News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: DPMO Weekly Update for 24 NOV 99

Date: December 07, 1999

Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update
November 24, 1999
REMAINS OF SERVICEMEN RETURNED TO U.S.

Remains believed to be those of 11 unaccounted-for American servicemen from two wars arrived at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, last week.

Two sets of remains from Laos and six from Vietnam were returned to U.S. possession during ceremonies earlier in the week in Vientiane and Hanoi, respectively. Those eight, plus three others repatriated from North Korea, arrived on a U. S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III. Their arrival at Hickam AFB begins the identification phase at the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii.

The eight sets of remains from Laos and Vietnam were recovered by military and civilian members of Joint Task Force-Full Accounting and the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii during three separate search and recovery missions held from August to November. The three sets of remains from North Korea were recovered in October and November by a team from the U.S. Army’s CILHI.

Joint U.S./North Korean efforts to recover more than 8,200 unaccounted-for Americans from the Korean War began in 1996. To date, three servicemen from that effort have been identified and returned home to their families, with many others currently in the identification phase.

More information about the U.S. government’s worldwide mission to account for its missing service members can be found on the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Affairs Office website at www.dtic.mil/dpmo .

MOSCOW PLENARY MEETING CONCLUDES

The 16 th plenary session of the U. S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs was held recently in Moscow. After a year during which the commission’s work was complicated by political-military developments, there was optimism that its humanitarian work in search of information on missing American and Russian servicemen would be revitalized.

The U. S. co-chairman of the commission is retired Maj. Gen. Roland Lajoie. He met for the first time in this position in plenary session with the Russian co-chairman, Gen.-Maj. Vladimir Antonovich Zolotarev, and with the other commissioners.

Information of value to the commission is gained primarily through archival research and interviews of veterans, government officials and other knowledgeable Russian and American citizens. During this plenary session, specific proposals for expanded archival access and interviews were discussed in the commission’s four working groups: Vietnam War; Korean War; Cold War; and WW II.

Highlights of the sessions included conversations with former KGB directors Semichastniy and Kryuchkov, and a meeting with Gen.-Col. Manilov of the general staff which touched on improved access to relevant Korean War documents at the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense at Podolsk as a first step to broadening our overall archival research.

The U. S. side also presented a comprehensive briefing on U. S. POWs in Vietnam. A. Denis Clift, the U.S. co-chairman of the Cold War working group, accepted a request for information on Soviet servicemen who served in Afghanistan. The Russian side provided a very positive update on the research in the Central Navy archives in Gatchina regarding several Cold War incidents.

The Korean War working group developed a plan of action for authenticating reports that have come to the commission’s attention about the presence of American servicemen said to have been observed in Soviet camps or other detention facilities. The chairman of the WWII working group provided his counterparts documents relating to Soviet air losses over Yugoslavia during WW II.

Both the U. S. and Russian sides renewed their commitment to continue cooperative efforts in search of information to clarify the circumstances of loss and to establish the fates of missing servicemen of both sides.

RESEARCHERS FIND POW/MIA DATA AT RECORDS CENTER

Staff members from DPMO and CILHI conducted research last week at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis to review selected Korean War files which may add details about the status of servicemen missing from that war.

Prior to the trip, DPMO compiled a list of several hundred Korean War personnel who remain unaccounted-for. The NPRC retrieved 235 personnel files although many files were destroyed in the 1973 fire. The team copied data related to losses from each of the four services. The data found includes: report of death memoranda on U.S. Army personnel who were killed in action or who died while prisoners of war. These were among the approximately 1,200 such memoranda copied during the last three research trips to St. Louis. The memoranda contain statements of individuals who witnessed the deaths of specific individuals. Some contain specific burial locations. The records also contain circumstances of loss and investigations of loss incidents, some of which number 60 pages in length. Copies were provided to CILHI and the data will also be disseminated to the next-of-kin through the service casualty offices.

Since the NPRC files records requests with the records, the researchers were also able to recover addresses of nearly 100 next-of-kin. The addresses are being provided to the services to assist in their outreach effort to Korean War families.

The team located data on four members of the crew of the USS Brush, who were lost when the ship hit a mine. Their remains were recovered shortly after the incident but they were carried as MIA on the PMKOR. Navy Casualty will remove those names from the PMKOR.

Also found was information on three U.S. Navy personnel lost on Dec. 30, 1946 in an aircraft accident in support of Adm. Byrd’s Antarctic expedition. Their remains were buried in the snow at a location specified on their certificates of death.

The team continued its review of U.S. Army morning reports for Nov.-Dec. 1950. To date, 45 reels of microfilm have been reviewed, with each reel containing hundreds of reports. These reports provide an accurate accounting of servicemen who were listed either as MIA or KIA in major engagements during that period.

The morning report data will be analyzed to provide more precise unit data, date of loss, and status for specific individuals listed on PMKOR. Some of this data has already been forwarded to the next-of-kin. Thus far, the focus of the morning report research has been on the 1st Cavalry Division and the 7th Infantry Division for November and December 1950. Other units’ morning reports will be reviewed on future trips to the NPRC.

Published by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office(703) 602-2102
2400 Defense Pentagon www.dtic.mil/dpmo
Washington, DC 20301-2400