Hometown: Whitesburg, KY
Branch: U.S. Army
Unit: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division
Military Honors: Purple Heart
Date of Sacrifice: June 10, 1953 - KIA near Surang-ni, North Korea
Age: 21
Conflict: Korean War 1950-1953

“Donnie” Menken, born on March 2, 1932, grew up with his family in Letcher County, Kentucky—near the Virginia border. Parents Louis and Lola opened a Ford dealership in the small town of Neon. After Louis passed away, Lola, Donny, and sisters Wilma and Marie moved 12 miles down the road to Whitesburg.

The Menken family recalls, “[Donnie] loved his family and made sure they all knew it. He was full of life, loved music, and played the coronet. His favorite song was ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.’ He loved his old blue Plymouth that he washed daily in the creek…and Zero candy bars, always careful to break it perfectly in half to share with his young nephew.”

Donnie graduated from Whitesburg High School and for a brief time moved to Michigan for a job. He traveled to Virginia to enlist in the U.S. Army on June 18, 1952. Assigned to Company K, 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, Menken was sent to Korea.

Cpl. Menken and his regiment were tasked with defending Outpost Harry, a position on the main road to Seoul, near the center of the 38th parallel—the dividing line between North and South Korea.

On the night of June 10, 1953, Chinese Communist forces began an intense, concentrated bombardment of the outpost before attacking American lines. Cpl. Menken, age 21, was struck by artillery shell fragments and died from his wounds that night.

He was reported missing in action and a year later, on June 11, 1954, the U.S. Army declared Cpl. Menken to have been killed in action. He was deemed non-recoverable in January 1956.

Seven decades after he was lost in Korea, on February 2, 2022, Cpl. Menken’s remains were identified. On February 2, 2022, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced that through “dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence” along with DNA analysis, they had positively identified Donald Menken.

Most of Menken’s family was no longer living. But after a lifetime of not knowing her brother’s fate, 97-year-old sister Marie would see him brought back home to Kentucky. She had last seen him in 1951 before he was deployed to fight in the Korean War.

In a ceremony on May 14, 2022, Cpl. Menken was laid to rest—next to his parents—in Green Acres Cemetery outside of Whitesburg, Kentucky.

In Honolulu Hawaii, Cpl. Donald L. Menken’s name is engraved on the American Battle Monument Commission’s “Courts of the Missing,” along with the others who are missing from the Korean War. As is the custom, a rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate that he has been found.

Sources
Card Photo: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, VIRIN: 220324-A-ZQ077-003.JPG
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency: Soldier Accounted For From Korean War (Menken, D.)
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency: CPL DONALD LOUIS MENKEN
Korean War Project: Outpost Harry
Bay News 9: Remains of missing Korean War veteran return home of missing Korean War veteran return home
The Mountain Eagle, May 4, 2002: Soldier killed in Korea to be buried here
Everidge Funeral Home: Obituary for Cpl. Donald Louis Menken
Korean War Project: CPL Donald Louis Menken
American Battle Monuments Commission: Donald Louis Menken
Burial Site: Find a Grave