An Irishman who was killed trying to save his military comrades in the Korean War is making his final journey home after 79 years.
US Army Sergeant Thomas J “Tom Jo” O’Brien (23) was originally from Emly, Co Tipperary. He died in the 1950 Korean War after emigrating to New York three years earlier. He served in Headquarters Battery, 90th Field Artillery Battalion, 25th Infantry Division.
O’Brien came from a farming family and joined the military after being promised he would become a legal US resident and receive a green card.
He was reported as missing in action (MIA), presumed dead by the US military to his mother Sarah and his six siblings. O’Brien was killed by tank fire on October 26th, 1950, after his unit was attacked by Korean People’s Army (KPA) forces while moving through the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) along the Taeryong river.
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For his leadership and valour, O’Brien was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Good Conduct medal, the Korean Service medal, the United Nations Service medal, the National Defense Service medal and the Korean Presidential Unit Citation.
Following the end of hostilities in North Korea, there was no information to suggest O’Brien was being held as a prisoner of war, and no body was recovered.
However, in the summer of 1954, during Operation Glory, North Korea returned remains reportedly recovered from various grave sites to the United Nations Command. One set of remains, designated as Unknown X-16829, was thought to be that of O’Brien but a positive association could not be made at the time.
Body X-16829 and all other unidentified unknowns were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii. A tentative association was made between the remains and O’Brien, but it could not be confirmed with the medical techniques available at the time.
“My sisters Patricia, Terre, my late brother Owen and I made a promise to my late father Michael who died in 2014 that we would continue the search for his younger brother Thomas and if we found him that we would bring him home to be buried with his mother Sarah and other family members,” says O’Brien’s niece Shivaun from the US. The family moved there from Ireland when she was aged four.
“It was his dying wish as he was the last of his siblings which included Margret, Una, Mary, Nancy and Seán to pass away.”
“Now we have succeeded and it is bittersweet. We all wish our father was alive to witness this. Before he died he allowed some of this DNA to be taken and stored by a division of US Government involved in trying to identify war dead.”
Shivaun said her uncle’s unit “was pinned down and as a gunnery he drew enemy tank fire in his direction, which allowed 10 men from his unit to retreat safely. He was killed by enemy tank fire.”
Before she died in 1957, Shivaun’s grandmother Sarah, had her son’s name engraved on the family headstone in St Ailbe’s graveyard in Emly, hoping his body would eventually be brought home.
In March 2018, the US Government Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) disinterred the remains of Body X-16829 for further study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available allowed scientists to identify O’Brien.
He is memorialised 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.
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In 2003, O’Brien and 27 other Irish men who had died in the second World War ,the Korean War and the Vietnam War were awarded their US citizenship posthumously. The ceremony on Capitol Hill was attended by his brother Michael -an engineer who fought for the British Army in the second World War – and Michael’s children.
“Our father was so proud ... We received Thomas’s military file that day which detailed what exactly happened to him. It made for graphic reading about what happened on that day back in 1950 and obviously it was upsetting,” said Shivaun.
“The family luckily managed to meet two men at the ceremony in 2003 who knew O’Brien where one who trained with him described him as being ‘very shy’ and our Uncle Tom Jo, like his siblings, never drank. The men from his basic training unit would drag him out with them and try to make him laugh with their antics, they loved his laugh,” she recounted.
“The other man was in his unit and fought with him. He detailed that the front line they were in was unorganised but the second line was organised. However, this man saw my uncle being shot and confirmed he died instantly.”
Shivaun said she felt her father “would be elated and pleased that we are finally bringing his brother home. I feel sad that Thomas didn’t have a long life and for my Dad, my grandmother Sarah and his siblings who never got to see him being brought home. But it is so important that he will be with his family in Ireland.
“We were never sure if his body was still in North Korea or in the Punchbowl in Hawaii, for so many years but now we have our answer at long last.” She said the family would “love it if as many from Emly or Tipperary might attend the service of his home coming. It would mean so much to us all.”
Three US military servicemen will be arriving from Germany to provide a guard of honour at the graveside on Monday.
O’Brien’s remains were eventually brought from Hawaii to Los Angeles (LAX) airport on June 8th this year, where they were received by family members and subsequently cremated.
A number of relatives arrived at Dublin Airport on Saturday with his ashes. O’Brien will finally be laid to rest with his family at 3pm in Ailbe’s graveyard in Emly on Monday where graveside prayers will be recited. Many of his nieces, nephews and extended family will attend.
Shivaun’s cousin, Kate Phipps, who lives in Co Kildare said her uncle was to be buried in California by the army but that the family wanted to ensure he would be buried in Tipperary.
“My mother Una, John Jo’s sister died in 2011 so she knew the US military were actively searching for him back then as they gathered DNA from us.
“I’m so glad that his ashes are being brought back in my generation,” said Kate.
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