The transportation of corpses to the military cemeteries of American soldiers far from the battlefields of the Korean War was very difficult and dangerous. Bodies that could not be moved due to the urgency of the battle were hastily buried in any soft ground that would allow for a quick burial. Behind the battle lines, temporary cemeteries were set up. Only the bodies of Korean soldiers were buried in the temporary cemeteries. The bodies of American soldiers who died in the war were placed in coffins and repatriated to the United States. Isolated cemeteries could not always be maintained, and many of the rough indicators were lost, removed by residents or North Korean troops, or destroyed in the fighting.
As the Korean War, which broke out on June 25, 1950, intensified and the death toll of American soldiers increased, it became necessary for each combat unit to establish and operate its own cemetery. The first temporary UN memorial cemetery in Korea was established by the US military in Daejeon on July 9, 1950. However, Daejeon was occupied by North Korean forces shortly thereafter. The cemetery, which contains about 46 burial sites, was abandoned. Other temporary cemeteries were established in Kwanui, Geumcheon, and Sindong, but they were occupied under the control of the North Korean army after the UN forces withdrew to the Busan border.
Faced with difficult war conditions at a time when it was time to set up its own cemetery, the combat troops could not avoid digging graves. As the Koreans fleeing from the combat zone became refugees and abandoned their towns and villages, it became impossible to use civilian labor for the construction of the cemetery. A morgue was set up to hold the bodies until the cemetery could be dug and recorded. Due to the unfavorable war situation, a temporary UN cemetery was set up elsewhere as the UN forces withdrew to the Pusan area. American troops landed in Incheon and struck back, establishing a temporary UN military cemetery in Incheon on September 8, 1950. The search and recovery operations of differentiated or deteriorating corpses in the areas recaptured from the North Korean troops were immediately started and the corpses were accumulated in the cemetery.
The entry into North Korea of vast Chinese armies from October 25, 1950, to reinforce the collapsing North Korean army, forced the UN forces into an emergency withdrawal. All temporary cemeteries in the retreat area, including those on the outskirts from Hungnam, and even Pyongyang were placed under communist control. The Commander-in-Chief of the U.N. forces said that the bodies of all U.S. dead troops were accumulated in the U.N. military cemetery, ready for transport to Japan. The bodies of the U.N. troops deposited in Incheon left the port of Incheon by loaded ships on December 28, 1950. U.S. military corpses were evacuated to the U.S. grave registration facility established in Kokura, Japan, starting January 3, 1951. The decision was made to return to the U.S. home country the bodies of about 16,000 American soldiers who died during the hostilities of the Challenge War.
