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Remember...Alva Clifford Groves
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Alva Clifford Groves was born at Crown in Logan County, West Virginia, on May 29, 1932, to Alva P. Groves and Alta Opal Hite Groves. He grew up, however, in Monongalia and Marion Counties, where his father was a foreman in the coal mining industry. The large Groves family consisted of seven sisters (Edna [Haseltine], Hildred, Mildred, Audra, Virginia, Ernestine, and Lillian) and two brothers (Alva and Harold). Prior to enlisting in the U.S. Army on September 19, 1949, when he was just 17 years old, Alva had worked at Pitrolo Pontiac in Fairmont.
Corporal Groves was deployed to Korea, assigned to D Company, 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Army Division. The regimental combat team, of which Groves was a member, left Tacoma, Washington, on August 5, 1950, aboard the USNS General Stewart. They were thrown into combat immediately due to the desperate situation of the South Korean (ROK) forces. Specifically, they were intended to defend the city of Pusan, where the UN resistance attempted to keep North Korea from conquering the entire peninsula. Fierce fighting ensued from September through November.
In late November 1950, Alva was captured by North Korean forces. After the end of the war, it was learned that he died while in captivity. In the 1990s, the North Koreans handed over the comingled remains of numerous U.S. servicemen previously listed as MIAs or POWs.
Years of investigation and DNA analysis by the military led to the conclusion that some of those remains were those of Cpl. Groves, and in 2014, Alva was laid to rest in the West Virginia National Cemetery at Pruntytown, providing the family—his sister Lillian and numerous nieces and nephews being the only survivors at this time—with some closure.
| Prior to his burial in the West Virginia National Cemetery, Cpl. Groves was memorialized at the Courts of the Missing, Honolulu Memorial, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. In addition to the Purple Heart, he was awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, the National Defense Medal, the Korean Service Medal, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, the United Nations Service Medal, the Republic of Korea War Service Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge. |  |
For a more detailed biography of Alva Clifford Groves, see the essay written by John Martin McMillan for the West Virginia Humanities Council's National Cemeteries Project, https://wvhumanities.org/wp-content/national_cemeteries/Groves_Alva_Clifford-USA.pdf
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
