FORT KNOX, Ky. — A Korean War veteran from Bedford has been identified and his remains are finally coming home to be buried more than 70 years after his death.
According to a release from the U.S. Army's Human Resources Command, Sgt. John P. Ryhter will be interred at Bedford Cemetery on Sept. 20. Johnson Romito Funeral Home will perform graveside services prior to the interment.
The Army says Ryhter was a member of Battery A, 82nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division. In Dec. 1950, the 22-year-old Ryhter was reported missing in action after his unit engaged in "intensive combat actions" against the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army in Kunu-ri, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, during the Battle of Ch’ongch’on River.
A presumptive finding of death was issued for Ryhter on Dec. 31, 1953.
In 1954, the opposing nations of the Korean War reached an agreement to exchange war dead. One set of remains from a prisoner of war cemetery were determined to be unidentifiable and were interred as an "Unknown" at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (NMCP) in Hawaii, also known as the Punchbowl.
Ryhter's remains were exhumed in Sept. 2019. Scientists from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) used "dental and anthropological analysis, as well as chest radiograph comparison and circumstantial evidence" to identify Ryhter. Additionally, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.
The DPAA officially identified Sgt. Ryhter's remains in April of this year. The Army says he will be buried with full military honors.
