Soldier Missing in Action from the Korean War is Identified
April 30, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Cpl. Pastor Balanon Jr., U.S. Army, of San Francisco, Calif. He will be buried May 3 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
Representatives from the Army met with Balanon’s next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.
In late October 1950, Balanon was assigned to L Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Calvary Regiment, then engaging enemy forces south of Unsan, North Korea, near a bend in the Kuryong River known as the Camel’s Head. Chinese communist forces attacked the 8th Regiment’s positions on Nov. 1, 1950, forcing a withdrawal to the south where they were surrounded by the enemy. The remaining survivors in the 3rd Battalion attempted to escape a few days later, but Balanon was declared missing in action on Nov. 2, 1950, in the vicinity of Unsan County.
In 2001, a joint U.S.-North Korean team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated a burial site in Kujang County, south of Unsan County. A North Korean citizen living near the site told the team that the remains were relocated to Kujang after they were discovered elsewhere during a construction project. The battle area was about one kilometer north of the secondary burial site.
Soldier Missing From The Korean War Is Identified
April 27, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Korean War, has been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Cpl. Clarence R. Becker, U.S. Army, of Lancaster, Pa. He was buried April 25 in Indiantown Gap, Pa.
Representatives from the Army met with Becker’s next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.
On Dec. 1, 1950, Becker went missing in action when the convoy of trucks in which he was riding was ambushed south of Kunuri, North Korea. He was captured and taken prisoner. U.S. servicemen who were held in captivity with Becker said he died in the North Korean Pyoktong POW Camp 5 around May 1951 from malnutrition and disease. He was buried near the camp.
Following the Armistice, the Chinese Army exhumed remains from several POW camp cemeteries and repatriated them in 1954 to the United Nations forces during Operation Glory. Becker’s remains could not be identified at the time and were subsequently buried as unknown remains at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific—the Punch Bowl—in Hawaii.
In 2005, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) reexamined Korean War-era documents relating to unknowns buried at the Punch Bowl, which suggested that some of these remains might be identifiable. Later that year, JPAC exhumed a grave there believed to be associated with Becker.
Among other traditional forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the JPAC also used dental comparisons in Becker’s identification.
Airmen Missing In Action From Vietnam War Are Identified
April 24, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Col. Norman D. Eaton, of Weatherford, Okla., and Lt. Col. Paul E. Getchell, of Portland, Maine, both U.S. Air Force. Eaton will be buried April 25 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., and Getchell will be buried later this spring at Arlington.
On Jan. 13, 1969, Eaton and Getchell crewed a B-57B Canberra bomber participating in a nighttime attack on targets in Salavan Province, Laos. The target area was illuminated by flares from a C-130 aircraft; however, the flares dimmed as the B-57 began its third bombing run on the target. The crew was low on fuel, but decided to continue the attack run without illumination. The C-130 crew received a radio transmission indicating that the B-57 was off target and seconds later, the plane crashed. Eaton and Getchell could not be recovered at the time of the incident.
In 1995, a joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), investigated the incident and interviewed a Laotian citizen who recalled the crash. Another joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. team surveyed the site and found wreckage and crew-related materials consistent with the citizen’s report.
In 2003, a joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. team excavated the crash site and recovered Eaton’s identification tag. The team was unable to complete the recovery and subsequent teams re-visited the site five more times between 2004 and 2005 before the recovery was complete. As a result, the teams found Getchell’s identification tag, human remains and additional crew-related items.
Ten Missing WWII Airmen are Identified
April 09, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of ten U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are 2nd Lt. Raymond A. Cooley, of Leary, Texas; 2nd Lt. Dudley R. Ives, of Ingleside, Texas; 2nd Lt. George E. Archer, of Cushing, Okla.; 2nd Lt. Donald F. Grady, of Harrisburg, Pa.; Tech. Sgt. Richard R. Sargent, of North Girard, Pa.; Tech. Sgt. Steve Zayac, of Cleveland, Ohio; Staff Sgt. Joseph M. King, of Detroit, Mich.; Staff Sgt. Thomas G. Knight, of Brookfield, Ill.; Staff Sgt. Norman L. Nell, of Tarkio, Mo.; and Staff Sgt. Blair W. Smith, of Nu Mine, Pa.; all U.S. Army Air Forces. The dates and locations of the funerals are being set by their families.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.
On April 16, 1944, a B-24 Liberator crewed by these airmen was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia. The aircraft was altering course due to bad weather and was proceeding to the aerodrome at Saidor, but it never returned to friendly lines.
In late 2001, the U.S. Embassy in Papua New Guinea notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command that wreckage of a World War II bomber had been found in Morobe Province. Early the next year, a JPAC team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage and remains. They also collected more remains and Grady’s identification tag from local villagers who had found the items at the crash site.
Later in 2002, a JPAC team began excavating the crash site and recovered remains and crew-related items, including identification tags for Knight and Smith. The team was unable to complete the recovery, and another JPAC team re-visited the site two weeks later to complete the excavation. The team found additional remains and identification tags for Sargent and King.
Soldier Missing in Action from the Korean War is Identified
February 16, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is U.S. Army Cpl. Jimmie L. Dorser of Springfield, Mo. He will be buried tomorrow in Lake Forest, Calif.
Representatives from the Army met with Dorser’s next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process, and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.
Dorser was a member of I Company, 3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (organized into the 31st Regimental Combat Team). The RCT was engaged against the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces along the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea from Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 1950. The unit was forced to retreat to the south and many men were reported missing in action under the intense enemy fire.
In 2002, a joint U.S. and Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, excavated a mass grave on the eastern side of the Chosin Reservoir. The remains of five individuals were recovered.
Navy Aviator Missing In Action From the Vietnam War Identified
January 29, 2007
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Navy Cmdr. Peter Mongilardi Jr., of Haledon, N.J. He will be buried on April 11 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C.
On June 25, 1965, Mongilardi departed the USS Coral Seain his A-4C Skyhawk on an armed reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam. His flight encountered bad weather and enemy fire over Thanh Hoa Province, causing the wingman to lose visual and radio contact with Mongilardi. Contact was never re-established and the aircraft failed to return to the carrier.
In 1993, a joint U.S.-Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) archival team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), obtained information concerning the crash while researching documents, artifacts and photographs at the Central Army Museum in Hanoi. Later that year, another joint U.S./S.R.V. team conducted an investigation in Thanh Hoa Province. The team interviewed two local Vietnamese citizens who recalled the crash and said the pilot died in the impact. The men then led the team to the crash site.
In 1994, another joint team excavated the crash site and recovered human remains and pilot-related items, including a belt tip, boot heel, pieces of flight boot and other items worn by the pilot.
Soldiers Missing in Action from Vietnam War are Identified
December 22, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Maj. Frederick J. Ransbottom, of Oklahoma City, Okla.; and Staff Sgt. William E. Skivington Jr.; of Las Vegas, Nev.; both U.S. Army. Ransbottom will be buried in Edmond, Okla. on Jan. 13, and Skivington will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men to explain the recovery and identification process, and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.
On May 12, 1968, North Vietnamese forces overran the Kham Duc Special Forces camp and its surrounding observation posts in Quang Nam-Da Nang Province (formerly Quang Tin Province), South Vietnam. Ransbottom and Skivington were two of the 17 U.S. servicemen unaccounted-for after the survivors evacuated the camp. Search and recovery efforts at the site in 1970 succeeded in recovering remains of five of the 17 men. A sixth man was returned alive during Operation Homecoming in 1973 after having been captured and held prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese.
Between 1993 and 2006, joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted eight investigations and four excavations in the vicinity of the camp site. The team interviewed former North Vietnamese officers and soldiers who participated in the battle. Some recalled seeing the bodies of U.S. servicemen near one of the observation posts, and U.S. eyewitness accounts placed Ransbottom and Skivington near the post.
During an excavation conducted in 1998, two U.S. servicemen who survived the battle accompanied JPAC to help locate the observation posts, but found no evidence of human remains. Later excavations conducted in the area yielded human remains, identification media and personal effects for Ransbottom, Skivington and several other soldiers.
Soldiers Missing In Action From Vietnam War are Identified
December 19, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Capt. Herbert C. Crosby, of Donalsonville, Ga.; Sgt. 1st Class Wayne C. Allen, of Tewksbury, Mass.; and Sgt. 1st Class Francis G. Graziosi, of Rochester, N.Y.; all U.S. Army. Burial dates and locations are being set by their families.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men to explain the recovery and identification process, and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.
On Jan. 10, 1970, these men were returning to their base at Chu Lai, South Vietnam aboard a UH-1C Huey helicopter. Due to bad weather, their helicopter went down over Quang Nam Province. A search was initiated for the crew, but no sign of the helicopter or crew was spotted.
In 1989, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) gave to U.S. specialists 25 boxes containing the remains of the U.S. servicemen related to this incident. Later that year, additional remains and Crosby’s identification tag were obtained from a Vietnamese refugee.
Between 1993 and 1999, joint U.S./S.R.V. teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted three investigations in Ho Chi Minh City and two investigations in Quang Nam-Da Nang Province (formerly Quang Nam Province). A Vietnamese informant in Ho Chi Minh City told the team he knew where the remains of as many as nine American servicemen were buried. He agreed to lead the team to the burial site. In 1994, the team excavated the site and recovered a metal box and several bags containing human remains, including those of these three soldiers.
Soldiers Missing in Action from the Korean War Are Identified
December 01, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of eight U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Master Sgt. Alfred H. Alonzo Sr., of Tampa, Fla.; Sgt. 1st Class Robert C. Bucheit, of Hamilton, Ohio; Sgt. Francis E. Lindsay, of Esther, Mo.; Cpl. Joseph Gregori, of West Pittston, Pa.; Cpl. Darrell W. Scarbrough, of Fayetteville, W.Va.; Cpl. Homer L. Sisk Jr., of Ducor, Calif.; Cpl. Charles E. Sizemore, of Rushville, Ind.; and Cpl. William E. Wood, of Moorhead, Minn.; all U.S. Army. Gregori was buried in August; Bucheit was buried in September; Scarbrough, Sisk and Sizemore were buried in October; Alonzo was buried in November; and Lindsay and Wood’s burial dates are being set by their families.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.
The soldiers were assigned to the U.S. 8th Cavalry Regiment and attached units (1st Cavalry Division), when their unit came under attack by Chinese forces near Unsan, North Korea on the night of Nov. 1-2, 1950. During the battle, these eight and nearly 400 others from the 8th Cavalry Regiment were declared missing or killed in action.
In 2000, a joint U.S. and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), interviewed a farmer living in the vicinity of Unsan who told the team that while doing land reclamation work, he uncovered remains he believed were those of U.S. soldiers.
The team excavated the burial site and uncovered the remains of at least 10 different individuals. They also recovered other items and identification tags belonging to these eight men.
Soldier Missing in Action from the Korean War is Identified
November 28, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Master Sgt. Robert V. Layton, U.S. Army, of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is to be buried today at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C.
Layton was assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division (making up the 31st Regimental Combat Team). The RCT was engaged against the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces along the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. After intense fighting from Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 1950, the battalion was forced to abandon its position, leaving its dead behind. Layton was listed as missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950, and was later presumed killed in action.
Between 2002 and 2004, joint U.S. and Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, seven times excavated a mass burial site associated with the 31st RCT along the eastern shore of the Chosin Reservoir. The team found human remains and other material evidence, including Layton’s identification tag and part of his billfold containing a newspaper clipping reporting on a Bronze Star being awarded to “Sgt. Robert Layton” circa 1944.
Soldier Missing in Action from the Korean War is Identified
November 22, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Pfc. Charles H. Long, U.S. Army, of Durand, Ill. He will be buried Nov. 25 in Durand.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.
On March 24, 1953, Long was one of four men from L Company,3rd Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, who was declared missing in action after engaging enemy forces north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on what came to be known as Pork Chop Hill. The bodies of two of the MIAs were recovered and a third MIA was returned alive during Operation Big Switch after having been captured by Chinese Communist Forces. Long remained unaccounted-for, and was eventually declared dead on March 24, 1954.
In 1993, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) gave United Nations officials 33 boxes with human remains of alleged U.S. servicemen who were unaccounted-for. The DPRK recovered the remains near Komsa-ri in Kangwon Province, which was near Long’s last known location. Also included in one of the boxes were Long’s social security and identification cards along with identification tags.
Air Force Pilot Missing in Action from Vietnam War is Identified
November 09, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Air Force officer missing in action from the Vietnam War have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Col. Charles J. Scharf of San Diego. His funeral is scheduled for Nov. 30 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C.
Col Scharf and a fellow crew member took off in their F-4C Phantom IIs from Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand on October 1, 1965. Their mission was to attack an enemy concentration and a major highway in North Vietnam. After the lead aircraft developed problems en route, Scharf assumed the lead of the two other F-4s in the flight. After he completed two bombing runs, Scharf’s aircraft was hit by enemy fire. His radio transmission of “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday” was heard by the other two aircraft. One radioed “Gator 3 (Scharf’s call sign), you’re on fire, you’d better get out! Bail out, Gator 3!” Scharf’s plane began to disintegrate and a parachute was seen leaving the aircraft.
The other two aircraft lost sight of the parachute, and circled the area for about 10 minutes where Scharf’s aircraft had crashed and burned but no radio or visual contact was made then nor in subsequent aerial search and rescue operations.
In January 1990, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) provided information to U.S. officials indicating two men were buried near their crash site, but that one had been washed away during flooding. Within a month, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), interviewed three witnesses to the crash and located scattered wreckage at the site. The 1992 excavation of that site yielded human remains, a dental prosthesis, numerous personal effects including the rank insignia of Scharf’s fellow crewman. A second joint excavation in 1993 recovered additional artifacts, but no remains.
A third excavation in 2004 recovered additional evidence including pilot-related life-support artifacts, a metal captain’s insignia (Scharf’s rank at the time) and a plastic denture tooth.
Missing World War II Airmen Identified
November 08, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are 1st Lt. Robert H. Miller, of Providence, R.I.; 2nd Lt. Robert L. Hale, of Newtonville, Mass.; Staff Sgt. Joseph A. Berube, of Fall River, Mass.; and Staff Sgt. Glendon E. Harris, of North Monmouth, Maine; all U.S. Army Air Forces. Miller, Hale and Berube were buried last month and Harris’ burial is being set by his family.
On Oct. 24, 1943, a B-25D-1 Mitchell bomber crewed by these airmen departed Oro Bay Airfield in New Guinea on a bombing run of enemy targets in Rabaul. As the aircraft neared its target, it was attacked by Japanese fighter aircraft. Crewmen from other aircraft said they saw the B-25 crash near a plantation at Kabanga Point. There were no survivors.
In 1946 and 1947, Australian War Graves search teams recovered some of the crew’s remains from the crash site. Identifications were not possible at the time and the remains were ultimately buried at the Manila American Military Cemetery in the Philippines.
From 1999-2000, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) led a joint U.S. and Papua New Guinea (P.N.G.) investigation and excavation of a WWII-era crash site in East New Britain Province. One joint team interviewed individuals having information on the crash, including an eyewitness who said he saw the B-25 crash near his village. Another individual found and buried human remains at the crash site in the mid 1990s. The team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage, human remains and personal effects. A second joint team excavated the site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related artifacts from the wreckage field.
In 2004, an anthropologist from JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) exhumed the graves at the Manila American Military Cemetery where he recovered the remains buried there in the 1940s.
Marine Missing in Action from Vietnam War is Identified
November 02, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Pfc. James E. Widener, U.S. Marine Corps, of Churchville, N.Y. He will be buried Nov. 10, at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
On June 11, 1967, Widener was one of 11 passengers on board a CH-46A Sea Knight helicopter that was inserting ground forces into Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, when the aircraft crashed. Pilots from two nearby helicopters saw the crash and reported that none of the men on board could have survived. Aircraft flew over the site for several hours, but aircrew members did not observe any survivors. A patrol was sent the next day to confirm the status of the 11 crewmembers, but the site could not be accessed due to enemy forces in the area. Later that month, enemy activity prevented a second attempt to patrol the site.
Between 1993 and 1994, U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted two surveys of an area that was believed to be Widener’s crash site. The teams also interviewed several Vietnamese citizens who recalled the crash. Two of the citizens claimed to have seen bone fragments while scavenging the site years earlier. When the teams visited the purported crash site, they found small pieces of wreckage, but found no human remains.
In May 2005, Vietnamese officials notified U.S. specialists that possible human remains were present at a district security compound in Quang Tri province. The Vietnamese claimed to have confiscated the remains and other items, including Widener’s identification tag, from a Vietnamese local in 1996. The remains were then buried in the security compound, but the ID tag and other material evidence had supposedly been lost over the years. Later that month, a U.S./S.R.V. team excavated the burial site in the security compound and recovered a box containing human remains.
Airman Missing in Action from Vietnam War is Identified
October 26, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Maj. Charles L. Bifolchi, U.S. Air Force, of Quincy, Mass. He will be buried on Oct. 27 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
On Jan. 8, 1968, Bifolchi and a fellow crewmember were flying an armed reconnaissance mission against enemy targets in Kon Tum Province, South Vietnam, when their RF-4C aircraft disappeared. A U.S. Army helicopter crew found their aircraft wreckage soon after first light the next day. Search efforts continued for four days; however, enemy activity in the area, combined with the steep terrain and high winds at the crash site, precluded the recovery of the crewmen.
Between 1993 and 2000, U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted two surveys of an area that was believed to be Bifolchi’s crash site. One team interviewed two Vietnamese citizens who turned over human remains they claimed to have recovered at the site. Another team found wreckage consistent with Bifolchi’s aircraft.
Soldier Missing in Action from the Korean War is Identified
October 20, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Pfc. Francis Crater Jr., U.S. Army’s 32nd Infantry Regiment, of Barberton, Ohio. He will be buried Oct. 21 in Akron, Ohio.
From Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 1950, the U.S. Army’s 31st Regimental Combat Team, to which Crater’s regiment was temporarily assigned, fought elements of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces in the Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. After intense fighting, the 1/32 Infantry was forced to abandon its position, leaving its dead behind. Regimental records compiled after the battle indicate that Crater was killed in action on Nov. 28, 1950.
Between 2002 and 2003, two joint U.S.-Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated two, adjacent mass graves on the eastern shore of the Chosin Reservoir believed to be burial sites of U.S. soldiers from the 31st RCT. The team found human remains for eight individuals and other material evidence, including Crater’s identification tags.
Air Force Pilot Missing in Action From Vietnam War is Identified
October 12, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is 1st Lt. James L. Hull, U.S. Air Force, of Lubbock, Texas. He will be buried Nov. 13 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
On Feb. 19, 1971, Hull and a fellow crew member were flying a mission near the Laos/Vietnam border when their O-2A Skymaster crashed. Both men died, but Hull’s body was buried in the wreckage and could not be recovered because of hostile enemy action.
Between 1993 and 1997, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) led three investigations with U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, and one trilateral investigation with a Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team. During the first investigation, the team interviewed a Vietnamese citizen who produced human remains and an identification tag for Hull that he claimed to have recovered from a crash site located just inside Laos. The joint team was not allowed to cross the border and the investigation was suspended. The Vietnamese turned over the bone fragment to U.S. officials, but the ID tag’s whereabouts are still unknown.
Additional investigations yielded some information concerning a crash site located just inside the Laotian border. The S.R.V. allowed a Vietnamese national to walk to the purported crash site and collect a fragment of the wreckage. Based on the location, type of aircraft and retrieved wreckage, analysts determined it was Hull’s crash site.
In May 2006, a joint U.S. and L.P.D.R. team excavated the site where they recovered additional evidence and human remains.
Missing WWII Airmen is Identified
October 09, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is 1st Lt. Shannon E. Estill, U.S. Army Air Forces, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He will be buried on October 10 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
On April 13, 1945, Estill’s P-38J Lightning was struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire while attacking targets in eastern Germany. Another U.S. pilot reported seeing Estill’s aircraft explode and crash. Because the location of the crash site was within the Russian-controlled sector of occupied Germany, U.S. military personnel could not recover Estill’s remains after the war.
In 2003, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) investigated a crash site near the town of Elsnig in eastern Germany. The site had been reported by two German nationals whose hobby is finding the location of World War II crash sites. They also claimed to have found remains at the site, which they turned over to U.S. Army officials. The team surveyed the site and interviewed two more men who witnessed the crash as children.
In 2005, another JPAC team excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains as well as P-38 wreckage. Included in the recovered wreckage was an aircraft data plate from Estill’s plane.
First Identification of U.S. Soldier Missing in Action from World War I
September 22, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War I, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
This is the first time the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) has identified a soldier unaccounted for from World War I.
He is Army Pvt. Francis Lupo of Cincinnati, Ohio. He will be buried on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
Representatives from the Army met with Lupo’s next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army. In 1918, Lupo participated in the combined French-American attack on the Germans near Soissons, France, in what came to be known as the Second Battle of the Marne. Despite heavy Allied losses, this battle has been regarded as a turning point in the war, halting and reversing the final German advances toward Paris. Lupo, a member of Company E, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, was killed in action during the battle, but his remains were never recovered.
In 2003, while conducting a survey in preparation for a construction project, a French archaeological team discovered human remains and other items a short distance from Soissons. Among the items recovered were a military boot fragment and a wallet bearing Lupo’s name. The items were given by the French to U.S. officials for analysis.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Lupo’s remains.
Navy Aviator Missing In Action From Vietnam War is Identified
September 21, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced yesterday that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Lt. Cmdr. James E. Plowman, U.S. Navy, of Pebble Beach, Calif. He was buried yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington D.C.
On March 24, 1967, Plowman and a fellow officer departed the USS Kitty Hawk in their A-6A Intruder on a night strike mission of an enemy target in North Vietnam. Radar contact with their aircraft was lost over the Ha Bac Province as they were departing the target area. A pilot from another aircraft reported two missile warnings on his radar screen immediately before contact was lost with Plowman’s aircraft.
Between 1993 and 1996, joint U.S.-Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted three investigations in the province. The team interviewed two local villagers who saw the 1967 crash, and both men recalled seeing human remains at the site. The team also surveyed the purported crash site and found several small fragments of aircraft wreckage.
In 1996, another joint U.S./S.R.V. team excavated the suspected crash site. The team found human remains from amid the scattered wreckage. The team was also handed some remains by a local villager who claimed to have recovered it while scavenging the crater for metal.
Airman Missing in Action From the Vietnam War is Identified
September 08, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Air Force Maj. Burke H. Morgan, U.S. Air Force, of Manitou Springs, Colo., was buried Sept. 7 beside his wife, Mary, at the U.S. Air Force Academy. The service there coincided with his U.S. Air Force Academy graduating class’ 45th reunion.
On Aug. 22, 1967, Morgan and a fellow officer took off from Nakhon Phanom air base, Thailand, in their A-26A Invader on an armed reconnaissance mission over Laos. The crew had radio contact on their mission shortly after midnight, but were neither seen nor heard from again. Electronic and visual searches of their last-reported location in Xiangkhoang Province, as well as over the planned flight path, did not locate the missing aircraft.
A joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic team traveled to the province in 1993 to interview three informants about various crash sites. The men recalled the 1967 crash, as well as the burial of the crew members. They also stated that one of the bodies was disinterred by unknown persons in 1986.
Four years later, another joint U.S.-Lao team resurveyed the original crash site, and requested that the Lao government conduct a unilateral investigation. The Lao government was able to confirm that some remains were exhumed in the mid-1980s, and promised to continue its investigation.
Then in 2002, Lao government officials reported that the remains had been turned over to a Lao official in 1987 or 1988, but that the official had since died. His driver, however, had possession of those remains and had been holding them in safekeeping awaiting directions from authorities.
Scientists of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command were able to identify those remains using a variety of forensic methods, including analysis of skeletal and dental remains.
Missing World War II Airmen Identified
August 23, 2006
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) today announced three airmen missing in action from World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are 2nd Lt. David J. Nelson, Chicago, Ill.; Tech. Sgt. Henry F. Kortebein, Maspeth, N.Y.; and Tech. Sgt. Blake A. Treece Jr., Marshall, Ark., all U.S. Army Air Forces. These men are to be buried along with group remains of their aircrew at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns on behalf of the Secretary of the Army to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors.
On August 8, 1944, Nelson, Kortebein and Treece departed an allied air base in England in their B-17G Flying Fortress with six other crewmen aboard. Their mission was to bomb enemy targets near Caen, France. The aircraft was seen to explode and crash after being struck by enemy flak near the village of Lonlay l’Abbaye, south of Caen. The other six members of the crew were 1st Lt. Jack R. Thompson; 2nd Lts. Charles Bacigalupa and Charles Sherrill; and Sgts. Richard R. Collins, Gerald F. Gillies and Warren D. Godsey. The hometowns of these six are not available.
German forces and French villagers living near the crash site recovered some of the remains of the crew and buried them nearby. Advancing U.S. forces found additional remains. Six of the nine crewmen ultimately were identified, but Nelson, Kortebein and Treece remained unaccounted for.
In August 2002, a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) operating in Luxembourg was informed that a local French aircraft wreckage hunting group (Association Normande du Souvenir Aerien 39/45) had located a crash site near Lonlay l’Abbaye. The JPAC team surveyed the site, excavated it in July 2004 and recovered human remains, personal effects and crew-related materials from amid the wreckage. Also found were six unexploded 250-pound bombs.
Later that year, a French explosive ordnance disposal team turned over a bone fragment to the U. S. Defense Attaché in Paris. It was found by French technicians working to secure the site where the bombs had been found.
Soldier Missing in Action From the Korean War is Identified
August 10, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Cpl. Edward F. Blazejewski, U.S. Army, of Elizabeth, N.J. He is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on Friday.
Blazejewski was assigned to Medical Company, 8th Cavalry Regiment, when his unit came under heavy artillery attack by Chinese forces near Unsan, North Korea, on Nov. 1, 1950. During the attack, Cpl. Blazejewski and other soldiers killed in action were left behind when their unit moved to a previous defensive position. A U.S. soldier who had been held as a prisoner of war by the North Koreans told debriefers that Blazejewski and others had been killed by a grenade explosion.
In August 1997, a joint U.S.-North Korean team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated a site in Pyongan Province believed to contain the remains of several U.S. soldiers. Remains representing four men were recovered, as well as an identification tag and a denture, neither of which were associated with Blazejewski.
The other three soldiers were identified and buried in 2000. Buried at Arlington were Sgt. James T. Higgins, Benham, Ky.; and Pfc. John L. Hoey, Philadelphia, Pa. Sgt. Andrew Ernandis, Brooklyn, N.Y., was buried in Hicksville, N.Y. Group remains representing all four soldiers will also be buried Friday at Arlington.
Among other forensic identification tools, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Blazejewski’s remains, matching a DNA sequence from a maternal relative.
Missing WWII Marine is Identified
August 08, 2006
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that a U.S. Marine missing in action from World War II has been identified and is being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Sgt. John H. Branic, U.S. Marine Corps, of Madera, Pa. He is to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.
Branic was a platoon leader for L Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division on Aug. 19, 1942, when a Japanese force overran his defensive position on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. During the attack, Branic was killed, but the Marines of L Company counterattacked and succeeded in driving the Japanese back. The location of Branic’s remains was not reported to headquarters, as the L Company executive officer was also killed.
In February 1992, the U.S. Embassy, Solomon Islands, reported to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) that remains believed to be those of an American had been recovered at a construction site on Guadalcanal. JPAC took possession of those remains the following month, and excavated the site where they found additional remains. In the same general area, they found World War II-era ammunition, but no additional remains.
In 2004, an American researcher with the First Marine Division association reported to JPAC that a Solomon Islander had possession of a ring with the inscription “JHB” on the inside. The ring was found at the initial burial site.
Missing WWII Airmen Identified
July 18, 2006
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that nine servicemen missing in action from World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are 1st Lt. William M. Hafner, Norfolk, Va.; 2nd Lt. Arthur C. Armacost, III, Cincinnati, Ohio; 2nd Lt. David R. Eppright, Warrensburg, Mo.; 2nd Lt. Charles F. Feucht, Reynoldsburg, Ohio; Technical Sgt. Raymond S. Cisneros, San Antonio, Texas; Technical Sgt. Alfred W. Hill, Temple, Okla.; Technical Sgt. James G. Lascelles, New York, N.Y.; Staff Sgt. William C. Cameron, Los Angeles, Calif.; and Staff Sgt. Wilburn W. Rozzell, Duncan, Okla. All were members of the 63rd Bombardment Squadron, 43 Bombardment Group.
The individually-identified remains of Armacost, Cameron, Hafner and Lascelles will be buried July 19 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. as are the group remains representing all nine crewmen. Cisneros, Rozzell, Feucht, Eppright and Hill were buried elsewhere.
On November 4, 1943 Hafner and his crew took off in a B-24 Liberator from Dobodura, Territory of New Guinea. The men were on an armed reconnaissance mission over the Bismark Sea. A few hours into the flight Hafner sighted a convoy of Japanese ships and was told to shadow the convoy and report back. Four hours later the crew radioed from the B-24 that they had made three direct hits on the convoy and destroyed the target. That was the last radio contact with the crew. In March 2002 a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) was contacted by a local government official through the U.S. Embassy. The team was exploring unrelated WW II aircraft crash sites in Papua New Guinea. The official turned over aircraft data plates, human remains and three ID tags which had been found at a crash site in Morobe Province.
During the excavation of the site in Aug.-Sept. 2003, the team recovered additional remains and personal effects including identification tags and bracelets. The remains were submitted to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL). Specialists at JPAC and AFDIL used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains of these servicemen. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identification.
Missing World War II Airmen are Identified
June 27, 2006
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that nine airmen missing in action from World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The nine are 2nd Lt. Hugh L. Johnson Jr., Montgomery, Ala.; 2nd Lt. Byron L. Stenen, Northridge, Calif.; 2nd Lt. John F. Green, Watertown, N.Y.; 2nd Lt. John M. Meisner, Pembroke, Mass.; Staff Sgt. Walter Knudsen, Sioux City, Iowa; Cpl. John A. DeCarlo, Newark, N.J.; Cpl. Robert E. Raney, Monon, Ind.; Cpl. William G. Mohr, Mt. Wolf, Pa.; and Cpl. Michael J. Pushkar, Mahanoy City, Pa. All were assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces.
The individually identified remains of Stenen, Green, Meisner, Mohr and Pushkar, as well as the group remains representing all nine crewmen, are being buried today at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. Johnson, Knudsen and Raney will be buried elsewhere.
On the morning of Oct. 9, 1944, the crew took off on a training mission from Nadzab, New Guinea, in their B-24D Liberator. The aircraft was not seen again, and it was speculated that it had encountered bad weather.
In early 2002, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Port Moresby reported the discovery of two dog tags by villagers from a World War II crash site in Morobe Province. Specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) traveled to Papua, New Guinea, in November 2002 to investigate several World War II aircraft losses. The team interviewed the two villagers who gave them the dog tags, then surveyed the site where aircraft wreckage and human remains were found.
A joint team of JPAC and Papua, New Guinea specialists mounted a full-scale excavation at the site January through February 2003, when they recovered additional human remains and crew-related artifacts from the wreckage field. JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identification.
Airman Missing from Vietnam War is Identified
June 22, 2006
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that a U.S. Air Force officer missing in action from the Vietnam War has been identified and is being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Maj. John F. Conlon III, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. His funeral is tentatively scheduled for Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., in the fall.
On March 4, 1966 Conlon and another crewmember took off from Qui Nhon Air Field, Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam, in their O-1E Bird Dog light observation aircraft. They were on a visual reconnaissance mission to Cheo Reo, an airstrip approximately 60 miles southwest of Qui Nhon. The last radio contact with the crew was with a U.S. Special Forces Camp about 30 minutes after take-off. The crew reported the aircraft’s position but made no mention of problems. When the aircraft failed to arrive at Cheo Reo, a search and rescue effort was initiated, but failed to find the aircraft or crew after six days of searching.
Between May of 1993 and August of 2005 teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted six investigations in the Binh Dinh Province. They developed leads which took them to a site which was later scheduled for excavation.
In February of 2006 a joint JPAC-Vietnamese team excavated that site and found aircraft debris, personal effects, human remains and a dog tag that related to Conlon’s crew. JPAC scientists used Conlon’s dental records to confirm his identity from those remains excavated at the site.
Missing WWII Servicemen are Identified
June 8, 2006
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel (DPMO) announced today that three servicemen missing in action from World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The three are 2nd Lt. Robert H. Cameron of Elkhart, Ind.; Cpl. George E. Cunningham of Rich Hill, N.Y., all U.S. Army Air Forces; and Capt. Vladimir M. Sasko, Chicago, U.S. Army Medical Corps. Cameron will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., on Friday. Sasko was buried in December in Chicago, and final arrangements for Cunningham have yet to be confirmed.
On Dec. 10, 1944, a C-47 crewed by Cameron and Cunningham took off from Dobudura, New Guinea, on a cargo flight to Hollandia with three passengers aboard, including Sasko. Forty minutes into the flight the crew radioed a request for weather information. Another pilot in the area replied that the weather was bad, saying he was headed out to sea to avoid it. After that, there was no further contact with the Cameron crew. Search teams in the area from the Royal Australian Air Force were unsuccessful in finding the crash site.
In 1979 and 1980, search and recovery teams from the U.S. Army’s Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI) found the site and recovered remains subsequently identified by CILHI scientists as those of 2nd Lt. Stanley D. Campbell of Pioche, Nev., and Cpl. Carl A. Drain, hometown unknown.
In October and November 2004 a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) – CILHI’s successor organization – excavated the site in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea, where they recovered human remains and personal effects of the remaining airmen.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed their identification
Soldier MIA from the Korean War is Identified
May 12, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is U.S. Army Corporal Henry D. Connell of Springfield, Mass. He will be buried in his hometown on Saturday.
Connell was assigned to Company L, 8th Cavalry Regiment, when his unit engaged North Korean forces near Taegu, South Korea, in September 1950. He sustained injuries from a fall while evacuating wounded soldiers from the battlefield. Connell was sent to a military hospital in Japan, from which he was later reported – erroneously – to be absent without leave.
An investigation proved that Connell had returned to his unit, now battling Communist Chinese forces in North Korea in early November 1950 near Unsan, about 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang. He had been reported missing in action from that battle.
Between 1991-94, North Korea turned 208 boxes of remains believed to contain the remains of 200-400 U.S. servicemen. One of those boxes, received on July 12, 1993, contained two dog tags for Connell, as well as human remains. The accompanying North Korean documents indicated the remains had been exhumed in Unsan County.
Over the next several years, forensic anthropologists at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, were able to determine that the box contained the remains of at least four individuals. Some of those remains represented a 14-18-year-old male who stood approximately 70 inches tall at the time of his death. Korean War medical records indicated that Connell was 17 years, 9 months of age, and stood 69.5 inches tall.
Among several forensic identification tools, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) also used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools in the identification of Connell’s remains, matching a DNA sequence from a maternal relative.
Navy Airmen Missing in Action from World War II are Identified
May 9, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of seven U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors. They are Ensign Leland L. Davis, Jackson, Miss.; Ensign Robert F. Keller, Wichita, Kan.; Seaman 2nd Class Elwin Alford, Bogalusa, La.; Seaman 2nd Class Dee Hall, Syria, Okla.; Aviation Machinist Mate John H. Hathaway, Lafayette, Ind.; Aviation Radioman 2nd Class Robert A. Smith, Glen Dive, Mont.; and Aviation Pilot 3rd Class Albert J. Gyorfi, Wilbur, Wash.; all Navy.
The group remains of all seven are to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, as are the individually identified remains of Davis, Alford and Hathaway. Hall has already been buried in Oklahoma, and the families are setting individual burials for the others.
The seven-man crew was aboard a U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina that took off from Kodiak Island, Alaska, on June 14, 1942, to attack Japanese targets in Kiska Harbor.
They encountered inclement weather near the target, as well as heavy Japanese anti-aircraft fire. Their plane crashed on the Japanese-held island of Kiska with all seven aboard.
In August 1943, the U.S. retook Kiska Island from the Japanese. Wreckage of the PBY-5 was found on the side of Kiska Volcano. The remains of the crew were buried in a common grave marked “Seven U.S.N. Airmen” with a wooden marker. Following the war, attempts to locate the common grave were unsuccessful and the remains of all seven were declared to be non-recoverable.
In 2002, a wildlife biologist notified DPMO that he had found the wreckage of a World War II aircraft on the slope of Kiska Volcano. Using that information, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the crash site in August 2003 where they found debris from the PBY-5 as well as crew-related items. The JPAC team also located the wooden marker as well as the remains buried nearby. Subsequent JPAC laboratory analysis led to the individual identifications of all seven crewmembers.
Missing WWII Airmen are Identified
May 8, 2006
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel (DPMO) announced today that two members of a four-man Army Air Forces crew missing in action from World War II have been identified, and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The four are pilot Capt. Douglas R. Wight of Westfield, N.J.; co-pilot 1st Lt. Herbert W. Evans of Rapid City S.D.; crew chief Cpl. John W. Hanlon of Arnett, Okla.; and radio operator Pfc. Gerald L. Rugers, Jr., of Tacoma, Wash. Evans and Rugers were individually identified, while group remains of all four will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, May 9.
On March 27, 1944, a C-46 crewed by these four airmen departed a base in Kunming, China, on route to Sookerating, India, as part of the massive allied resupply missions over the Himalayan Mountains, referred to as the “Hump.” En route one of the crewmen called out for a bearing, suggesting the aircraft was lost. There was no further communication with the crew. The aircraft never reached its destination, and searches during and following World War II failed to locate the crash site.
Officials from the People’s Republic of China notified the U.S. in early 2001 that the wreckage of an American WWII aircraft had been found on Meiduobai Mountain in a remote area of Tibet. The following year, a joint U.S.-P.R.C. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated the site where they found human remains, aircraft debris and personal items related to the crew.
Air Force Sergeants MIA from Vietnam War Identified
May 1, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/ Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified.
They are Tech. Sgt. Donald R. Hoskins, Madison, Ind. and Staff Sgt. Calvin C. Cooke, Washington, D.C. A third person from the crew, Maj. Harry A. Amesbury, has been previously identified. The funeral for Cooke will be at Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington D.C. on June 20, with full military honors.
On April 26, 1972, Amesbury was piloting a C-130E Hercules to An Loc City, South Vietnam for an emergency resupply mission. Hoskins and Cooke were among those aboard the aircraft when it was hit by enemy fire and crashed. Enemy activity prevented any recovery attempts until three years later in 1975 when a Vietnamese search team recovered artifacts and remains that were later identified as belonging to another crewman.
In 1988, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) confiscated remains from a Vietnamese national in Ho Chi Minh City and returned them to the U.S. custody. The Vietnamese attributed the remains to Cooke.
In April 1989, a Vietnamese woman living in Thailand told U.S. interviewers that she witnessed the crash of a C-130 in 1972 near An Loc City. She was a schoolteacher at the time of the incident but moved due to hostilities in the area. She told interviewers that two of her former students found the complete remains of one of the crewmen, a uniform, identification tags and other items they were keeping at one of their homes. The students gave her a bone fragment and information from the identification tag of Amesbury, both of which she turned over to the interviewers.
The S.R.V. repatriated additional remains to the United States in June 1989, and January and November of 1991 that were attributed to Cooke and Amesbury.
In 1992, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), interviewed several Vietnamese nationals who claimed to have recovered remains from a C-130 crash site near An Loc. The villagers recalled finding a flight suit and almost the complete skeletal remains of one of the crewmen. One of them led the joint team to the crash site and another turned over several small fragments of bone and an identification tag rubbing for Amesbury.
Another joint team returned to the crash site for excavation in 1993 where they recovered additional remains, personal effects and crew related artifacts.
Airmen Missing In Action From WWII are Identified
April 21, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of eleven U.S. airmen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Capt. Thomas C. Paschal, El Monte, Calif.; 1st Lt. Frank P. Giugliano, New York, N.Y.; 1st Lt. James P. Gullion, Paris, Texas; 2nd Lt. Leland A. Rehmet, San Antonio, Texas; 2nd Lt. John A. Widsteen, Palo Alto, Calif., Staff Sgt. Richard F. King, Moultrie, Ga.; Staff Sgt. William Lowery, Republic, Pa..; Staff Sgt. Elgin J. Luckenbach, Luckenbach, Texas.; Staff Sgt. Marion B. May, Amarillo, Texas.; Sgt. Marshall P. Borofsky, Chicago, Ill.; Sgt. Walter G. Harm, Philadelphia, Penn.; all U.S. Army Air Forces.
The group remains of the entire crew are to be buried today at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, DC, as are the individual remains of each man with the exception of King, Giugliano and Widsteen, whose families have elected hometown burials.
On April 16, 1944, Paschal and Widsteen were piloting a B-24J Liberator with the other nine men aboard. The aircraft was returning to Nadzab, New Guinea after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia. The plane was last seen off the coast of the island flying into poor weather.
The loss was investigated following the war and a military board concluded that the aircraft had been lost over water and was unrecoverable.
In early 2001 a team of specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed a native of Papua New Guinea who claimed to have found the aircraft crash and recovered identification media for May and Harm. The team surveyed the site in 2002 and found wreckage that matched Paschal’s aircraft tail number along with human remains. They also took custody of remains previously collected by the villager.
Later that year, two additional JPAC teams excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related artifacts. Identification tags were found for Luckenbach, May and Paschal. Other crew-related materials found were consistent with items used by the Army Air Forces around 1944.
Mitochondrial DNA obtained from dental and bone samples was one of the forensic tools used by JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists to identify the airmen.
Airman Lost In 1942 Crash Is Identified
March 9, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Army Air Forces airman, missing since 1942, have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial.
He is Aviation Cadet Leo Mustonen, 22, of Brainerd, Minn. The family has not set a date for his burial.
Mustonen was one of four men aboard a routine navigation training flight that departed Mather Field, Calif., on Nov. 18, 1942. Their AT-7 Navigator aircraft carried about five hours of fuel, and when the plane did not return to base, a search was initiated. It was suspended about a month later with no results.
In 1947, several hikers on Darwin Glacier in the Sierra Nevada mountain range discovered the aircraft wreckage. Human remains of three of the crew found at the site were buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, Calif.
Several other hikers on Mendel Glacier, which is adjacent to Darwin Glacier, discovered frozen human remains, circumstantial evidence and personal effects in October 2005. Park rangers from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and a forensic anthropologist from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) recovered the remains, which were later shipped to the JPAC laboratory in Hawaii.
Scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools in the process. U.S. Army casualty and mortuary officials located and briefed representatives of the families of all four crewmen.
Army MIA Soldiers from Vietnam War Identified
February 14, 2006
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action since the Vietnam War, have been identified. They will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are:
Maj. Jack L. Barker of Waycross, Ga.
Capt. John F. Dugan of Roselle, N.J.
Sgt. William E. Dillender of Naples, Fla.
Pfc. John J. Chubb of Gardena, Calif.
All were from the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Chubb will be buried in Inglewood, Calif., on Feb. 18. Barker, Dugan and Dillender will be buried on April 12 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. D.C.
On March 20, 1971, Barker and Dugan were piloting a UH-1H Huey helicopter with Dillender and Chubb on board. The aircraft was participating in a troop extraction mission in the Savannakhet Province of Laos. As the helicopter approached the landing zone, it was hit by heavy enemy ground fire. It exploded in the air and there were no survivors. Continued enemy activity in the area prevented any recovery attempts.
A refugee in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, showed an identification tag of Pfc. Chubb and a medallion to a U.S. interviewer in 1986. The medallion was reportedly recovered near the same general location from an F-105 crash site. However, the location and the aircraft type did not correlate with the missing aircraft and soldiers.
Between 1988 and 2001, joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted four investigations and three excavations for these soldiers without positive results. An investigation team surveyed three crash sites in 2002 after interviewing local villagers from the province. The team recovered a fragment of human tooth and some crew-related artifacts from one of the crash sites.
In October and November 2004, another joint investigation team excavated the crash site and recovered additional human remains and crew-related evidence. The wreckage was of a UH-1H helicopter, and contained insignia worn by members of the 101st Airborne Division.
The remains included nine fragments of teeth that the forensic anthropologists at JPAC were able to match with detailed information from medical and dental records.
Air Force Officer MIA from Vietnam War is Identified February 3, 2006
February 3, 2006 The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Col. Eugene D. Hamilton of Opelika, Ala. Final arrangements for his funeral have not been set.
On Jan. 31, 1966, Hamilton was flying an armed reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam when his F-105D ‘Thunderchief’ was hit by enemy ground fire over Ha Tinh province. His mission was part of a larger operation, known as Operation Rolling Thunder, which attacked air defense systems and the flow of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Airborne searches for his crash site that day were unsuccessful. A radio broadcast from Hanoi reported an F-105 had been shot down but did not provide any details.
Between July 1993 and November 2000, joint U.S.-Vietnam teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted four investigations and one excavation searching for the pilot and his plane.
An investigation team in March 2000 learned from a Vietnamese villager that an area excavated in 1997 was not the location of the pilot’s burial. A second location was then excavated in August and September 2000, which did yield aircraft wreckage, personal effects and human remains.
In 2004, three Vietnamese citizens turned over to a JPAC team remains they had found at the same crash site a year earlier.
In late May 2005, the JPAC team recovered fragments of possible human remains and life support equipment from the 2000 crash site. Personal effects found there also included a leather nametag with the name “HAMILTON” partially visible on it.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains. Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed his identity.
Of those Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,807 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,382 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 839 Americans have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war, with 599 from Vietnam.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Navy Seaman Missing from Pearl Harbor Attack is Identified
December 16, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Navy seaman missing in action from the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor have been identified and will soon be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Seaman 2nd Class Warren P. Hickok of Kalamazoo, Mich. The family has not set a date for his burial.
Hickok was assigned to the Light Mine Layer the USS Sicard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Many crewmembers from the USS Sicard, including Hickok, were dispatched to assist the crew of the USS Cummings, a destroyer docked nearby. The Cummings succeeded in getting underway and clearing Pearl Harbor with no casualties reported. However, an investigation into those still unaccounted-for after the attack surmised that Hickok may have been a casualty aboard the battleship, the USS Pennsylvania, since some crewmen from the USS Sicard had been dispatched to the USS Pennsylvania during the attack. But records indicate that Hickok was not lost aboard that ship.
In the days following the attack, burial details interred many of the unknown dead in Nuuanu Cemetery on Oahu. Among those buried were an unknown sailor identified only as X-2. Following the war, the Army Graves Registration Service oversaw the disinterment of unknown remains, including the X-2 remains. They could not be identified and were reburied in Section E, Grave 73 at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, on June 9, 1949.
In 2004, an avocational historian contacted the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hawaii and suggested that the remains in Grave 731 may be those of Hickok. Based on available records, JPAC exhumed the grave in June 2005. Forensic anthropologists at JPAC were able to match those remains, including dental remains, with detailed information found in Hickok's World War II medical and dental records.
Navy Seaman MIA from World War II is Identified Dec. 12, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and returned to his family for burial tomorrow with full military honors.
Seaman 2nd Class Dee Hall, of Syra, Okla. He is to be buried at the Ft. Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.
Hall was one of seven crewmen aboard a U.S. Navy PBY-5 Catalina that took off from Kodiak Island, Alaska on June 14, 1942, to attack Japanese targets in Kiska Harbor, Alaska.
The crew encountered inclement weather and heavy Japanese anti-aircraft fire near the target. Their plane crashed on the Japanese-held Kiska Island, Alaska with all seven crewmen on board.
In August 1943, the United States retook Kiska Island from the Japanese. Wreckage of the PBY-5 was found on the side of Kiska volcano. The remains of the crew were buried in a common grave marked "Seven U.S.N. Airmen" with a wooden marker. Following the war, attempts to locate the common grave were unsuccessful and the remains of all seven were declared to be non-recoverable.
In 2002, a wildlife biologist notified DPMO that he had found the wreckage of a World War II aircraft on the slope of Kiska volcano. Using that information, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the crash site in August 2003 and found debris from the PBY-5 as well as crew-related items. The JPAC team also located the wooden marker as well as the remains buried nearby. Subsequent JPAC laboratory analysis led to the individual identification of all seven crewmember.
Air Force Sergeant MIA from Vietnam War is Identified December 8, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Tech. Sgt. Patrick L. Shannon of Owasso, Okla. Funeral arrangements are yet to be set by his family.
Shannon and 18 other servicemen operated a radar installation atop Pha Thi Mountain in Houaphan Province, Laos, approximately 13 miles south of the border with North Vietnam. The site, known at Lima Site 85, directed U.S. bombing missions toward key targets in North Vietnam.
In the early morning of March 11, 1968, the site came under attack by a force of North Vietnamese commandos. The enemy force had scaled the sheer mountainsides in the hours before the attack and overran the site. During the attack, some Americans made their way down to ledges, but survivors reported that several were killed.
Several hours later, U.S. aircraft attacked enemy positions around the site, enabling helicopters to rescue eight of the 19 Americans, although one of the survivors died en route to a base in Thailand. Later that day, and for four additional days, U.S. air strikes bombed the site to destroy technical equipment left behind.
Beginning in 1994, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command began interviewing witnesses in both Laos and Vietnam to gather information on the fates of the Americans. Some of those interviewed were villagers who lived near the site, while others were former enemy soldiers who carried out the attack. In 2002, one of the enemy soldiers stated that he helped throw the bodies of the Americans off the mountain after the attack, as they were unable to bury them on the rocky surface.
Between 1994 and 2004, 11 investigations were conducted by both JPAC as well as unilaterally by Lao and Vietnamese investigators on both sides of the border. During one of the investigations, several mountaineer-qualified JPAC specialists scaled down the cliffs where they recovered remains and personal gear on ledges. JPAC and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory scientists used mitochondrial DNA and other forensic techniques to identify the remains as those of Shannon.
Airmen Missing from World War II Identified October 18, 2005
The remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing in action since 1941, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Augustus J. Allen, of Myrtle Springs, Texas, Staff Sgt. James D. Cartwright, of Los Angeles, Calif., and Cpl. Paul R. Stubbs, of Haverhill, Mass.
On June 8, 1941, Allen, Cartwright and Stubbs departed France Field, Panama in an O-47A aircraft, en route to Rio Hato, Panama. When the aircraft failed to arrive at its destination, a search was initiated by both air and ground forces, but with negative results.
In April 1999, a Panamanian citizen reported to Panamanian Civil Aeronautics (PCA) he had discovered aircraft wreckage while hunting in the mountains of Panama Province, Republic of Panama. After a PCA search and rescue team visited the site, the wreckage was reported to the Joint Prisoner of War Accounting Command (JPAC). JPAC specialists surveyed the area in August 1999, and in February 2002 excavated the site where they recovered remains and crew-related artifacts. The crash site was along Allen’s suspected flight path, and the aircraft was consistent with O-47A aircraft from the 39th Observation Squadron, their assigned unit. Additionally, the team recovered crew-related items at the site which helped confirm the identity of the airmen.
Scientists of JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab used mitochondrial DNA as one of the tools in the identification of the remains of Allen, Cartwright and Stubbs.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and Desert Storm, 78,000 are from World War II.
Air Force Officer MIA From Vietnam War is Identified August 19, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Air Force Col. Gregg Hartness of Dallas, Texas. He is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., on Sept. 14.
On Nov. 26, 1968, Hartness and lst Lt. Allen S. Shepherd, III, took off from Da Nang air base in South Vietnam, on a forward air control mission. While flying over Salavan Province in Laos, their O-2A ‘Skymaster’ was apparently struck by enemy fire and began to spin out of control. Shepherd bailed out and was rescued by an Air Force search and rescue team about nine hours later. He did not see Hartness bail out.
About 30 minutes after that rescue, the airborne team located the crash site of Hartness and Shepherd’s aircraft about 200 meters (660 feet) south of the rescue pickup point. The aircraft had been burning, but no contact with Hartness could be established. Enemy forces in the area precluded further rescue attempts, and electronic searches of the loss location detected no signals from the lost aircraft or pilot.
Between 1993 and 2003, joint U.S.-Lao investigators interviewed more than 60 witnesses in 39 different settlements in Laos before selecting a site for excavation. In January and February of 2005, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, with assistance from the Lao government, excavated a site in Salavan Province. They recovered human remains, aircraft wreckage, life support equipment and personal effects.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing from all conflicts, 1,815 are from the Vietnam War, with 372 of those within the country of Laos. Another 756 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of those, 197 are from losses in Laos.
Twelve MIAS from Vietnam War are Identified August 10, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today the identification of the remains of 12 U.S. servicemen missing in action from the Vietnam War. Five of those identified are being returned to their families for burial, and the remaining seven will be buried as a group in Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C.
The men who were individually identified are:
Cpl. Gerald E. King, of Knoxville, Tenn.
Lance Cpls. Joseph F. Cook, of Foxboro, Mass.
Raymond T. Heyne, of Mason, Wis.
Donald W. Mitchell, of Princeton, Ky.;
Thomas W. Fritsch, of Cromwell, Conn.
All of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Additional group remains are those of:
Pfcs. Thomas J. Blackman, of Racine, Wis.
Paul S. Czerwonka, of Stoughton, Mass.
Barry L. Hempel, of Garden Grove, Calif.
Robert C. Lopez, of Albuquerque, N.M.
William D. McGonigle, of Wichita, Kan.
Lance Cpl. James R. Sargent, of Anawalt, W. Va.
All of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Additionally, the remains of;
U.S. Army Sgt. Glenn E. Miller, of Oakland, Calif. will be included in the group burial.
The Marines were part of an artillery platoon airlifted to provide support to the 11th Mobile Strike Force, which was under threat of attack from North Vietnamese forces near Kham Duc in South Vietnam. On May 9, 1968, the Strike Force had been directed to reconnoiter an area known as Little Ngok Tavak Hill near the Laos-Vietnam border. Their base came under attack by North Vietnamese Army troops, and after a 10-hour battle, all of the survivors were able to withdraw from the area.
Six investigations beginning in 1993 and a series of interviews of villagers and former Vietnamese soldiers led U.S. recovery teams in 1994, 1997 and 1998 to specific defensive positions within the large battle site. Additionally, maps provided by American survivors helped to locate some key areas on the battlefield. Three excavations by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in 1998 and 1999 yielded human remains, personal effects and other material evidence.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,815 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,381 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 768 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Of those, 540 are from within Vietnam.
Air Force Officers MIA From Vietnam War are Identified July 26, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today the remains of two servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Col. James W. Lewis of Marshall, Texas, and Maj. Arthur D. Baker of San Antonio, Texas, both Air Force. Lewis is to be buried in Marshall on August 13, and Baker is to be buried in Longview, Texas on July 29.
On April 7, 1965, Lewis and Baker led a flight of four B-57B Canberra aircraft on an interdiction mission over Xiangkhoang Province, Laos. After their B-57 initiated an attack run into heavy clouds, Lewis radioed his plane was outbound away from the target. There was no further radio or visual contact with the crew, and search and rescue missions failed to yield any evidence of the two men or their aircraft. Although the cause of the crash is unknown, enemy fire and bad weather are believed to be contributing factors.
In July 1997, a joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic team interviewed several witnesses, two of whom led the team to the crash site. Four excavations led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) from 2003 to 2004 yielded human remains and crew-related artifacts.
JPAC and Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab scientists used mitochondrial DNA to identify the remains as those of Lewis and Baker.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing from all conflicts, 1,827 are from the Vietnam War, with 372 of those within the country of Laos. Another 756 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of the Americans identified, 197 are from losses in Laos.
Korean War Missing In Action Serviceman Identified July 22, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Cpl. Leslie R. Heath, of Bridgeport, Ill. His interment is scheduled for Aug. 20 in Bridgeport.
On the morning of April 23, 1951, Heath and more than 80 members of ‘A’ Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Regimental Combat Team were captured by Chinese Communist forces. They were held in a temporary POW camp known as Suan Camp Complex, in North Hwanghae Province, North Korea. A former American POW who was returned to the U.S. through Operation Little Switch recounted that Heath died in June 1951 while imprisoned.
On July 16, 1993, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea returned 17 boxes of remains to the United States from the Korean War. One of the boxes contained remains of several individuals and two of Heath’s identification tags. Scientists of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted years of forensic examinations of the remains and associated evidence until they made an identification two months ago.
Information provided by the North Koreans about the recovered remains was consistent with the approximate location where Heath was believed held captive and died. Artifacts in the boxes were those of a soldier in the U.S. Army infantry at the time of the war.
JPAC submitted skeletal remains on 11 occasions to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory for analysis. Heath’s mitochondrial DNA sequence matched that of two of his maternal relatives.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted for from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and Desert Storm, more than 8,100 are from the Korean War. More than 2,000 of those were held as prisoners of war.
Army Soldiers MIA from Vietnam War are Identified July 15, 2005
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial.
They are Lt. Col. Marvin L. Foster, Hubbard, Tex.; Capt. David R. Smith, Dayton, Ohio; Sgt. 1st Class Michael L. Batt, Defiance, Ohio; and Sgt. 1st Class Raymond E. Bobe, Tarrant, Ala., all U.S. Army.
On March 16, 1969, Capt. Smith was piloting an Army U-21A “Ute” aircraft with Foster, Batt, Bobe and one other passenger aboard whose remains have not been identified. The aircraft left Qui Nhon airfield in South Vietnam, headed for Phu Bai airport near Hue. The Da Nang control tower briefly established radar and radio contact, but was unable to maintain it. The aircraft never landed at the Phu Bai airport.
Combat search and rescue units scoured the area, both land and sea, for the next eight days, but did not find the missing aircraft.
In 1988 and 1989, the Vietnamese government turned over to U.S. specialists several boxes of human remains, including identification tags for Bobe and Smith. The technology at the time failed to yield an identification of the remains. Also in 1989, a Vietnamese refugee in the Philippines was interviewed, and turned over human remains as well as a rubbing of an identification tag for Bobe.
U.S. specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted seven investigations between 1993 and 1999, to include interviews with Vietnamese nationals who claimed to have knowledge of the crash. Then in April and May of 2000, a JPAC team excavated an area about 25 miles northwest of Da Nang, where they found aircraft debris and human remains.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains.
Of those Americans unaccounted for from all conflicts, 1,827 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,393 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 756 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of the Americans identified, 528 are from within Vietnam.
Korean War Missing in Action Serviceman Identified "June 30, 2005"
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Army soldier, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial in Schererville, Ind.
He is Pfc. Lowell W. Bellar of Gary, Ind. He is to be buried on July 15, the date of his birth in 1931.
In November - December 1950, Bellar’s unit, Company M, 31st Infantry Regiment, was surrounded and overrun by Chinese Communist forces near the Chosin Reservoir in northeast North Korea. Elements of his unit joined other U.S. forces in the breakout and fighting retreat to relative safety further south to an area near the village of Hagaru. Regimental records compiled after the battle indicate that Bellar was killed in action Dec. 1, 1950. More than 1,000 men, primarily Marines and Army soldiers, are still missing in North Korea from the Chosin campaign.
Joint U.S.-North Korean recovery teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated a site in North Korea in September 2001, and again in October, that was believed to be the location where American soldiers were buried. They recovered remains believed to be those of 12 individuals, some of which were later identified as those of Bellar.
Laboratory analysis of the remains by forensic scientists at JPAC led to Bellar’s identification. Comparisons of Bellar’s mitochondrial DNA data with samples from his family were key factors in their finding.
Of the 88,000 Americans unaccounted for from all conflicts, approximately 8,100 are from the Korean War. Remains believed to be those of more than 220 American servicemen have been recovered in joint operations in North Korea since 1996.
Air Force Officer MIA from Vietnam War is Identified "June 29, 2005"
The Department of Defense POW/MIA Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial.
He is Air Force Lt. Col. Darel D. Leetun of Hettinger, N.D. Leetun will be buried with full military honors July 8 at Arlington National Cemetery.
On Sept. 17, 1966, Leetun led a bombing mission over Lang Son province, North Vietnam when his F-105D ‘Thunderchief’ aircraft was hit by enemy fire. Other pilots in the flight observed the aircraft crash, but did not receive emergency beeper signals nor observe a parachute.
Vietnamese and U.S. specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted three investigations between 1991 and 1995 as they sought information on Leetun’s crash site. During one of the investigations, Vietnamese villagers led investigators to a hillside location where human remains were found. Additional site investigations by a Vietnam team and a JPAC team in 1999 and 2004 respectively yielded no new evidence.
JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the remains as those of Leetun.
Of those Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,833 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,397 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 750 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of the Americans identified, 524 are from within Vietnam.
Korean War Missing in Action Serviceman Identified "June 27,2005"
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial in Fergus Falls, Minn. on Wednesday.
He is Cpl. John O. Strom of Fergus Falls, Minn.
On the night of Nov. 1, 1950, Strom’s unit, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, came under attack by Chinese communist forces near the village of Unsan in North Korea. His battalion sought to escape the larger Chinese unit, and evacuated along a route well documented in U.S. records.
The fighting raged on for several days, and by Nov. 4, those men able to escape withdrew to friendly lines south of the Kuryong River, though more than 380 soldiers of the 8th Cavalry Regiment were unaccounted for.
In July and August 2002, a joint team of U.S. and North Korean specialists investigated a site near Unsan where a villager had reportedly reburied remains believed to be those of a U.S. serviceman from another location. The team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), excavated both sites and found human remains as well as a few pieces of non-biological evidence. The team was also given Strom’s military identification tag found by the villager.
Laboratory analysis of the remains by forensic scientists at JPAC led to Strom’s identification. Comparisons of mitochondrial DNA results were key factors in their finding.
Of the 88,000 Americans who are missing from all conflicts, approximately 8,100 are from the Korean War. More than 1,800 remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, 126 from the Cold War, and 78,000 from World War II. Remains believed to be those of more than 220 American servicemen have been recovered in joint operations in North Korea.
Air Force Officer MIA from Vietnam War Identified "June 22, 2005"
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial on July 3 at Savannah Ga.
He is Air Force Capt. David J. Phillips Jr. of Miami Beach, Fla.
On July 3, 1966, Phillips was attacking enemy targets over Kien Giang Province, South Vietnam, when his F-5 “Freedom Fighter” was hit by enemy ground fire and crashed. Phillips was unable to eject from his aircraft before the crash, and radio contact was lost. Heavy enemy ground fire precluded a search at the time.
From 1993 to 2000, joint U.S.-Vietnamese teams conducted four investigations for information on Phillips’ disappearance. Interviews of 10 villagers over seven years led to the probable location of the crash site. One of the teams found fiberglass pieces that were consistent with the survival kit from the ejection seat on an F-5 aircraft.
During two excavations in 2003 and 2004, human remains, as well as aircrew-related artifacts and personal effects, were recovered by teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). Laboratory analysis of the remains by forensic scientists at JPAC led to Phillips’ identification.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and Desert Storm, 1,833 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,397 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 750 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of the Americans identified, 524 are from within Vietnam.
WWII Missing in Action Soldiers Identified "June 17, 2005"
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two Army soldiers missing in action from World War II have been identified and returned to their families for burial.
They are Sgt. John T. Puckett, Wichita, Kan., and Pvt. Earnest E. Brown, Bristol, Va. Puckett will be buried tomorrow at the Ardennes American Cemetery, Neupre, Belgium. Brown was buried last week near Bristol, Va.
On Jan. 15, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge, Puckett and Brown were searching for German soldiers in a wooded area near Elsenborn, Belgium. They were ambushed and came under intense enemy machine gun and mortar fire. Eyewitnesses indicated they were killed, but their bodies could not be recovered due to enemy activity.
Following the war, remains of American soldiers were recovered and identified, but not those of Puckett and Brown. Then in 1992, two Belgian nationals located and excavated an abandoned fighting position in the forest east of Elsenborn. They recovered remains and other evidence and turned them over to U.S. authorities in Europe.
Scientists of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to identify the remains as those of Puckett and Brown.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 78,000 are from World War II.
Vietnam War Missing in Action Serviceman Identified "June 10, 2005"
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial at Arlington National Cemetery today.
He is Air Force Col. James L. Carter of Johnson City, Tenn.
On Feb. 3, 1966, Carter was the aircraft commander of a C-123 “Provider” aircraft which had taken off from Khe Sanh in South Vietnam on a supply mission to Dong Ha, South Vietnam. The plane was not seen again, and searches along the flight route did not find a crash site.
Joint U.S. and Vietnamese teams investigated potential crash sites in Quang Tri Province on three occasions between 1993 and 1999. They interviewed Vietnamese villagers who took them to three different crash sites. Only one of the sites revealed wreckage consistent with that of a C-123 aircraft. Several of the informants said that the bodies of the crew and passengers were buried near the site where the aircraft crashed into a mountain in 1966.
Specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted four excavations at the site between 2000 and 2003. During these four excavations, they recovered human remains, personal effects and other debris. Laboratory analysis of the remains by forensic scientists at JPAC led to Carter’s identification. Comparison of dental records with the recovered remains was a key factor in the identification.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,833 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,397 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 750 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Of the Americans identified, 524 are from within Vietnam.
Missing In Action Vietnam War Serviceman Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Navy pilot, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
Navy Lieutenant Commander J. Forrest G. Trembley of Spokane, Wash., will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on April 1.
On August 21, 1967, Trembley and his fellow crewman took off in their A-6A Intruder from the U.S.S. Constellation on a strike mission against the Duc Noi rail yards near Hanoi, North Vietnam. On leaving the target area, their aircraft and another one in the flight were attacked by enemy MiGs. When last seen, the two aircraft were disappearing into the clouds near the Vietnamese-Chinese border. The last radio message from Trembley indicated the MiGs were in hot pursuit, but no further communications were heard.
Later that day, the Chinese government reported that two U.S. A-6s had been shot down over the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The broadcast noted that one of the four crewmen had been captured but the other three died in the shoot down. The Chinese released the surviving crewman in March 1973.
With the assistance of the Chinese government, a joint U.S.-PRC team interviewed witnesses to the shoot down and crash in 1993 and 1999. U.S. specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed a Chinese citizen near the crash site. He turned over Trembley’s identification tag and fragmentary human remains alleged to be those of American pilots. The team recovered some pilot’s gear from a burial site, but found no additional human remains.
Scientists of the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to identify the remains as those of Trembley.
WWII Missing in Action Serviceman Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of an Army Air Forces crewman have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with military honors.
Staff Sgt. Robert W. McKee of Garvey, Calif., will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery April 12.
On Dec. 17, 1944, McKee was an aerial gunner on an 11-member crew of a
B-24L Liberator that took off from Pantanella, Italy, on a mission to bomb enemy targets near Blechhammer, Germany. The aircraft crashed over Hungary, near the small towns of Böhönye and Felsosegesd, with the loss of two crewmen including McKee. The other nine were able to safely parachute from the aircraft. Following the war, the remains of the other unaccounted-for crewman were found in a cemetery in Felsosegesd.
Following the war, remains from an American aircraft crash near Vienna, Austria, were found buried with McKee’s military identification tag. But the remains were identified as those of another flyer. Further analysis revealed that McKee had flown on the same plane and had lost his identification tag, most likely on that aircraft.
In 1992 an undertaker recovered remains believed to be those of an American in the Böhönye, Hungary, cemetery but they could not be associated with a specific incident. DPMO analysts obtained information from a Hungarian researcher which indicated that the remains might be associated with McKee’s loss. Aerial gunner’s wings were found in the grave, as well as other items worn by U.S. bomber crews in 1944.
Scientists of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used a number of forensic tools including mitochondrial DNA to confirm McKee’s identity, matching his DNA with that of two known maternal relatives.
Vietnam War Missing in Action Serviceman Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
He is Air Force Maj. Robert Harry Schuler, Jr., of Wellsburg, N.Y. His interrment is scheduled for Saturday in Franklindale, Pa.
On Oct. 15, 1965, Shuler was flying his F-105 Thunderchief as part of a four-ship flight north of Hanoi when the lead aircraft was hit by enemy fire. Shuler remained in the area to provide support to the downed pilot while the two other aircraft departed for aerial refueling. When they returned, Shuler was no longer in the area and they could not establish radio contact with him. An extensive aerial search of the entire flight route met with negative results.
Between 1993 and 1998, joint U.S. and Vietnamese teams conducted seven investigations, including unilateral archival research by Vietnamese officials. The final investigation in Nov. 1998 led the teams to a Vietnamese army officer who recounted his unit shooting down an F-105 on the date and in the area where Schuler went down. That team surveyed the crash area, found fragments of an F-105, and recommended the area for excavation.
Teams led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated the site on four occasions between Sept. 1999 and Mar. 2001, recovering more wreckage as well as human remains. In addition to other forensic tools, JPAC scientists used mitochondrial DNA comparisons to confirm the identification of Schuler’s remains.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from WWII, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and Desert Storm, 1,833 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,397 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 750 Americans have been accounted for since the end of the Vietnam War, with 524 of those from the country of Vietnam.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.
Vietnam War Missing In Action Serviceman Identified "May 31, 2005"
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial.
He is Air Force 1st Lt. Lee A. “Larry” Adams of Willits, Calif. A memorial service with full military honors will be held at Beale Air Force Base, Calif. on June 1, and he will be buried in Willits at a later date.
On April 19, 1966, Adams was attacking enemy targets in Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam, when he rolled his F-105 “Thunderchief” in on the target. As other pilots in the flight watched, his plane failed to pull out of the dive, crashed and exploded.
U.S. specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted a number of investigations as they sought information on Adams’s loss. In September 1993, joint U.S.-Vietnamese team members interviewed three villagers who said they witnessed the shootdown in 1966. They led the team to a supposed crash site, but no aircraft debris or human remains were found. Another informant turned over a skeletal fragment he had found near the site of the crash.
In October 1994 another joint team interviewed two other Vietnamese citizens who recalled the shootdown and the burial of the remains of a pilot nearby. A third team re-interviewed four Vietnamese in 1998 who had supplied information earlier.
Then in November 2004, a joint team excavated the suspected burial and crash sites, but found neither aircraft debris nor other material evidence. However, a villager living nearby gave the team a fragment of a wristwatch and a signal mirror he claimed to have recovered from the crash site. The wristwatch and mirror are consistent with items issued to, or used by, U.S. military aviators in the mid-1960s.
Scientists of the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to identify the remains as those of Adams.
Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,833 are from the Vietnam War, with 1,397 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 750 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Of the Americans identified, 524 are from within Vietnam.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.
Cold War Missing In Action Aviator Identified
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) has announced that the remains of the co-pilot of an aircraft shot down in China during the Cold War have been identified and will soon be returned to his family.
He is Robert C. Snoddy of Roseburg, Ore.
Snoddy and his pilot, Norman A. Schwartz, took off from an airfield near Seoul, South Korea, on Nov. 29, 1952, with two other crewmembers to extract a CIA operative from China. The mission in the Jilin province of northeast China was planned to pick up the agent on the ground with an airborne extraction system.
Unfortunately, the Chinese had compromised the agent on the ground, and when the C-47 aircraft flew over the pickup point it was shot down by hostile ground fire. Snoddy and Schwartz were reportedly killed, and two other crewmembers, Richard G. Fecteau and John T. Downey, were captured by the Chinese and held until 1971 and 1973, respectively.
For years the U.S. government asked the Chinese for information related to the fates of Snoddy and Schwartz. The Chinese had in 1975 acknowledged to President Ford that the two had died in the crash and were buried near the site but that it was impossible to locate their remains.
In 1999 the DPMO presented more detailed information about the crash to the Chinese that led to their approval in 2002 of a visit by a U.S. team of investigators. Specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed a 78-year-old villager who had witnessed the shoot down in 1952. He described the incident in detail and directed the investigators to the site where they found aircraft wreckage but no human remains.
In June 2004, a joint JPAC-Chinese recovery team excavated the site where they found more aircraft debris, personal effects of the crew, as well as human remains. Among other forensic tools, scientists of the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA to confirm the identification of Snoddy.
Vietnam War Missing in Action Servicemen Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of two U.S. Army officers, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Col. Sheldon J. Burnett of Pelham, N.H., and Warrant Officer Randolph J. Ard of West Pensacola, Fla. Burnett is to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday. Ard was buried last month in Alabama.
On March 7, 1971, Ard flew his OH-58A “Kiowa” helicopter from South Vietnam to transport three passengers, including Burnett, to an area on the Vietnam-Laos border. As the helicopter approached a landing zone, it was hit by enemy antiaircraft fire and crashed in Savannakhet Province, Laos. Two of the passengers survived the crash and evaded capture as enemy forces attacked. When they reached friendly lines, the two reported that Burnett and Ard were still alive but badly injured.
After 11 days of heavy resistance, South Vietnamese ground forces reached the crash site but found no trace of the missing men or any graves.
Between 1989 and 1996, joint U.S.-Lao teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) conducted five separate field investigations which met with negative results. Then in 2002, U.S. specialists interviewed four former North Vietnamese soldiers, three of which had seen the bodies of the two unaccounted-for U.S. officers. The fourth soldier had drawn a sketch of the area shortly after the incident and all volunteered to assist U.S. investigators in Laos.
In 2003, the four Vietnamese witnesses and local Lao villagers guided the team to the crash site in Laos where they found some aircraft wreckage but no human remains. Then in Aug.-Sept. 2004, JPAC and Lao specialists excavated the crash site and two nearby graves where they found human remains, U.S. military clothing and personal effects, including Ard’s identification tag.
After extensive analysis of the remains and teeth recovered during the excavation, JPAC scientists identified both Ard and Burnett.
Vietnam War Missing in Action Servicemen Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of four U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Marine 2nd Lt. Heinz Ahlmeyer Jr. of Pearl River, N.Y.; Marine Sgt. James N. Tycz of Milwaukee, Wis.; Marine Lance Cpl. Samuel A. Sharp Jr. of San Jose, Calif.; and Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Malcolm T. Miller of Tampa, Fla. Ahlmeyer, Tycz, and Miller will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on May 10. Sharp was buried Saturday in San Jose and will be honored at the Arlington ceremony.
The four men were part of a reconnaissance patrol operating near the U.S. Marine base in Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. They came under enemy attack shortly after midnight on May 10, 1967, while occupying a defensive position. During the firefight Ahlmeyer, Tycz, Sharp and Miller were killed. The patrol’s surviving members were rescued by helicopter later that morning but the bodies of the four men could not be recovered.
In the fall of 1991 several Vietnamese citizens visited the U.S. POW/MIA office in Hanoi claiming to have access to the remains of U.S. servicemen. One of the men provided skeletal and teeth fragments.
Between 1993 and 2004, eight joint U.S.-Vietnamese teams led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed witnesses and surveyed the skirmish area. Two other joint teams conducted excavations during which material evidence and remains were recovered. After extensive analysis, scientists from JPAC identified Ahlmeyer, Tycz, Sharp and Miller.
