Army
Pfc. Weldon Alonzo Davis is scheduled to
come home to North Texas on Monday, 62 years
after he died in a Korean prisoner of war
camp.
His relatives — whose DNA made his
identification and return possible — decided
to bury his remains at Dallas-Fort Worth
National Cemetery.
His family first considered burying Davis in
his hometown of Tioga.
“But then we decided he wanted to be in the
service so bad that the best place to bury
him would be at the national cemetery,” said
his 77-year-old cousin, Helen White of
Wylie. “We went out there today [Wednesday]
and looked at it. We made a good decision.”
Davis will be buried with military honors at
1:30 p.m. Wednesday in Dallas-Fort Worth
National Cemetery.
The graveside service will end a chapter of
Davis’ life that began when he was taken
prisoner on Nov. 30, 1950. He was a member
of B Battery of the 38th Field Artillery
Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division, which was
trying to fight off persistent attacks by
Chinese troops pouring into North Korea.
Davis and his fellow POWs faced an ordeal
before they were finally imprisoned in Camp
No. 5, near the village of Pukchin-Tarigol,
which the Americans called Camp Death
Valley.
“They just marched them from one place to
another,” White said. “It was cold — real
cold.”
A year ago, military recovery team members
briefed White about their ongoing efforts to
recover Americans missing from the Korean
War. She learned of the harsh conditions the
soldiers endured.
“I had no idea how things were for him,” she
said. “I felt so bad when I found out what
these kids went through.”
Notes the researchers used included the
debriefing of a doctor, one of the POWs who
treated Davis, who said the private died on
Jan. 20, 1951, of malnutrition, exhaustion
and probably pneumonia, according to
Department of Defense reports. The Army set
his official date of death as March 31,
1951, because of conflicting dates given by
other POWs.
Davis was born in Tioga and lived with his
mother for about 18 months before his
grandparents took him in to grow up on their
Grayson County farm.
“I knew him pretty good as the pesky little
cousin,” White said. “I can still hear my
grandmother say, ‘Now Weldon, just leave her
alone.’”
Davis, who was eager to join his uncles
serving in the military during World War II,
had his grandmother Fanny Davis falsify his
age so he could enlist in the Navy when he
was 16.
“They found out and they discharged him in
[December] ’43,” White said. “Knowing him,
he ran her nuts. He had uncles who were in
the service and that’s all he could think
about. He wanted to be in the service.”
After graduating from high school in Tioga,
he lived with relatives in Amarillo and
played minor league baseball in Texas and
Oklahoma.
Davis joined the Army on Dec. 29, 1948, when
he was 22.
In Korea, Davis gave a roadside interview
with David Rasco, war correspondent for the
Amarillo Globe, now the Amarillo
Globe-News.
Davis said he was looking forward to playing
catch later that day.
“After I get off duty, I’m going up to my
tent,” he told Rasco. “I got a brand-new
baseball up there and me and my buddy’s
going to pitch it around a little.”
Over the years, White remembered her cousin,
especially when she saw him in family
photos, “but I never thought they’d find
him,” she said. “I never thought he would
come back.”
In 2005, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing
Personnel Office discovered a shallow grave
where 32 POWs, including Davis, had been
buried near the POW camp. About two years
ago, the identification team asked White for
a DNA sample.
Just before Christmas, White learned the
investigators had identified her cousin
using her DNA and that of her son, Mike
Hall.
“The lady from the Army told me it just
matched perfect,” she said.
The return and burial are comforting to
White and her husband, C.T. White.
“It’s good for us to
know he was found and we’re taking him to a
place where he wanted to be,” he said.
JOE
SIMNACHER
Staff
Writer
jsimnacher@dallasnews.com
Pilot Point Post
Signal
Friday,
February 8, 2013
At long last
Tioga soldier who died
Korea returns home.
By Richard Greene
Managing
Editor
Helen White never expected her
cousin Weldon Alonzo Davis to return home.
Sixty-two years after Davis' death in the
Korean War, the remains of the soldier from
Tioga returned to Texas for burial Wednesday
afternoon at the Dallas/Fort Worth National
Cemetery with military honors.
"I didn't expect them to ever find him,"
said White, who grew up in Tioga and lives
in Wylie. "It's a relief, a satisfying
feeling."
Davis' remains were found in a grave in
Korea with 31 others. The remains were sent
to Hawaii, where they were matched to DNA
supplied by White and her son.
