News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: DPMO Weekly Update - 21 DEC 98

Date: December 21, 1998

Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update

TWO SERVICEMEN ACCOUNTED FOR FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA

The remains of two American airmen previously unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to the U. S. for burial. They are identified as Col. Gregory I. Barras, USAF, Jackson, Miss., and Capt. Joseph O. Brown, USAF, Norwalk, Conn.

Col. Barras was flying his A-1H Skyraider on a night armed reconnaissance mission on December 18, 1968, over Khammouan Province, Laos. The target of his flight of aircraft was a truck convoy. Barras radioed that he was beginning the attack on the target, but in the darkness, eyewitness pilots saw only a large flash near the target area followed by a series of explosions that formed a line 200-300 meters long. The other pilots were unable to establish radio contact with Barras, and heard no emergency beeper signals. In the light of flares dropped from other aircraft, searchers could see only wreckage of an aircraft, but no signs of a survivor.

In 1991, a joint team of specialists from the U. S. Joint Casualty Resolution Center and from Laos interviewed a local informant in a small village near the crash site. He recalled burying an American pilot nearby amid the widely scattered wreckage of an aircraft. The team excavated the site and found pilot-related items, personal effects and human remains.

Capt. Brown was the pilot of a O-1F Bird Dog aircraft flying a forward air control mission over Khammouan Province, Laos, on April 19, 1966. He radioed that his aircraftÕs horizontal stabilizer had been shot away by enemy fire, and was climbing to a higher altitude. But as the crew of the other aircraft watched, BrownÕs aircraft went into a dive, rolled twice and crashed. They saw no parachute and heard no emergency beeper signals.

Joint teams of U. S. and Laos specialists visited the area of the crash on two occasions in 1994 and 1995. Led by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, the teams recovered pilot-related items, an aircraft data plate from BrownÕs aircraft, as well as human remains.

Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U. S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii established the identification of both Barras and Brown.

With the identification of these two Air Force officers, the remains of 507 Americans have been accounted for since 1973, and 2,076 are still unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia. The U. S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the government of the Lao PeopleÕs Democratic Republic which led to the accounting of these servicemen. We hope that such cooperation will bring increased results in the future. Achieving the fullest possible accounting for these Americans is of the highest national priority.

AGREEMENT SET WITH NORTH KOREA FOR 1999 OPERATIONS

U. S. and North Korean negotiators have reached an agreement in which teams in 1999 will jointly recover the remains of Americans missing in action from the Korean War.

This will be the fourth consecutive year that the U. S. has conducted remains recovery operations in North Korea.

The agreement, following four days of negotiations in New York City led by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, expands similar operations which have been conducted since 1996.

"WeÕve hammered out an agreement that takes us far beyond our three previous yearsÕ operations," said Bob Jones, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs. "We formalized the concept of a joint investigation team to locate and interview witnesses to accelerate the pace of recovery, long before our excavation teams begin their work. This concept gives us the potential to recover more remains by using our people more efficiently," he added.

The two sides agreed on an expanded schedule of six joint operations between April and November. Operations will begin in Kujang and Unsan, where joint teams have previously operated, with the potential to move to other areas later in the year as circumstances warrant. Exact site locations will be finalized in technical meetings in February.

During the past three years, through U. S.-North Korean agreements, joint teams have recovered the remains of 29 soldiers. One has been identified by the U. S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii. Forensic examinations are underway for all the recovered remains. Identifications of additional servicemembers are expected within a few months.

The agreement also included two joint archival reviews, in which U. S. archivists are granted access to documents relating to U. S. personnel lost or captured during the war. U. S. researchers conducted an archival review in museums and records collections in North Korea during 1997 and 1998.

The U. S. side also continued to press to establish a mechanism for investigating reports of live Americans living in North Korea and to interview American defectors in North Korea.

POLAND A two-man DPMO team has returned from Warsaw, Poland, following nearly two weeks there carrying out two objectives. First, they coordinated with Polish officials representing ministerial archives on their on-going work in search of information on the POW/MIA issue. Secondly, they interviewed Polish citizens who may have knowledge of missing Americans from North Korea and North Vietnam during the wars there, or who may have knowledge of Americans in the gulag. Their work is part of new U. S.-Russia Joint Commission initiatives with eastern European countries. The team returned with hundreds of pages of archival material which will be analyzed for leads on unaccounted-for Americans.

JONES MEETS TOP OFFICIALS IN ASIA

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (POW/Missing Personnel Affairs) Bob Jones met with senior military and political members of the governments of Vietnam and South Korea during his recent trip to those countries. The focus of the talks, held in Hanoi and Seoul November 2-10, was the on-going accounting effort for missing Americans from the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

Emphasizing President ClintonÕs priority on the fullest possible accounting of AmericaÕs missing personnel, Mr. Jones led discussions on current joint recovery operations being conducted in those countries. Meetings in both countries were well received and Vietnamese and South Korean officials pledged continued support for this humanitarian issue. Following the talks, Mr. Jones traveled to Hawaii where he led preliminary discussions involving a plan to mark the 50th anniversary of the Korean War by bringing together veterans of that conflict from the nations involved to discuss POW/MIA issues. He also delivered the keynote speech for the Veterans Day ceremony at the Punchbowl Cemetery.

Vietnam

While in Vietnam, Mr. Jones met with U.S. Ambassador Pete Peterson, Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Dinh Bin, Vice Minister of National Defense Lieutenant General Tran Hanh, and other top ranking Vietnamese officials. During a series of discussions, he stressed the MIA issue is the number one priority in the U.S. governmentÕs bilateral relationship with Vietnam. Mr. Jones recounted the progress made in recent operations to account for missing Americans, as well as live sighting investigations, last known alive cases, joint field operations, oral history interviews, and archival research programs.

At each of his meetings, Jones echoed President ClintonÕs statement that achieving the fullest possible accounting of missing Americans is a matter of the highest national priority. Jones emphasized the PresidentÕs four pillars by which cooperation is measured, and presented a copy of the March 4, 1998 assessment of cooperation to each Vietnamese official.

In the area of remains study, Jones expressed his appreciation to the Vietnamese for their assistance in the preparation of this report and requested assistance in answering additional questions which cut across the lines of several ministries. Among the questions was a request for lists of American remains, as well as documents that tasked civil and military authorities to inspect and confirm the location of American aviatorsÕ graves. There were also requests for a copy of the central governmentÕs directive regarding the search, verification, and recovering of graves and personal effects of American crewmembers, as well as a request for photos taken by Vietnamese technicians who verified and inspected the recovered remains. Vietnamese officials pledged assistance in these areas.

Speaking on another subject, Mr. Jones reiterated the high priority given to pursuing the last known alive cases and live sighting investigations. He restated the importance of continuing work to determine the fate of the 43 last known alive individuals, explaining these are critical to the U. S. government for possible illumination of the most compelling of our unanswered questions. To improve efforts in this area, the. JTF-FA has restructured teams to focus solely on last known alive cases. Additionally, beginning in early 1999, U.S. analysts and the Vietnamese Office for Seeking Missing Persons will hold working-level meetings on last known alive cases. This is being done to increase communication and make this effort more productive.

Although the live sighting investigation program has not proved Americans are being held against their will, Mr. Jones said the program should be continued. In fact, the live sighting issue remains a matter of primary concern to families of unaccounted-for persons, for the Department of Defense, for Congress, and for veterans service organizations. Investigation of live sighting reports is necessary as long as reports continue to be received which cannot be fully evaluated by any other means. Also, their investigation is one of the most effective means of demonstrating the validity of VietnamÕs position that there are no Americans from the Vietnam War being held against their will, as well as highlighting VietnamÕs cooperation in this effort. Only those reports which raise compelling questions are investigated, and it serves the best interest of both countries to continue to quickly and thoroughly carry this out. The Vietnamese have pledged complete support.

Turning to the subject of trilateral investigations, Mr. Jones discussed progress made and asked for continued support and commitment for this program. The U.S. government has found Vietnamese records and witnesses to be the greatest potential sources for resolution of many Lao and Cambodian cases. Mr. Jones sought assistance in providing access to documentation on open Lao border cases, in which records could help identify Vietnamese witnesses familiar with the cases.

The PresidentÕs fourth area for assessing Vietnamese cooperation relates to documents and oral history interviews. Mr. Jones stated his opinion that the oral history program and remains related documents are most relevant to DPMOÕs work. Reports on Laos and Cambodia cases and oral interviews have provided valuable information on wartime situations and have proven useful to support case investigation and resolution. Mr. Jones thanked Vietnamese officials for the recent turnover of two documents at the Da Lat Conference concerning the wartime shootdown of U.S. aircraft. The real need for continuation of these programs was emphasized.

In the week prior to Mr. JonesÕ visit to Vietnam. American and Vietnamese officials met in Da Lat to assess ten years of U.S./Vietnamese joint activity. American officials presented their Vietnamese counterparts with data summarizing many aspects of this ten-year effort. Jones explained while this data does not represent U.S. policy, it was provided to the Vietnamese to assist them in their own internal reporting process and provides answers to specific questions posed by the Vietnamese government.

Addressing the issue of no further pursuit and deferred cases, Mr. Jones remarked that our forward focus will be to continue to work toward resolution of the 833 Vietnam cases which merit further investigation; discover information about other Americans lost in the border areas of Cambodia and Laos; and find new information on the 151 Vietnam cases which are in a deferred status. Jones presented a list of those 151 cases to the Vietnamese officials with whom he met and asked for any new information of which we may be unaware. Jones explained that of the individuals still missing in Southeast Asia, 602 fall into a "no further pursuit" accounting category; 569 of those from Vietnam. This list was provided to each Vietnamese official, with Mr. Jones requesting a formal response as to whether additional information is known about any of the cases.

In the area of archival research, Mr. Jones proposes providing Vietnamese archivists access to the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Md., noting that records of the U.S. Army in Vietnam contain information relating to burial sites of Vietnamese forces. Mr. Jones believes this information may be of assistance to Vietnam in locating some remains of their casualties.

Finally, Mr. Jones thanked the Vietnamese for their role in the Noi Bai repatriation ceremony and their support in overall personnel accounting operations. He commended them for the significant strides in this most important humanitarian quest.

Korea

During meetings in Seoul with U.S. government officials, United Nations Command representatives, and senior officials of the Republic of Korea, DASD Jones focused on the planned increase in the operational tempo for 1999 joint recovery operations with the North Koreans. Thanking the South Korean government for their strong support of our efforts toward fullest possible accounting of AmericaÕs missing, he offered to share data with the South Koreans concerning our worldwide recovery efforts in order to further their own accounting procedures. South Korean authorities offered to sponsor a living history initiative within South Korea in order to promote our efforts. Jones also participated in the repatriation ceremony at Panmunjom and engaged in discussions about initiatives to mark the 50th anniversary of the Korean War.

In meetings with United Nations Command officials, Jones heard their strong message that U.S. officials should not change the established venue for repatriation of Korean War era remains. This message was continuously reinforced in several meetings attended my Mr. Jones.

DASD Jones met with U.S. and host nation media and outlined U.S. efforts for the fullest possible accounting of our missing. He asked for their support in locating local citizens who could provide information about Korean War losses.

Hawaii

In addition to providing the keynote address at the Veterans Day ceremony at the Punchbowl Cemetery, Jones met with DCINCPAC, Lt Gen House; the Director of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Lt Gen (Ret) Stackpole; and, Deputy Director of CILHI, Mr. Webb. He briefed DCINCPAC on all aspects of his trip to Southeast and Northeast Asia. Additionally, he proposed organizing a seminar to bring together Korean War veterans and experts from the involved nations to discuss POW/MIA issues. The Asia-Pacific Center was mentioned as a possible location for this venue. Also discussed was the possibility of conducting informal research in Chinese archives for POW/MIA related material from the Korean War. Operational tempo in Southeast Asia was also the subject of discussion.

Mr. Webb was briefed on an upcoming manpower survey with an eye toward ensuring Korean operations, the increased ops tempo in Southeast Asia and identification of Punchbowl remains are factored into the manpower equation. CILHI has identified 41 billets that could be filled by servicemembers from any branch.

Gen. Stackpole was approached with the possibility of hosting a learning seminar in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Korean War. Veterans from all services, the UN forces, and North Korean and Chinese veterans would be invited to offer their views and relate their experiences from the Korean War. The desired outcome of this seminar would be an oral/living history of the war. DPMO will prepare a concept paper exploring the feasibility of hosting such an event.

Veterans and Family Updates

Mr. Jones concluded his trip in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he spoke to a veterans forum on November 13th and provided opening remarks for the family update the next day. In addition to recapping highlights of his Asian trip to his audiences, he responded to questions from both groups.