SMITHVILLE, W.Va. — The family of a Ritchie County man who never came home from the Korean War finally have the information they thought would never be known. Their relative has been located and is coming home.
The remains of U.S. Army Sgt. Kester B. Hardman, 22, of Smithville have been positively identified and will eventually be brought back to West Virginia for his final resting place. Hardman was reported missing gin action in December 1950 while his unit was fighting in intensive combat near Sunchon. North Korea claimed Hardman died in the Spring of 1951 as a POW, but his remains were never identified.
The remains were released following the war in a 1954 agreement to exchange the war dead. Hardman was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) exhumed his remains for analyzation and DNA testing and his family was recently notified in a full briefing he had been positively identified. Hardman’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with others still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for, officials said.
His remains will be returned for burial in Ritchie County at a later date.