Korean War · Last seen advancing into enemy trenches · Never returned
Status: Unaccounted for. DPAA places his case in its “deferred” category.
Ronald “Dutch” Van Wees was 19 when he went forward into a Chinese trench line on Nov. 30, 1952, and did not come back. His mother, Rita, spent the next four decades trying to find him. She wrote every president, marched outside the United Nations and, in 1957, sued President Eisenhower for leaving the missing “in the hands of the enemy.”
The man
Van Wees grew up in the Bronx, the son of John and Rita Van Wees; he had a sister, Lillian. He earned a Silver Star “for attacking a Chinese trench line, but disappearing in the process,” according to PIP’s research. A memorial page for him says that during the assault “he paused to assist a fallen comrade then continued the attack.” (Find a Grave; Unconfirmed by PIP.)
What is known
Van Wees served with C Company, 1st Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. According to DPAA, his patrol went out beyond the main line of resistance to locate and destroy enemy positions, was pinned down by small arms, automatic weapons and grenades, and was forced to withdraw. He was last seen advancing into the enemy trenches. Enemy troops kept the patrol from searching for him. He has not been associated with any remains returned after the war.
A mother who would not stop
Rita Van Wees joined “Fighting Homefolks of Fighting Men,” a group of families who refused to accept that their sons were dead. Her Bronx apartment became a hub for the cause, and “each succeeding President would receive letters with her distinctive hand writing,” PIP’s research records. The Eisenhower Library still holds a White House file of her letters about her son.
In January 1957 she stood before Judge Matthew McGuire in U.S. District Court in Washington, suing the president on behalf of dozens of mothers. When the government moved to dismiss, she asked who would have jurisdiction:
I think our sons certainly rate a hearing after they have been as loyal to this country as they have been; and they have all been presumed dead with no proof whatsoever.
Rita Van Wees, U.S. District Court, January 1957, as in PIP’s files
The case was thrown out. In 1959 a White Russian anti-communist activist told her that many American and British prisoners, including her “Ronnie,” were alive in the Soviet Union. The State Department answered her that year: “the United States Government at this time cannot identify any American military missing from the Korean hostilities as being alive and still held in prison.”
She came to believe she had seen her son in a 1954 Life magazine photograph of American prisoners being marched through Seoul, an account later entered in the Congressional Record. In 1990, still writing, she told PIP:
I wish I knew where to write to Gorby (Gorbachev). I’d send him a letter that even he would weep.
Rita Van Wees, 1990
What remains unresolved
Whether Van Wees was killed in the trench, or captured. No returning prisoner is known to PIP to have reported him, and PIP does not hold the reports Rita Van Wees received about the Soviet Union beyond what is described in PIP’s research.
Why the case matters
Rita Van Wees was one of the first family members to confront the government in court over the men who did not come home from Korea. Her son’s case, and her file of letters, show how early the families were told there was nothing more to learn.
Evidence and sources
- DPAA service member profile, Cpl. Ronald David Van Wees, U.S. Army, C Co., 1st Bn., 179th Inf. Regt., 45th Inf. Div.
- PIP research files, including the 1957 court exchange, the 1959 State Department letter and Rita Van Wees’s 1990 letter.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, POW/MIA subject guide, White House file on Mrs. Van Wees (Box 3197).
- Congressional Record, 1990, p. 16617 (the Life magazine photograph).
- Find a Grave memorial, Cpl. Ronald David Van Wees (1933-1952).
Request for information
Please contact us if you can help with any of the following.
- Accounts of Ronald Van Wees alive after the Nov. 30, 1952, patrol, from former Chinese soldiers or fellow prisoners.
- Chinese or Soviet accounts of American prisoners taken in the 179th Infantry sector in late 1952.
- Reports of Van Wees in the Soviet Union, including the source of the 1959 account given to his mother.
He was last seen going into an enemy trench line, and the enemy kept his patrol from searching for him. No returning prisoner is known to have reported him. Was he killed in the trench? Or was he captured and moved outside the known camps, as his mother was told in 1959?
Reach us through our contact page or at contact@powinvestigativeproject.org. We protect our sources.
中文
范·威斯（Ronald Van Wees）下士，美国陆军，1952年11月30日在朝鲜进攻中国军队战壕时失踪。如果您有关于他的任何信息，请联系：contact@powinvestigativeproject.org
Update history
Sept. 16, 2026: Page created.