Lewis Wayne Griggs

Vocation

American serviceman in the U.S. armed forces who defected in the Korean War. He was one of the twenty-two United Nations soldiers and POWs (one British and 21 Americans) who declined repatriation to the United Kingdom and United States after the Korean War in favour of remaining in China. In China, he was sent to a collective farm with fellow servicemen Otho Grayson Bell and William Cowart. Bell described himself, Cowart and Griggs as "the dummy bunch", saying they were sent to the farm because they could not learn Chinese. They returned to the United States together in July 1955, were arrested, but were released when it was found that the military no longer had jurisdiction over the defectors after they were dishonorably discharged. Later the three soldiers sued for their back pay. The case went to the United States Supreme Court, which held that Bell, Cowart and Griggs were entitled to their back pay from the time they were captured to the time they were dishonorably discharged. Griggs was listed as a senior majoring in sociology at Stephen F. Austin State University, graduating in 1959. He died on 18 May 1984, aged 51. Link to List of American and British defectors in the Korean War