Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Personnel Hearing on H.R. 4000
The POW/MIA Protection Act, September 10, 1996
I am conducting this hearing to outline the many compelling reasons for this Congress to support H.R. 4000, the POW/MIA Protection Act, which I recently introduced with the support of a record 254 original co-sponsors. This bill is intended to restore to public law essential provisions of the Dole/Gilman/Dornan Missing Service Personnel Act of 1996 that are set to be repealed in the Fiscal Year 1997 Defense Authorization bill. This effort is to ensure an honest accounting for American heroes from previous wars who became prisoners of war and are still missing in action, as well as provide protection for service persons and civilian Defense employees serving in the line of fire today and in the future. Equally important, the POW/MIA Protection Act would further ensure that the families of POW/MIAs are treated with respect by the U.S. Government and are provided with full disclosure of the facts regarding their loves ones' fates. Ongoing military actions involving American air, land and sea forces in Iraq, Bosnia, Haiti and Korea underscore the urgent need to restore into law these important provisions.
I have been involved with the families of our MIAs since May 19, 1965 when my best friend in the Air Force, Lt. Col. David Hrdlicka, was shot down in Laos and photographed alive in captivity. For more than 30 years an instransigent bureaucracy has withheld information from his wife Carol, who will testify today, and has provided outright disinformation regarding unsuccessful rescue attempts that were made during the early years of his capture. In an August 10, 1992 letter to Mrs. Hrdlicka, Charles Trowbridge, then-Deputy Chief of the Defense Department Office for POW/MIAs, who in 1966 signed some of the first reports on the status of David Hrdlicka, stated, "In answer to her specific request, please inform Mrs. Hrdlicka that we have no records that the U.S. Government has ever mounted a rescue attempt for either Colonel Hrdlicka or Colonel (Charles) Shelton."
However, during that same Summer of 1992, in open testimony during the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs (which was scrutinized by Defense Department officials who actively participated in Senate Select Committee activities), retired General Richard Secord, who had been the Chief of Air Operations in Laos for the CIA during 1966-58, and was the Laos Desk Officer for the Defense Department from 1972 to 1975, stated under oath that he was personally involved in an abortive attempt to rescue Col. Hrdlicka and Col. Shelton in late 1966 or 1967. In addition, Mrs. Hrdlicka has found an attempted rescue operation by U.S-backed Hmong forces, in which either Col. Hrdlicka or Col. Shelton wree temporarily under "friendly" control, and then recaptured by Laotian COMMUNIST forcese. The Defense POW/MIA Office had a responsibility to tell Mrs. Hrdlicka the truth about this effort. The POW/MIA Protection Act would reinstate an important provision that invokes penalties for U.S. officials who knowingly and willingly (Both knowingly and willingly are in bold underlined letters MJL) withhold information related to the disappearance, whereabouts and status of a missing person. This provision would not penalize honest mistakes, but any official who attempts to purposely hold back information from family members of missing servicemembers would be held accountable.
To safeguard our brave servicemen and women, such as Captain Scott O'Grady who was shot down while flying in support of peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, an important provision of the POW/MIA Protection Act would provide extra assurance that a missing service person is reported by his or her unit commander within 48 hours. Historically there have been times when individuals or even an entire ship has fallen through the bureaucratic labyrinth with tragic results. A profound example is the World War II incident involving the U.S. Navy cruiser the U.S.S. Indianapolis, which was sunk by a Japanese submarine. The ship's disappearance went unnoticed by U.S. government officials for almost five days, which led to nearly 500 sailores and marines perishing at sea. The following composite press reports recount this tragic incident:
U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS
The sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the subsequent court-martial of its captain constitute the U.S. Navy's worst moral disaster as well as its worst sea disaster.
A Japanese submarine torpedoed the unescorted cruiser in the western Pacific Ocean on July 30, 1945, after the ship had delivered components for the Hiroshima atomic bomb to Tinian Island in the Northern Marianas.
The men initially were confident of rescue, but watched in frustration as planes passed high overhead without spotting them. For the most part, they were without food or fresh water.
Delirium set in after a day, and some men began attacking other survivors. Others died in agony after drinking sea water. Some, believing there was a spigot with fresh water several feet down, tore off life jackets and dove down, never to resurface. Still others swam toward imaginary islands or dove to underwater hotels.
For five days, survivors clung to a few life rafts or bobbed in life jackets as dehydration, exposure and swarming sharks killed hundreds.
Bodies bobbed in the water like corks, shark fins quietly slithering among them.
At first the sharks fed on the dead. Then they began attacking the 800 survivors of the torpedo attack.
The crew floated helplessly for five days, knowing that death could come at any instant. One by one, they were dragged under and ripped apart by count-less blood-frenzied sharks.
"We had no protection from the sharks; hell, half your body was in the water," Giles McCoy recalled. "I kicked them in the nose. I kicked them in the side of the head.
"You would then see their fins disappear, then turn sideways and come in at you and go to strike you."
It was scariest after dark. Each dawn the survivors counted heads to see who had made it through the night.
Despite the violence under the water, the ocean surface was remarkably quiet. Men suddenly disappeared, life jackets and all.
Rescue finally came by accident when a Navy subchaser plane flew overhead and reported the disaster. Eight hundred of the ship's 1,196 sailors and officers survived the sinking; 316 were pulled out of the water alive.
Now, 45 years later, the survivors still can't shake the nightmare of those five days battling sharks bare-handed.
"If we had spent just two days out there in the ocean like we were supposed to and (been) taken out of the water, 75 to 80 % of our men would still be alive. They would have made it," McCoy said.
The provision in H.R. 4000 that mandates reporting of missing persons within 48 hours would help to guarantee that another incident similar to the U.S.S. Indianaplis tragedy never occurs again.
Other important provisions of the 1996 Missing Service Personnel Act that would be restored by H.R. 4000 include:
The requirement that is a body is recovered and cannot be identified by visible means, a certification by a credible forensic authority must be made.
The requirement that the status of persons who were last known to be alive are reviewed every three years if, and only if, the next of kin request a review.
The ability of families to request the status review of Korean War cases involving a person who was killed in action but whose body was not recovered, if "Compelling" information is uncovered.
H.R. 4000 would also restore protection for civilian contract employees of the Defense Department who are in the field UNDER ORDERS accompanying our military. Ask Congressman Ron Packard, whose father was taken prisoner during World War II by the Japanese on Wake Island as a civilian construction worker (and held 3 1/2 years), why this provision is so important. Ask Agency for International Development members taken prisoner in Vietnam or "civilian" fighter pilots who flew in Laos if they deserved protection under U.S. law. To strip these key protection provisions out of public law for American civilians who choose to serve their country in extremely hazardous combat operations is dishonorable in the extreme. The POW/MIA Protection Act would ensure these employees are given equal protection under the law.
The POW/MIA Protection Act is supported by all major veterans organizations (except one where most of the leaders are in support) and POW/MIA family organizations including, the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, the National Vietnam Veterans Coalition, the Marine Corps League, Vietnam Veterans of America, the Korean and Cold War Families Association, the National League of POW/MIA Families and the National Alliance of POW/MIA Families.