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Claude Gilbert Bolden
Van Buren County, Arkansas
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Claude Gilbert "C.G." Bolden
Van Buren County, Arkansas
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A lifetime of waiting
Korean War POW's remains returned to family after 63 years
Posted: February 17, 2015 - 4:26pm


By By RACHEL PARKER DICKERSON
LOG CABIN STAFF WRITER

After 63 years, a war widow will finally give her husband the burial he deserves this Saturday.

Geraldean Johnson of Conway lived for years with the knowledge that her husband, Cpl. C.G. Bolden, had died in a POW camp in North Korea. Then suddenly, in December, she received word that his remains had been identified and would be returned to her for burial. It was the first word she had heard from the Army since she received confirmation of her husband’s death so many years before.

Johnson said the two were only 19 when they married in 1947 and started a life together in the Eglantine community, now Fairfield Bay. Her sister married her husband’s brother, and the two couples built homes near one another, using re-used lumber. She giggled as she recalled her young groom going into the attic of their first home and putting his foot right through the ceiling.

Johnson said C.G. was too young to fight in World War II, but he traveled to Europe afterward to help with cleanup efforts. When he returned to the U.S., recruiters convinced him to enroll in the Army Reserves in order to take advantage of the various financial benefits. He could not have guessed that in just a few years, his country would call on him to fight in another war.

The couple had one son, Larry Bolden of Clinton. They moved from Eglantine to Clinton shortly before C.G. went to war.

In September 1950, C.G. went to Korea. Johnson said she did not subscribe to the newspaper, and so she went to the neighbor’s house to borrow one and hopefully relieve her anxiety. She prayed constantly, she said.

Traci Bolden, Johnson’s granddaughter, said her grandfather was apparently a very picky eater and that one of her grandmother’s worries was about him getting enough to eat.

“She finally got a letter from him, and some sweet little lady had fixed him some fried chicken,” she said.

Many years after the war, Johnson said, she and her son attended an event where former POWs talked about conditions in camps and what they were reduced to eating in order to survive.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t eat that stuff,” she said. “I don’t know how he lived from South Korea to North Korea.”

In January 1951, she received a letter telling her that C.G. was missing in action. He had been captured and marched from South Korea to North Korea, where he died of malnutrition. Johnson said C.G. and 1 Lt. Bernard W. Galing had promised each other that if one died and the other lived, the survivor would tell the other’s family what happened to him. Galing made good on his promise when he returned from war, providing all the details before Johnson received her letter from the military. He told her the corporal was buried in a trench along with a number of other soldiers who died in the camp. In February 1954, she received the official statement from the Army. Then for 63 years she heard nothing.

“It was hard. I prayed all the time. (C.G.) said the Lord doesn’t put more on you than you can stand. I never did understand that.”

Bolden said her grandfather’s remains were part of a group recovered by North Korea some 25 years ago and returned to the U.S. These remains were taken to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Laboratory at Hickham AFB in Hawaii for identification. The facility has hundreds of remains and is searching for DNA samples of family members to identify soldiers. C.G.’s brother and sister both donated DNA to help identify him.

When Johnson found out her husband was found and would be returned to her for burial, she was overcome.

“I couldn’t keep from crying,” she said. “Traci and I were at the Waffle House. I told Traci, and we were both sitting on the seats at the Waffle House, crying.”

She had no idea her husband’s remains had been repatriated some 25 years ago. She thought he was still in a trench in North Korea, she said.

Bolden has been given the duty of representing the family and bringing her grandfather back from Hawaii. On Thursday, her plane will land in Little Rock at 11:39 a.m., and her family will meet her and the casket. The funeral procession will be escorted by 200 motorcycles all the way to Clinton, and everyone is invited to line the streets from Conway to Clinton to welcome an American soldier home, Bolden said. The procession will probably arrive in Conway around 1 p.m., she said. The funeral will be Saturday starting at 9:30 a.m. at Roller-McNutt Funeral Home in Clinton. The program will begin with a parade followed by visitation at 11 a.m. and funeral services at 1 p.m. at Clinton High School Auditorium. Burial with full military honors will be at Clinton Cemetery.

(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 505-1236. To comment on this and other stories in the Log Cabin, log on to www.thecabin.net. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)
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