Korean War · Captured alive, confirmed in both U.S. and Russian records · Never returned
Status: Carried by DPAA as unaccounted for. Declassified U.S. Army records show he was seen and identified alive in North Korean hands eight days after he went missing, and was reportedly tried and sentenced by North Korea’s Ministry of Social Security. Russian government records, provided separately in the 1990s, corroborate the capture. He was never returned or otherwise accounted for.
The man
Leonard Button was a short but sturdy Baptist from Arkansas, a veteran of World War II. The night he disappeared, mortar fire drove his landing boat back offshore, and the men aboard “could only listen to the small arms fire and grenade explosions from Button’s direction.” (Russian intelligence records give his birthplace as Iowa.)
What is known
1st Lt. Leonard W. Button, U.S. Army, was assigned to the 8240th Army Unit, a U.S. special operations organization that ran partisan and intelligence operations behind enemy lines in North Korea. On the night of May 13-14, 1953 (DPAA gives May 14), he took part in a landing behind enemy lines described as a “highly classified intelligence mission.” The mission was discovered; mortar fire forced the infiltration boat back from shore, and the crew could only listen to small arms fire and grenade explosions coming from Button’s direction. He was soon declared missing in action.
In 1954 an Army general wrote to Button’s family: “Since your son, First Lieutenant Leonard W. Button…was reported missing in action on 13 May 1953, the Department of the Army has entertained the hope that he survived and that information would be received dispelling the uncertainty regarding his absence. However, as in many cases, no information has been received to clarify his status. …In view of the lapse of time without information to support a continued presumption of survival the Department of the Army must terminate such absence by a presumptive finding of death.” The letter closed: “I regret the necessity for this message but hope that the ending of a long period of uncertainty may give at least some small measure of consolation.”
What the Army did not tell the family in 1954 — and, so far as PIP could establish, may never have told them — is that Button was known to have been captured alive on the night of May 13-14, 1953, along with the Korean agents on his mission. Previously Top Secret Army documents, released to PIP under the Freedom of Information Act in May 2015, state: “Lt. Button was seen and identified alive on 21 May 1953 and further was reportedly tried and sentenced by the (North Korean) Ministry of Social Security…” Army intelligence separately listed Button among “US personnel known to have been alive and under communist control in May 1953.”
Button was never returned or accounted for in the prisoner exchanges with North Korea and communist China after the war ended in July 1953. The Pentagon listed him as MIA even though its own Top Secret records showed he had been captured alive, imprisoned and, reportedly, sentenced. DPAA’s current profile states that he was captured and last seen entering a prison near Pyongyang under heavy escort, and carries him as unaccounted for.
During the 1990s the Russian government, drawing on its own records, confirmed Button’s capture to U.S. investigators. The Russian information states he was captured by the “5th Army of North Korea’s counterintelligence organs. He was captured during the period when he went to meet his two agents who [were not] coming back from a mission…”
What remains unresolved
Button’s ultimate fate after his 21 May 1953 sighting and reported trial and sentencing is not established in the material PIP obtained. Whether he died in North Korean custody, was transferred elsewhere, or survived beyond the immediate post-war period is not addressed by the documents cited here.
Why the case matters
Button’s case is one of a small number where both American intelligence records and independently supplied Russian records confirm a Korean War serviceman was captured alive and held by the enemy, while the Pentagon’s public accounting listed him only as missing. DPAA now records his capture in its profile. PIP ties the case to a broader pattern involving the 8240th Army Unit, including the “Ashley Five” (American aviators reported alive in North Korean custody at the end of the war but never returned), two soldiers from related units (Sgt. George Tatarakis and Sgt. 1st Class William Miles) reported captured and sent to the Soviet Union, and the 2013 detention in North Korea of Merrill Newman, an 8240th veteran. PIP’s assessment is that North Korean and Soviet authorities focused on capturing Americans involved in operations behind the lines, and likely retained some of them at war’s end for their intelligence value; this is presented by PIP as its interpretation, not as an established fact.
Evidence and sources
- 1954 letter from an Army general to the Button family, terminating his missing status with a presumptive finding of death (quoted above).
- Previously Top Secret U.S. Army documents released to PIP under FOIA in May 2015, including the “seen and identified alive on 21 May 1953” record and the “US personnel known to have been alive and under communist control in May 1953” listing.
- Task Force Russia (U.S. military) report, cited by PIP as TFR_1993_04, recording Russian government confirmation of Button’s capture, supplied to PIP by researcher John Zimmerlee.
- Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency service member profile, 1st Lt. Leonard Wayne Button.
Request for information
Please contact us if you can help with any of the following.
- Accounts of Button after May 21, 1953, from former North Korean security, prison or court personnel.
- The Russian file behind the 1990s confirmation of his capture, and what it says about where he was held.
- Records of his reported trial and sentence by the North Korean Ministry of Social Security.
Army intelligence recorded him seen and identified alive on May 21, 1953, and reported he was tried and sentenced. Russian records confirmed the capture. Was he executed after the sentence? Was he kept in prison past the Armistice? Or was he handed to the Soviets, whose files knew enough about him to confirm his capture decades later?
Write to contact@powinvestigativeproject.org. We treat every approach in confidence.