Yong Chol Ahn

Captain - South Korean Army -3rd Division

1950 - 1956

Korean War

Korea

• A native of Seoul, Korea, Yong Chol Ahn was entering his fourth year at the Seoul National University when the North Koreans invaded South Korean.  Like every young man of his age he joined the South Korean Army.  As a 22 year old, he was quickly sent to frontline to join the 3rd Division in the bitter cold winter of 1950 when the Red Chinese came to the aid of the North Korean Army.  Yong Chol was captured by the Red Chinese and became a POW, later transferred to a North Korean POW camp.  He later managed to escape and fight again for the South Korean Army.  During that escape he spent many weeks in the heavy brush of the mountains enduring many close calls with enemy forces before finally reaching UN Forces where he was reunited with what was left of his Division.
• After the war he joined the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  In 1956 he was sent to study International Law at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.  His first overseas post was in Geneva, Switzerland where he met and married Eleonore Bamberger of Germany.  In addition to Switzerland, Yong Chol served as a diplomat in Rome, Italy, as Consul General (twice) to the United Nations in New York, and Atlanta, then Ambassador to Ghana and Columbia.  In between he served back in Seoul at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Director of the Korean Foreign Service Training Institute.  When he retired in 1993, he and Eleonore moved to Fort Myers.

        He and his wife, Eleonore lived in the Villa Homes at    Lexington.

Yong Chol Ahn passed away at Health Park on March 30, 2008.  His funeral service was on April 4, 2008 at the Church of the Resurrection Of Our Lord with military honors provided by the Lexington Veterans Honor Guard. 

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