The remains of a South Korean soldier who was assigned to US forces during the Korean War (1950-53) were returned to his family 66 years after he fell in battle, the military said Sunday.

The remains belonging to Pvt. Chung Jun-won have been identified by the Agency for KIA Recovery & Identification, the Defense Ministry said.

It said Chung enlisted in South Korea’s armed forces in July 1950 shortly after the outbreak of hostilities. He joined up at South Korea’s largest port city of Busan just as the invading North Korean forces were putting pressure on the Nakdong perimeter.

At the time Chung was 28 years old and had a wife, a 5-year-old daughter and a baby son.

The ministry said that private Chung was educated in Japan and was good in English which allowed him to be assigned as a Korean Augmentation To the United States Army soldier with the US 7th Infantry Division.

The KATUSA soldier had moved north with his unit after the successful Incheon amphibious landing and was fighting in the Changjin Lake campaign in November 1950 when he was killed. At the time US and allied forces were being pushed back after China joined the war on the side of its communist ally North Korea.

Authorities said his remains were not retrieved at the time he was killed, but recovered in 2000 when the US Army’s Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command dug up the graves of soldiers near Changjin Lake and sent them to Hawaii for identification.

Seoul said JPAC quickly identified some of the remains as South Korean soldiers. They were repatriated in 2012 with three being returned to their families relatively soon after arrival, but authorities had difficulty identifying nine others.

Authorities got a break when Chung’s son, now living in Singapore, provided DNA samples, and laboratory tests were able to positively identify the fallen soldier. (Yonhap)