Veteran of The Day 2-10-26

PFC FRANK WORLEY

United States Army
Killed in Action | Korean War
Date of Loss: February 12, 1951

Hero Profile

Rank: Private First Class (PFC)
Branch: U.S. Army
Unit: A Battery, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division
Place of Loss: Near Hoengsong, South Korea
Home of Record: North Carolina (NC)
Casualty Type: Killed in Action (Hostile)

In Honor of His Sacrifice

Today we honor Private First Class Frank Worley, a U.S. Army artilleryman who gave his life during the Korean War on February 12, 1951.

In February 1951, central Korea became a pressure cooker. Chinese Communist Forces struck hard, and U.S. units supporting allied lines faced fierce assaults and fast-moving breakthroughs. PFC Worley served with A Battery, 503rd Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division, and on February 12, 1951, his unit’s defensive positions near Hoengsong were overrun, and he was killed in action.

Artillery units do not just “fire from afar.” They haul rounds, hold positions, protect their guns, and keep the lifeline of fire support alive when everything turns chaotic. PFC Worley stood his post in that storm, and his sacrifice helped write the hard-earned story of a line that would not break.

Accounting and Memorialization

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency later identified PFC Worley’s remains (identified September 19, 2015, with the profile noting a date of identification 08/11/2015).
His remains were among those repatriated by North Korea in 1992 and were eventually identified.

PFC Worley is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and his name is also inscribed on the Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. (updated in 2022 to include names of the fallen).

Reflection

PFC Frank Worley’s story is a reminder that the Korean War was fought not only by generals and headlines, but by young Americans who held the line in bitter cold, on unfamiliar ground, for people they had never met, in defense of freedom they believed was worth the cost.

We speak his name today, because remembrance is a form of duty.