News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: NAF Bits 'N' Pieces

Date: February 06, 2001

"National Alliance of Families For The Return of America's Missing Servicemem
World War II - Korea - Cold War - Vietnam - Gulf War

Bits N Pieces February 2, 2001

Two More South Korean POWs Escape The North - Associated Press, Seoul South Korea, January 31, 2001 - "Two South Korean prisoners of war and five North Korean defectors arrived in Seoul recently, Seoul's main government intelligence agency said Wednesday...."

"Park Ki-chool, 70, and Lee Ki-hyong, 75, returned home after spending almost half a century in the North. They were caught while fighting for South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War...."


Gulag Study - The April 2000 study of Americans seen in Soviet Gulags has now been release. The work of the Joint Commission Support Directorate, of the U.S. Russian Joint Commission's, details reports of Americans seen in the Soviet Gulags, since World War II.

Pentagon Steps Up POW Probe - Associated Press, Feb. 3, 2001 by Robert Burns - "Despite misgivings in Moscow, Pentagon investigators are intensifying their search for Cold War-era Russian records that could confirm reports that American servicemen from World War II and the Korean War were held and died in the network of labor camps known as the gulag."

"The Russian government is cooperating with the effort, but it has been deeply skeptical of the evidence available so far - mainly eyewitness accounts with limited details and little or no documentation. The Russians have questioned the authenticity and validity of one of the Pentagon's most compelling sources, a Russian emigre who claims he learned while in internal exile in the former Soviet Union that dozens of American servicemen - some identified by name - were imprisoned in the 1950s."

"The Defense Department released to The Associated Press this week a compilation of reports from dozens of sources who claimed to have seen American military personnel in such notorious prisons as Lubyanka in Moscow and such obscure labor camps as Bulun in the remote northern reaches of Siberia."

"The reports, which collectively are known within the Pentagon as the ``Gulag Study,'' include brief summaries of what eyewitnesses - in most cases not identified by name - say they saw in the labor camps. More than two dozen reports relate to camps around Vorkuta, a Siberian city above the Arctic Circle."

"Some examples: A person described as a Polish witness said an American prisoner arrived at Vorkuta's coal mine No. 6 in about June 1953. Other prisoners told the witness that the American was the pilot of a spy plane shot down by the Soviets. The witness said the American appeared to be about 40 years old and more than six feet tall, and that he saw him while the witness and other Polish prisoners were being prepared for release. "

"John H. Noble, an American who was interned by the Germans during World War II and later taken by the Soviets to a Vorkuta labor camp, said he was told by a Yugoslav national at camp No. 3 that eight survivors from a U.S. Navy spy plane downed by the Soviets over the Baltic Sea in 1950 were being held in the Vorkuta area. The Soviets released Noble to U.S. authorities in 1955. (A Navy Privateer reconnaissance plane carrying a crew of 10 was shot down by Soviet fighters over the Baltic on April 8, 1950. The entire crew is unaccounted for. The Pentagon is investigating the case.) "

"Reports from three separate sources referred to sightings in the 1950s of what appears to be the same American GI in camps at Bulun, a port on the Lena River in northern Siberia. One reported him as Dick Rozbicki, a soldier captured during the Korean War; another reported him as Fred Rosbiki, a commando; the third report, received second-hand from a Catholic priest in 1958, referred to a Lt. Stanley Rosbicki."

"A Soviet veteran claimed in 1996 to have seen a U.S. prisoner of war in May or June 1953 in Moscow. The American was said to have been an Air Force F-86 fighter pilot who was forced to land in North Korea, captured and taken to Moscow and made an instructor at the Monino Air Force Academy from 1953-58."

"Also, a Polish witness reported sharing a cell at the Lubyanka prison in Moscow in 1948 with a U.S. Army sergeant whom he had seen a year earlier at a prison in Potsdam, Germany."

The Pentagon has been pressing the Russians for several years to pursue clues that American servicemen were imprisoned in Siberia during the Cold War, and now the case has been bolstered by more specific information."

"In a note accompanying the ``Gulag Study,'' Robert L. Jones, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW and MIA affairs, cautioned against assuming the study is accurate in every detail. The material was provided to the Russian government in April 2000 but not released publicly until now..."

"...Norman Kass, a senior official on the U.S. side of the commission, traveled to Vorkuta last October to arrange for a private Russian group to search for records from the former labor camps there. One such camp is of particular interest to the Pentagon: the Kirovskij mining camp near the Kamenka River in the sub-Arctic pine forests of the Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia. A Russian emigre - whose identity has not been released, even to the Russians - who had been in internal exile in Siberia in the 1950s told Pentagon investigators last year that he learned of 22 Americans held in there in 1951."

"Russian officials have questioned the credibility of the assertions."

"The 22 names were provided by a woman who the emigre said worked in the Kirovskij camp in 1951-52. He said the woman had the men write their names on scraps of newspaper, then put the paper in a jar and buried it. One of the 22 names correlates with a U.S. soldier listed as unaccounted for from the Korean War. He is Chan Jay Park Kim, a Hawaiian of Korean descent who was captured early in the war. In captivity in Korea he was known to have used a pseudonym, George Leon, to mask his ethnic background. It is that name which appears on the list of 22 Americans."

Also on the list of 22 is the surname Hatch. An Army Sgt. 1st Class Robert Hatch of Aiken, S.C., is missing in action from the Korean War. Another, listed as Hubert Johnson, could be Army Cpl. Herbert Johnson of McLennan, Texas, who was declared missing in action Nov. 27, 1950 in Korea."


Here Are Additional Excerpts From The "Gulag Study" - Discussing the "Russian Memoirs" and its author the study notes; "In his memoirs (provided to the Russian Side in November 1999) a source wrote that in the very beginning of 1953, he was sent to handle an emergency situation at the Northern mining enterprise called Rybak.

One of the technical experts that he worked with was a demolition-qualified inmate, tall, exhausted by hunger and the Arctic, with a very characteristic, slightly elongated artistic face on which the unnatural protrusion of gray eyes in sockets sunken from emaciation revealed someone ill with exophthalmic goitre. In an accent clearly that of an English speaker, he also openly identified himself as a citizen of the United States of America, Allied Officer Dale."

"In Noril'sk, many years later, a geologist who had worked with the witness in Udereya at the time in question, related that many of the Americans "who had fallen into our hands in 1945 from the liberated Fascist camps" were held in Rybak and probably perished there..."

The study notes; "[LT. Harvey Dale and LT William Dale are both missing from WWII]"

Also mentioned in the Gulag Study is the "Memoirs" discussion of the loss of an RB-29 crew in June of 1952. According to the "Memoirs" "A construction official who worked extensively in the Far East and was also an advisor to a minister stated that "he did learn the names of two crewmembers of that aircraft, Bush and Moore, who will forever remain in the soil of the Khabarovsk Region."

The Study notes: "[Along with 10 other Crewmembers, MAJ Samuel Busch and MSGT David Moore were shot down by Soviet fighters on 12 June 1952. The entire crew remains missing.]"

The most touching of entry in the Gulag study relates to another report by John Noble. It read: "Repatriated American John Noble reported that inscribed in the wall of Krasnia Prest Prison [?] in Moscow, he saw the name of Major Roberts or Robbins, with his American address and the inscription "I am sick and don't expect to live through this..."

The study notes "[MAJ Frank A. Roberts is missing from WWII, as well as CAPTs Robert Roberts and Edward Robbins. These three are among the 125 missing servicemembers from WWII with the last name of Roberts or Robbins.]"


American POWs Held In The Soviet Union At The End Of World War II - From the 17th Plenum of the U.S. Russian Joint Commission, November 14 - 15, 2000 - "A detailed discussion was held on the list of 39 U.S. POWs who were under Soviet control a the end of WWII. Mr. McReynolds (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) again raised the issue of the past Russian promise to search through documentary records of Soviet Convoy Troops and specifically mentioned the case of PFC Rudolph Frisch, one of the 39 American servicemen who were known to have been under Soviet control at the end of World War II and who subsequently did not return to the United States. The Russian side agreed to keep searching the Convoy Troop records and promised to turn over to Jim Connell the personal data card on Rudolph Frisch that was found at the Center for the Storage and Preservation of Historical Document Collections. Colonel Nikiforov likewise pledged to approach the FSB archives for any documents on Frisch and, in general to continue efforts to resolve the fate of the 39 individuals on the list."


To the Skeptics and Those Who Parrot The Government Line - that no POWs were ever taken into or held by the Soviets... It is now clear American POWs were held by or moved into the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, the Korean War, and Cold War.

As for Vietnam, based on past Soviet actions it is within reason to conclude that POWs from Vietnam also ended up in the former Soviet Union.

The only question that remains is - How many and what happened to them?

The simple fact is American POWs ended up in the former Soviet Union, after every war involving Communist countries. The fact that in one of those wars, the Soviets were our supposed Allies, doesn't make a difference.


What Happened To The Crew Of Spirit 03 - The families of crewmen lost on a AC130, on January 31,1991, during the Gulf War wonder if they were told the truth about the loss of their loved ones. For one family the questions began almost at once. In the spring of 1991, Lynn O'Shea was told by a very reliable source that one family was questioning the identification process. Approximately 5 years ago, one family member contacted the National Alliance of Families and had detailed conversations with both Dolores Alfond and Lynn O'Shea regarding the process used to identify the remains, the unidentifiable remains, and the distribution of those remains. This conversation was in strict confidence. We kept that confidence. Today, other families are now speaking to the media, repeating what we were told approximately five years ago.

We start first with a quote from the DPMO weekly update, dated January 18, 2001. It states: "DESERT STORM REPORTS CLARIFIED - Air Force and Navy officials have clarified information related to accounting for American casualties during Desert Storm. One media report indicated that most of the crew of the Air Force's AC-130 "Spirit 03" were still listed as "killed in action, body not recovered." However, that report was based on outdated information. According to the Air Force, all crewmembers of "Spirit 03" were recovered, and buried in individual funerals."

"Two U.S. Navy aviators are still listed as KIA/BNR from combat in Desert Storm. They are Lieutenant Commander Barry T. Cooke and Lieutenant Robert J. Dwyer."

The Air Force is WRONG! All crewmen WERE NOT recovered. However, all crewmen were buried in individual graves, containing remains. According to the family member we spoke with the unidentifible remains were "apportioned." That phrase is mentioned in the Associated Press article quoted below.

>From the Associated Press, January 27, 2001 - "Mary Esther, Fla. (AP) - Terry Buege had put aside lingering questions about the fate of her husband, who was one of 14 men lost when Spirit 03, an Air Force gunship, was shot down 10 years ago Wednesday during the Persian Gulf War."

"Then less than three weeks ago the Navy changed the status of Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher, of Jacksonville, from killed in action to missing. The Navy had new information indicating the fighter pilot may have survived after his plane was shot down on the first day of Operation Desert Storm.

"That rekindled Buege's questions about what happened to her husband, Senior Master Sgt. Paul Buege, a sensor operator, and other airmen aboard Spirit 03. "If you have some doubt, and your husband wasn't identified, it certainly gives a question mark for your mind," Terry Buege said. "You always have this 'what if."'

"Only five bodies were positively identified after remains were recovered from Spirit 03, which was missing for more than a month before being found on the bottom of the Persian Gulf off Saudi Arabia. A shoulder-fired missile brought down the AC-130H Spectre from Hurlburt Field outside this Florida Panhandle town where Buege still lives...."

"... Air Force officials said no one could have survived the fiery crash. It was the service's largest loss of life in the war. The Air Force wanted to bury the unidentified remains in a mass grave, but the families balked. At their request, those remains were apportioned for individual burials."

"The discovery on the beach of debris from the plane, including a pair of one-person life rafts, and two flight jackets, one belonging to Buege's husband, contributed to lingering doubts that now have resurfaced. "If I could really know for sure that my husband were dead, or alive, that would bring the final peace to my heart," Buege said."

"She wants to see more evidence, however, before deciding whether to seek a change in her husband's status from killed to missing in action, or MIA."

"Jennifer Lavery, of Alamosa, Col., said she and her parents have seen enough and will ask Congress for a new investigation into Spirit 03's loss in the wake of the Speicher reclassification. Her brother, Maj. Paul Weaver, was the gunship's pilot. His remains also were not identified. "If it takes a reclassifying to MIA, we will go that far," she said. "If there weren't survivors, fine, then give us the proof."

"Not all families that buried unidentified remains have such doubts. "Nobody got out of that airplane," said Chris May, whose husband, Master Sgt. James B. May II, was an aerial gunner. "Once that wing was gone, that plane augured into the water." May, who lives in nearby Fort Walton Beach, herself was a master sergeant at Eglin Air Force Base when Spirit 03 went down...."

"... A 1993 Air Force report to the Senate Armed Services Committee said centrifugal force in the spinning aircraft would have pinned the men to the plane's sides and made it impossible to put on their parachutes, open a cargo door and bail out. Rita Hodges, who lives in the Panama City area, said she, too, had no reason to believe her son, Tech Sgt. Robert K. Hodges, also a gunner, survived. "I think our son is gone," she said...."

"Other questions still nagging at some family members are whether the gunship had been given a mission too dangerous for such a plane and why it was still over hostile territory after the break of dawn. The gunships are a variation of the four-engine, turboprop C-130 Hercules cargo plane. They are big, slow and highly vulnerable to anti-aircraft artillery and missiles. For that reason they normally fly only under cover of darkness and in areas with low to moderate anti-aircraft threats."

"Following the war, there were published reports crew members of the four gunships deployed for Desert Storm had complained in letters home that they were being sent on "crazy missions." The Air Force acknowledged three men refused to fly after close calls. The commander of the gunship squadron had demanded and was given authority to conduct "sanity checks" and refuse missions that were too hazardous. Spirit 03's final mission passed the sanity check, but a message ordering the gunship back to base before dawn was delayed for 49 minutes."

"Air Force officials, however, said in the report to the Senate committee that it was Weaver's decision to remain over Kafji past dawn and that he did not need an order to return home. Lavery said she was told her brother wanted to leave but sent a radio message that he had polled the crew and all agreed to stay on to attack the FROGs at the urging of ground commanders. "The ground wanted those FROGs gone - now," she said. "That's how Spirit 03 ended up in the light of day."


Apportioned Remains - Simply stated, this means that the unidentifiable remains were divided among the nine families, whose loved ones were not identified. This allowed each family to have an individual burial, with remains in the casket. However, it is highly unlikely that any of the nine families , involved buried their loved one.

This makes the Air Force statement, repeated by DPMO incorrect. All crewmembers of "Spirit 03" were not recovered." The statement "and buried in individual funerals" can be described as misleading, at best.

You can add nine of the crewmen of "Spirit 03" to the list of American servicemen - not recovered, not identified, yet buried by their govenment.

Possible Soviet MIAs in Southeast Asia - From the 17th Plenum of the U.S. Russian Joint Commission, Nov. 2000 - "The U.S. side briefed the Russian side on the results of their research into Soviet casualties during the Vietnam conflict. For the first time, the American side has developed information based on authoritative Russian sources that the USSR incurred more casualties in this conflict than has so far been acknowledged, and that 21 of these casualties were missing-in-action cases. The American side offered to work with the Russian side to clarify the fate of these MIA Soviet servicemen based on the possibility that unidentified remains recovered by the U.S. in Vietnam and Laos might be those of Soviet service members. The Russian side expressed interest in this issue and promised to consult on their side and determine whether cooperation with the American side might help the Russian side to clarify the fate of MIA Soviet personnel."


Unidentified remains at CIL-HI Possibly Soviet Personnel - that's one explanation. The other is that more erroneous identifications were made during the War, and after, than anyone would like us to know about. Ridgeway... Parrish.. Berry... who knows how many?????


-Suspect ID's, Erroneous ID's, Servicemen Identified Without Remains and Now Apportioned Remains -

Why does Johnie Webb still have a job?


He's Alive - Former Yugoslav POW Chris Stone is alive and well and living in Michigan. Yet, he is having trouble convincing his creditors. You see, when Stone, along with Andrew Ramirez and Steven Gonzales of were captured on March 31st, 1999, on the Yugoslav border, someone started processing Stone's death benefits.

>From the Associated Press, Feb. 1, 2001 - "Lansing, Mich. (AP) - It was last week when Staff Sgt. Christopher Stone discovered he was still dead. He tried to buy a car, but a dealer told him "'Sorry, but you have this black mark on your credit report,"' Stone said. "I guess they don't like lending money to a dead guy because they're hard to collect from."

"Stone, a former prisoner of war, first discovered his problem about a year ago while he was preparing his taxes. Ever since, he has been trying to convince the government that he is alive. "It all started the day I was captured," Stone told the Detroit Free Press for a story Thursday. "Somebody decided on that day to initiate a death claim for benefits. I don't know who or how, but that claim was passed on to the credit bureaus...."

"...I'm frustrated, but I also see the humor in it," he said. "Obviously someone was looking to do the right thing but they didn't give me much chance to get released."

Our question - why would anyone in the government process a death claim for a serviceman, seen on worldwide television within hours of his capture?


NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense - January 31, 2001 "Four sets of remains believed to be those of missing in action servicemen from War World II and the Korean War were disinterred yesterday from Hawaii's National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific."

"The cemetery, known as the Punch Bowl, is the resting-place of more than 800 "unknown" remains from the Korean War, and more than 2,000 from WWII. Most of the Korean War remains were received by the U.S. at the ceasefire in 1953. Another 204 were turned over by the North Koreans between 1991 and 1994 and are currently in the possession of the Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI)..."

"...In September, 1999, CILHI disinterred two sets of remains believed to be those of Korean War soldiers. Since that time, the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) has carried out hundreds of tests on these remains, but has been unable to establish a reliable "sequence" of test results. Scientists at AFDIL have theorized that a preservative chemical used in the 1950s may be blocking the extraction of the DNA."

"These two sets of remains were thought to have the highest probability of identification, and potential family members of these unknowns were contacted to obtain DNA information."

"The additional four sets of remains disinterred today are also viewed by CILHI scientists as offering a high probability of identification..."


National Alliance of Families Twelfth Annual Forum is scheduled for June 21st _ 23rd, 2001. We will notify you of that location, shortly. Our Forum is conducted to coincide with the governments annual POW/MIA Family Briefings. We urge all family members to attend this years government briefings, for Vietnam family members. Remember the government will provide free airfare to two family members to attend the briefings. There is no charge or registration fee to attend the government briefings. It is important that family members attend these briefings. We do not want to give DPMO reason to implement their "dead" Strategic Plan and end active investigations by 2004.

Remember, the Alliance is an all volunteer organization. Our meetings are open to all, without charge. At this time of year, we actively seek contributions to finance our Forum. If you wish to contribute, donations may be mailed to:

National Alliance of Families P.O. Box 40327 Bellevue, WA. 98015.

Remember All Contributions Are Tax Deductible.


We end this edition of Bits N Pieces with two quotes:

The first from former Yugoslav POW, Chris Stone, commenting on being dead, in the eyes of the bureaucracy: "Obviously someone was looking to do the right thing but they didn't give me much chance to get released."

And, from the Gulag Study: "... inscribed in the wall of Krasnia Prest Prison [?] in Moscow, he saw the name of Major Roberts or Robbins, with his American address and the inscription "I am sick and don't expect to live through this..."

Take a look at the two quotes and draw your own conclusions.......

Dolores Alfond - 425-881-1499
Lynn O'Shea --- 718-846-4350
Web Site http://www.nationalalliance.org
email -- lynnpowmia@prodigy.net

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