News-Info-Alerts

Re: Myanamar Agrees to WW II Crew Searches

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: September 16, 2002

"Myanmar agrees to permit U.S. searches for WWII air crew remains

By Robert Burns Associated Press

Myanmar, the South Asian nation also known as Burma, has agreed to permit a U.S. military team to explore four sites believed to contain the wreckage of U.S. military planes that crashed during China-Burma-India supply missions nearly half a century ago, officials said Monday.

The agreement was reached Saturday during talks in Rangoon, the Myanmar capital, between senior Myanmar officials and Jerry D. Jennings, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW-MIA affairs.

It is the first time Myanmar, which is ruled by a military junta, has agreed to permit U.S. searches on its territory. Technical talks are to be held in Myanmar in November to arrange details for experts from the Army’s Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii to visit the four sites early next year.

Myanmar has lived under military rule since 1962, when former dictator Ne Win took power in a coup. The United States discourages trade and investment with Myanmar to protest military suppression of democracy.

A Pentagon statement on the Rangoon talks said Jennings invited Myanmar officials to visit the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii in October to meet with U.S. specialists who lead field excavations for missing military personnel and conduct forensic identification work at the laboratory.

The laboratory has pinpointed four World War II crash sites of C-47 cargo aircraft that went down in northern Myanmar in 1944 and 1945. In their initial visit to the sites next year the U.S. specialists will survey the areas for subsequent excavation in hopes of finding remains of the air crews.

The Army lab has conducted similar searches at World War II crash sites in other Asian nations, including China. "