BOSTON (WHDH) - The remains of an East Boston native who died a prisoner of war in Korea have returned to Massachusetts.
Army Corporal Joseph Puopolo’s remains were escorted by police to a funeral home in East Boston on Tuesday, weeks after being identified at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
Puopolo was reported as missing in action in 1950, after his unit tried to withdraw following the Battle of the Ch’ongch’on River on Nov. 30.
Three years later, fellow prisoners of war who were returned to American forces confirmed that he had died while imprisoned. He was 19 at the time of his death.
According to a press release from the United States Army, Puopolo was accounted for by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on Aug. 23, when his remains were identified “using circumstantial evidence as well as dental, anthropological and mitochondrial DNA analysis.”
A burial service will take place in Malden on Saturday.
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