Charles Edward Ivey

Corporal Charles Edward Ivey was killed in action on November 29, 1950 in Pyongyang, North Korea in the Korean War.  He was 21 years old.

Charles Edward Ivey was born in Granville County, North Carolina on March 27, 1929, the son of James E. Ivey and Lizzie Owen Ivey.  He graduated from Henderson High School in the Class of 1947. 

Corporal Charles P. Ivey served as a rifleman in K Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment. The 187th was selected as an airborne regimental combat team responding to the North Korean invasion of South Korea. The advance party of the 3rd Battalion was the first to arrive in South Korea, arriving at Kimpo Airfield on September 23, 1950, almost a week after Douglas MacArthur's surprise landing at Inchon on September 17.

One month later, on October 20, 1950, the regiment made successful combat parachute assaults near the towns of Sukchon and Sunchon, North Korea as part of the Battle of Yongju. The published purpose of that drop was to capture members of the North Korean Government fleeing Pyongyang and also to free American POWs being moved from Pyongyang toward the Manchurian border. Neither objective was realized but were followed by battles at Suan, Wonju, Kaesong, Munsan-ni, and Inje.

November 1950 would prove to be the month with the most deaths for U.S. forces during the Korean War with 3,646 dead. On November 29, 1950, Cpl. Ivey was part of a reconnaissance patrol gathering information on enemy locations and composition when his patrol was ambushed along a highway near Hajoyang, North Korea. Cpl Ivey was mortally wounded by machine gun fire.  His body was not recovered. 

In 1993 the North Korean government repatriated human remains that were ultimately  identified as the remains of Corporal Charles Edward Ivey in 2015 and buried in Liberty Christian Church Cemetery, Vance County, North Carolina. His name is inscribed in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. 

Last edited: 30 May 2026