953
Missing in action — DPAA lists 2nd Lt. Robert Eugene Afflerbach as Unaccounted For (Deferred), profile a0Jt000000ECYzhEAH (verified 2026-09-25). Manning a Battery A, 987th Armored Field Artillery Battalion outpost southeast of Kumsong-ni when Chinese mortar fire collapsed the position on June 12, 1953; not seen to fall; not reported as a prisoner; remains not identified among those returned after the ceasefire. 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 Winters, Texas, home from Hall of Valor public citation record. Deferred is an analytic category, not a recovered grave.
Robert Eugene Afflerbach was born September 21, 1930, and entered the Army from Texas — Winters on the public home-of-record line. By June 1953 he was a second lieutenant in Battery A of the 987th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, working the static war along the 38th Parallel where forward observer outposts drew mortar fire like magnets.
On June 12 Chinese Communist Forces put heavy mortar on an outpost southeast of Kumsong-ni. The position collapsed. Afflerbach was manning it. He was not seen to fall in a way that closed the file, and he was never carried as a returned prisoner. After the armistice his remains were not identified among those returned to American custody. The Army later cited him for a Silver Star for gallantry in that Korean fighting.
DPAA profile a0Jt000000ECYzhEAH 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 collapsed outpost note is not a grave this country has brought home.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1950-021
- Content hash
- 462a8805 45aa3803 daad11c5 82e14008 07de2eb6 589124ab 60052eb6 49a3de1f
- Base anchor
- 0x275cfc 8ae2dc8f b2e0ee36 b0564553 15e41a57 9aff2a2a 1a7d0443 e2916ca1 b4
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.