PART II

Efforts with China

Recognizing that the key to resolving many of the Korean War missing cases was through the cooperation from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the DPMO, along with other segments of the U.S. government, worked hard in the 1990s to establish a viable program with Beijing. Cooperation by the Chinese had been spotty with respect to the Korean War. Department of State efforts through Geneva in the 1950s secured the release of 15 aviators held from the Korean War until 1955. Largely due to the Nixon overtures to China in 1972, the Chinese began to release Cold War–era CIA officers and to provide information on other officers who were never recovered. They repatriated Vietnam War pilots’ remains and allowed U.S. investigators to conduct follow-up searches on other losses from that war. The Chinese were and continue to be proactive on brokering access to World War II crash sites on their territory as well. Moreover, the Chinese agreed to all U.S. requests to place U.S. Army forward logistics coordinators in Beijing in support of the JROs in North Korea from 1996 to 2000.

The U.S. government has raised the POW/MIA issue with China at high levels on numerous occasions. The message for the U.S. government was carried by the president, the secretaries of defense and state and their assistant secretaries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the commander of U.S. Pacific Forces, and the U.S. ambassador to China. Also brought up with the Chinese were specific cases of missing servicemen. In June 1992, Undersecretary of State Mickey Kanter passed a 125-name Korean War MIA list to Chinese Ambassador Zhu Qizhen. The list had been derived during the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs investigations and was characterized as a list of men questioned by the Russians during the war and possibly sent to the USSR from China. A month later the Chinese responded through the New China News Agency that no U.S. POWs had been transferred through China.

In January 1993, acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/MIA Affairs Mr. Edward Ross led a DoD and Pacific Forces Command (PACOM) delegation to Beijing. Their intent was to garner support for U.S. POW/MIA accounting efforts concerning WWII, the Korean War and Southeast Asian War. This visit was reciprocated when a Chinese delegation led by Senior MFA representative Mr. Yang Jiechi visited PACOM and CILHI. Following these visits the Chinese authorized investigations of two Southeast Asia and a WWII aircraft loss incident.

In July 1994 and October 1996, the U.S. embassy in Beijing passed to the MFA specific aviation losses, two F-86 pilots, a B-29 crew of 13, and the cases of three unrepatriated POWs. While the Chinese have consistently agreed to take on specific cases, their information on U.S. government Korean War loss requests provided no new leads for U.S. casualty analysts.

In the interest of establishing a regular schedule of talks with Chinese counterparts, DASD Jones began visits to the MFA in Beijing in January 1999. In his initial visit, he met for the first time a Chinese designated point of contact for POW/MIA issues, Chen Ming Ming. Jones pressed the MFA for any information on cases presented to the Chinese through the Department of State on DPMO’s behalf in 1996. He also requested access to war archives, in particular prison camp records, as the Chinese had administered the permanent POW camps on the Yalu River from late 1950. Access to veterans who might be aware of specific air or ground incidents involving U.S. forces would also be helpful, he noted. While Chen reported finding no information on the Korean War cases passed in 1996, he was open to regularized meetings for the purpose of accepting continued case inquiries.

An event that provided impetus to the issue was the visit of Premier Zhu Rongji to the United States in April 1999. During discussions,

President Clinton impressed upon the premier the importance of the POW/MIA issue to the American people, mentioning that the office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Mr. John Hamre, had responsibility. Premier Zhu responded that the Chinese would act on specific case requirements and designated Vice Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi as his point of contact. During that time Senator Robert Smith also forwarded a letter to the president requesting assurances that the Chinese military agree to disclose information on the missing from the Korean War.

A May 1999 meeting set between DPMO, MFA and PLA counterparts in Beijing was abruptly cancelled when U.S. warplanes mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. That event curtailed relations on all DoD programs with China for six months. Nevertheless, the Chinese agreed to meet in September 1999 in Beijing and accepted from Jones a packet of 44 Korean War and two Cold War case inquiries. The Korean War inquiries involved unaccounted-for Army, Air Force, and Marines servicemen who were in Chinese-administered prison camps on the Yalu River from 1951 to 1953, men missing from November 1950 battles and main line of resistance firefights with the Chinese, air losses, and names of missing men mentioned in Chinese periodicals. Chen maintained that the Korean War records were still closed at that meeting but agreed to research the cases and to look into a veterans and family member visit to Beijing for 2000.

PROGRESS IN TALKS

The next semiannual meeting between DASD Jones and the MFA took place on 31 January 2000. Chen reported that he had no information on the 44 Korean War cases passed for research in September 1999. Moreover, on Jones’s request concerning a family and veterans visit to China to coincide with the Korean War 50th anniversary commemorations, Chen mentioned no decision had yet been made nor had one been made on an invitation for his office to visit the United States.

On a highly positive note, Chen offered to begin making available for oral history interviews Chinese Korean War veterans who were prison camp cadre and indicated that it could start later in the year. In addition, he mentioned that academic exchanges would be authorized in unclassified museums and libraries. These talks were a watershed in the relationship, as they marked the first time China accepted DoD overtures to pursue elements of the Korean War POW/MIA program involving DoD researchers and oral history program interviewers on the Chinese mainland.

During the DASD Jones September 2000 visit to Beijing, DPMO analysts conducted the first interviews of four Chinese Korean War veterans, all who had been prison camp administrators. Also during this visit the Chinese accepted two more MIA case inquiries, involving Korean and Cold War air losses.

Chapter 3: The Accounting Challenge

On 23 June 1999, Department of Defense (DoD) Public Affairs office announced the identification of two U.S. servicemen lost during the Korean War in November 1950, Corporal Charles Tillman of the 9th Infantry Regiment and Private First Class Herbert Ardis of the 24th Infantry Regiment. A combined U.S. and North Korean search and recovery team operating in Kujang County, North Pyonggan Province, in June and July 1998, discovered their remains. Extraordinary effort was expended by a handful of casualty analysts, mortuary affairs specialists, and forensics experts from three U.S. government agencies to research the loss site, conduct the excavation, and carry out the forensic examination and DNA testing to identify these men 49 years following their date of loss.

Per U.S. policy, a missing service person is accounted-for by their being returned alive to U.S. control, by the return of their remains, or through the establishment of conclusive proof that he/she is not recoverable. The highest priority is the return of a live American. In some cases, because of the destructive nature of war, neither a live return nor the return of remains is possible. The almost 300 Korean War cases of air losses over water are typical of those least likely to be resolved. For several reasons, the Korean War presents a considerable challenge to the effort to achieve an accounting of the more than 8,100 men still missing. The passage of time, the lack of surviving witnesses, the limitations on access to loss area, and the paucity of records combine to form roadblocks that have hindered the accounting process.

Nevertheless, DoD organizations pursuing this issue have several means of finding answers that result in case resolution. Despite the passage of more than 40 years, relevant records are still being discovered in disparate archives worldwide, witnesses with direct knowledge on losses are still being located, and recoveries and identifications continue to be made. The means by which we develop information on those still missing and make the recoveries so that the missing men ultimately can be identified are described in this chapter.

Personnel Missing Korea List

Fundamental to the accounting issue is the determination of the realm of all possible servicemen who are still unaccounted-for from the Korean War. DPMO researchers in 1995 noted the existence of three separate U.S. government lists of such missing servicemen: the Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI) automated database list, the Directorate of Operations and Reports (DIOR), Washington Headquarters Services List, and the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) list. A comparison of the three lists reflected significant disparities among them. The initial consolidation produced a listing that was more than 600 names longer than any individual list. Name misspellings and duplications were common, and numerous resolved cases were found on the lists.

DPMO began steps to create an all-inclusive list of Americans unaccounted-for from the Korean War, which was titled the Personnel Missing Korea list, or PMKOR. In 1996 DPMO analysts and reservists called to active duty at DPMO for this purpose compared, evaluated, and merged the three separate lists into the PMKOR master draft. Upon completion of the consolidation, DPMO staffed the list with the Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force service casualty and mortuary affairs offices, as well as the originators of the three lists—CILHI, DIOR, and ABMC—to ensure accuracy. With the input of the services and activities, DPMO made changes, continued to review the document for accuracy, and posted the document on the DPMO Web site for public access in February 1999.

The PMKOR is a living document consisting of more than 160,000 data fields and 8,171 names of men still unaccounted-for. Analysts at DPMO continually update the document based on documented correction recommendations from the services and from the public. The goal is to develop and maintain the most accurate listing possible. In addition, DPMO’s supporting information systems staff has improved presentation of the document over time to allow for individual visitors to the Web site to search the list by state or service.

Total:
Killed In Action 1,798
Missing In Action 4,261
Non-Battle Death 93
Prisoner Of War 2,053
PMKOR Total 8,205
Remains Identified after OPERATION GLORY 34
Unaccounted-For 8,171
Statistics for Korean War unaccounted-for from the PMKOR

Live American Issue

As mentioned earlier in the chapter, the first priority of the U.S. government is the safe return of a missing American. U.S. Forces Far East Command efforts in the immediate postwar period centered on the determination of who was still possibly alive in the Communist prison camp system. The list of 944 servicemen mentioned in Chapter 1 was a group of men whose fate was undetermined at the time and for whom the services and U.S. Forces Far East believed the Communist side should be able to account. The services conducted research on this list for years in the effort to account for these men.

Buttressing the notion that some men might be still held at the end of the war was the wartime reporting of trainloads of Caucasians and African Americans being shipped from China to the USSR. Lieutenant Colonel Phil Corso (Retired) testified before the Military Personnel Affairs Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee in 1996 that about 900 such men were held back from Operation Big Switch. After the 1996 hearings, Mr. Corso explicitly mentioned to a DPMO representative that he had been referring only to the holding back of sick and wounded at Operation Little Switch.

Further, starting in 1968 occasional defectors from North Korea reported seeing or hearing about Korean War–era American and other UN POWs still living in that country. Reporting by these defectors indicated consistently that these men taught English language and American customs in military colleges in Pyongyang and appeared in feature films. The reports characterized their status variously as POWs, deserters, or Americans left from the Korean War.

Resolution of reporting on live sightings of prisoners is a top intelligence community requirement. Through the aid of an array of sources, including those of the intelligence community, most of the defector reports were attributed to four of six U.S. Army deserters who defected to North Korea between 1962 and 1965.

Also of considerable interest are reports from the South Korean press on the escapes of men out of North Korea identified as former ROK soldiers. Those reports bring some hope to members of the public that some Americans could still be alive. The ROK government has acknowledged that some of these men coming out of North Korea were at one time ROK soldiers. The ROK prisoner legacy is unfortunately wrapped up in the North-South relations paradigm that does not directly relate to the U.S. prisoner issue. During the war, the KPA controlled the ROK prisoners, and the Chinese controlled the American and UN prisoners; the two groups were segregated, so the former ROK POWs are unlikely to have knowledge about captive Americans in the postwar period. Both North and South have accused each other of holding back prisoners, and indeed the ROK government in 2000 in a goodwill gesture released North Korean guerillas held since the 1950s. Nevertheless these former ROK soldiers, who were integrated into North Korean society in the 1950s and had families, are, like the other defectors, of interest for any information they might have on live Americans.

DPMO has conducted considerable research in an effort to determine which POW populations could have been held back. DPMO analysts noted the returning POWs reported witnessing the deaths during the Korean War of the vast majority of those men in camps and on death march routes. This reporting essentially served to contradict the notion of mass transfer of POWs—put another way, the sketchy reports of trainloads of POWs lacked for named candidates because the fate of the known POW population was largely sorted out by the Far East Command and the services; the reduction of the list of 944 potential prisoners to 389 was a measure of the accounting effort at that time.

The Far East Command September 1953 report, “A Study in Repatriation,” included statistics separating out African-American POW lists in an apparent effort to determine if large numbers could have been part of the train transfers reported. The report concluded that the vast majority of known African-American POWs were returned or were known to have died. Moreover, with time, the services and the Far East Command came to discover that some of the men on the list of 944 were never in enemy hands. DPMO research on information available on the list of 389 revealed that only 235 of these men might have been in enemy hands at one time during the war.

Joint Recovery Operations and Identifications

Joint recovery operations in North Korea in recent years have shown the most promise for resolving the cases of unaccounted-for servicemen from the Korean War. As previously mentioned in this chapter, considerable preparation effort took place before the first excavation in July 1996 in Unsan County could begin.

Chapter 2 mentioned the DPMO and the UNC negotiation effort to obtain agreement from the North Koreans to allow for JROs on their territory. It was critically important to allow for this recovery convention to ensure that U.S. forensic standards would be applied from investigation and discovery through final identification. Problems encountered in the unilateral North Korean returns included destruction during collection, commingling, and commission of errors in matching identification media to remains. CILHI’s determination that up to 70 individuals were represented in the first 46 remains returned demonstrates the commingling problem.

CILHI, through Department of the Army manpower action, received sufficient staffing increases in the mid-1990s to support the dispatch of eight-man search and recovery teams for multiple annual JROs in North Korea. That authorization included the hiring of up to 21 anthropologists to support the worldwide recovery and CILHI-based identification effort. Other requirements for the makeup of each search and recovery team included a team leader, a linguist/interpreter, an EOD technician, a medical aid, and multiple mortuary specialists. The DPRK further authorized in 1999 the addition of mechanics to the team to improve vehicle readiness.

Because the DPRK and the United States are still technically at war, it is critical to maintain the lines of communication at the ministerial and departmental levels of both governments while U.S. soldiers are operating deep inside North Korea and while POW/MIA researchers or family groups and veterans service organization delegations are visiting the country. DPMO, during each of the 16 joint recovery operations, has placed a two-person U.S. government liaison element in Pyongyang; the liaison reports directly to the DASD, which is the NSC’s designated point of contact to North Korea for POW/missing personnel matters. This liaison is the link to the remotely deployed search and recovery teams, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Korean People’s Army, and the U.S. side and is critical to facilitating the resolution of operational and logistics issues arising during operations.

The search and recovery teams since 1996 have operated in two general battle areas within Unsan and Kujang Counties, North Pyonggan Province, located in northwest North Korea. In Unsan County in 1996 and 1997 the search and recovery teams systematically cleared away battle positions of E and G Companies, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, and made seven recoveries. In 1998 and 1999 the teams traveled to defensive positions and unit withdrawal routes for Task Force Dolvin/Wilson (made up of elements of the, 27th Infantry, 35th Infantry, 65th Engineers, 8th Army Rangers, and 89th Tank Battalion) and the 24th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, to the west of the Chongchon River. They also operated in battle areas of all three regiments of the 2nd Infantry Division (9th, 23rd, and 38th ) and the 72nd Tank and 2nd Engineer Battalions, located in November 1950 on both the east and west sides of the Chongchon. Year 2000 operations have included recoveries from both Unsan and Kujang counties.

The team packets for each search and recovery team included dozens of the field search cases for the battle of Unsan and the Battle of the Chongchon River. Field search case data had been co-developed by the U.S. Eighth Army Graves Registration Services and the Office of the Historian during the war and included the known losses and unit locations on the battlefield. Those data were augmented by information from DPMO and CILHI archival research and veterans’ oral history interviews. Included in the team packets are known air loss crash sites from the air search cases, developed during the Korean War, and augmented with additional data from DPMO research. With the important addition of local witness reporting, over 90 total remains recoveries were made from all operations from 1996 through 2000. Specialized equipment such as global positioning systems, metal detectors, ground penetrating radar, and cesium magnetometers (for identifying soil disturbances) aid in the excavations.

At the end of each JRO, prior to the repatriation ceremonies, a joint forensic review has been conducted to assess whether remains recovered were likely those of U.S. servicemen. While six identifications have been made on the 90 plus recoveries, several others are under analysis and pending at CILHI. Painstaking work is involved in that effort as casualty analysts— through research — narrow the populations of the possible men lost in the area of a recovery. Identification media found with remains aid in the process but are considered circumstantial evidence. In the case of Private First Class Ardis, 69 men were lost from the unit fighting in the general area in which his remains were found. The determination of race and stature of the remains narrowed the scope of individuals down to 21. Further examination of the dentition through the Computer-Assisted Postmortem JRO Sites Identification System database revealed highly compelling similarities of the dental remains to the dental characteristics in his personnel file. And finally, a comparison of the family mitochondria DNA (mtDNA) sample at the Armed Forces DNA Laboratory to the mtDNA of the remains revealed a maternal DNA match.

Battlefields are not the only interest in the JRO program. In the annual meetings with the North Koreans, DASD Robert Jones has pressed for access to the Yalu Prison Camp clusters near the Suiho Reservoir and Chunggangin (the Apex area) and UN registered cemeteries in Wonsan, Hungnam, and Koto-Ri, as a means to improve on the success of the JRO recovery rate. Thus far the North Koreans have denied access to these areas.

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the CILHI teams have conducted several operations in South Korea, resulting in the identification of two U.S. Army soldiers in the 1980s. CILHI teams also traveled to Japan to search the site of a lost U.S. Air Force aviator, resulting in identification in 1992. In addition, a CILHI team visited the former Soviet Union in 1998, following up on a 1951 eyewitness report of Americans seen in a Novosysoevka hospital in the Soviet Far East. A joint exhumation of cemetery plots near the hospital grounds did not reveal the presence of American remains, however.

Oral History Program

Recognizing the dearth of surviving records on Korean War missing servicemen, DASD James Wold in 1996 directed DPMO’s Northeast Asia Division to attend POW reunions for the purpose of obtaining information on circumstances of loss for those still missing. The fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis in 1973 destroyed 80 percent of the individual servicemen’s records; so recontacting potential witnesses was key to developing new information. DPMO researchers have attended the Korean War Ex-POWs and Tiger Survivors reunions every year since 1995, interviewing well over 400 former POWs from these events and from the POW Camp 2 Association reunions. Much information on camp cemeteries and persons buried in them has been gleaned from these interviews. Also from the interviews, DPMO analysts were able to retrace the stream of the POWs from the point of capture through the temporary holding points in Kanggae, Suan and Pukchin Tarigol into the Yalu River area prison camps.

The Research and Analysis (RA) directorate of DPMO in 1997 expanded the oral history program to include numbered division association reunions. That year, DPMO began attending reunions of ground divisions with highly significant Korean War combat roles, and thus greater numbers of missing. Associations visited included the 1st Cavalry and 1st Marine Divisions, the Chosin Few (including the Army chapter), the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 25th, and 45th Infantry Divisions. These contacts were further expanded to Eighth Army separate battalion functions, such as the 2nd Mortar Chemical Battalion, and included roundtable events with unit historians of the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. Attendance at combat unit reunions yielded another 600 interviews. DPMO researchers also attended a reunion of the 8th Attack Squadron, an Air Force B-26 Bomber unit, in an effort to clarify shootdown incidents.

The combat veteran interviews substantially expanded DPMO’s knowledge of the unit dispositions and conduct of the battles of Unsan, the Chongchon River, the Chosin Reservoir, and Outpost Harry. Some interviews resulted in the actual pinpointing of mass graves. Over 100 interviews yielded direct or secondhand knowledge of men who died, information often not previously available in the casualty files. Information from the interviews on gravesites has been passed to CILHI for use in the search and recovery team packets. In service casualty office family contacts with the next of kin, this information has proven invaluable to aid in providing information on loss incidents as well.

DPMO regularly attends eight to twelve U.S. veterans reunions per year. In negotiations with the North Koreans and Chinese, DPMO has requested access to the veterans of the Korean War adversaries. In early 2000 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the PRC offered to make available Chinese veterans for interview, starting with prison camp cadre. In September 2000 in Beijing, DPMO analysts interviewed Chinese veterans from POW Camps 1 and 5.

USRJC Interviews of Russian Veterans

The U.S. side of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIA Affairs (USRJC) has had considerable success locating Russian veterans from the Korean War for the purpose of conducting interviews in their research. The Russian side has allowed virtually unlimited access to veterans throughout Russia. Access to the Russian Ministry of Defense archives at Podolsk (to be discussed in more detail later in this chapter) has facilitated the interview program of DPMO’s joint Commission Support Directorate. Unit records in these archives name individuals who took part in searches for downed aircraft. Such records document wreckage locations and sometimes the fate of the crew. The records further mention pilots and intelligence officers who may have encountered or interrogated live American POWs in North Korea. Moscow-based personnel have located and interviewed more than 500 of these Soviet veterans of the Korean War, seeking further information on missing American servicemen and possible transfers of POWs to the former Soviet Union.

Several of those interviewed recounted their personal experiences with POWs being transferred to or seen already in the Soviet Union. Some veterans related information given them on official orders concerning a transfer program, and still others provided secondhand information they had heard about the transfer of American POWs. JCSD researchers also interviewed a former Chinese official who stated he personally participated in the transfer of POWs to the Soviet Union, as well as a former North Korean official who had heard secondhand reports of such transfers. Journalists and other researchers have heard similar reports from persons serving in high levels, including the commander of Soviet forces operating in North Korea during the war, General Georgi Lobov, and a senior KGB officer.

The U.S. side of the USRJC also conducted an oral history interview program in Eastern Europe. This program included veterans who served in Korea from the former Eastern Bloc, as well as numerous survivors of the Soviet gulag there. A contractual arrangement with a research organization in Poland yielded several reports of American servicemen seen in the gulag.

Russian and East European reporting has not yet led to the discovery of physical evidence indicating that Americans were transferred to the Soviet Union. However, as mentioned above, some of those interviewed stated that this did happen, and the USRJC continues to pursue this matter.

In December 1998, the USRJC organized a meeting between American Korean War pilots and Russian members of the USRJC. The unprecedented meeting was aimed at bringing U.S. and Soviet veterans together to help both sides clarify the fate of their unaccounted-for personnel from the Korean War. Five American veterans attended, among them, famous fliers such as Lieutenant General William “Earl” Brown (U.S. Air Force, Retired) and Brigadier General Paul Kauttu (U.S. Air Force, Retired). These veterans described air battles that took place nearly 50 years ago. One veteran provided gun camera footage showing the destruction of a MiG 15. The American veterans offered to help the Russians contact other American Korean War fighter pilots who might be able to shed light on the fates of unaccounted-for Soviet pilots.

Punchbowl Disinterment

By the time the forensic mortuary at Kokura, Japan, closed in February 1956, 421 of the remains returned during Operation Glory were assessed to be American but were still unidentifiable by name. These, with others recovered at sea and in South Korea, became part of the shipment of 848 “Unknowns” buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (also known as the Punchbowl) that May. Over the years, other recoveries from South Korea have been added, and the Unknown population now stands at 865.

The 421 unknowns from North Korea present a special challenge, but also an opportunity, for the North Korean government often made tentative identifications, which U.S. forensic experts accepted or rejected on a case-by- case basis, and also provided locations of discovery, many of which have proven to be correct in the case of identified remains. All unknowns have forensic files at CILHI, and the combination of improved physical techniques for articulation and matching, plus the application of available DNA technologies, opens a very real possibility that some of the remains now in the Punchbowl may eventually be identified. This understood, DPMO developed a policy in May 1999 authorizing Punchbowl exhumations, provided the high probability of identification, and based on the improved identification technologies. Two trial exhumations on 15 September 1999 began the process, and they remain under analysis at CILHI. Mortuary preparations using a powdered formaldehyde substance taken at the time of interment have made mtDNA typing difficult for the exhumed remains, although it is not yet known if all Operation Glory remains were treated in that fashion.

Archival Research

DoD conducts archival research for two purposes—to find information that will assist in locating missing servicemen and to inform the next of kin and the public. To develop information on the circumstances of loss on servicemen unaccounted-for nearly 50 years, historic records repositories both inside and outside the United States must be searched. The information on loss incidences is used by casualty analysts and mortuary specialists conducting field operations. It is further passed to the next of kin and to the national archives for public access.

Congressional interest in the Korean War POW/MIA issue in the mid-1990s led to the appropriation of $1 million of the FY 1995 defense budget toward locating Korean War records. With this funding, the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress located 25,000 pages of Korean War materials germane to the issue; most of the documents were found at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in various locations. Included were thousands of eyewitness reports that clarified the fates of POWs. (These were some of the documents generated from the POW returnee debriefing program.)

Also affecting Korean War era archives was the enactment of 50 US Code 435 (the amended McCain bill), which established the Archivists of the United States as the custodian of Korean War documents. The bill further made NARA responsible for making these records available to the public.

In May 1996, DPMO held a conference of archivists to identify repositories outside of NARA where POW/ Missing Personnel records might be located. Archivists from the services and NARA were represented. Participants reported that multitudes of records were scattered in a myriad of locations, many of which were not well indexed. After this meeting, a list of over 350 repositories was developed for targeting research.

To locate and evaluate the sheer number of these records presents a daunting task. Since the May 1996 meeting, DPMO archival researchers have now located 450 libraries, archives, and special collections in both foreign and domestic repositories that could hold information concerning unaccounted-for personnel. Since 1995 DPMO archival researchers have visited more than 100 of these archives, both domestic and foreign. DPMO has been successful in reviewing records in U.S. governmental and public archive collections. Additionally DPMO researchers have performed research in such foreign collections as Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam; Vientiane, Laos Democratic Republic; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Canberra, Australia; Pyongyang, DPRK; Beijing, PRC; Seoul, ROK; and London, Great Britain.

During the past two years alone the Special Projects – Archival Research (SPAR) directorate has obtained more than 300,000 pages of information relating to Americans unaccounted-for from World War II, the Korean War, and the war in Southeast Asia. To maximize use of travel funds, SPAR researchers have identified and visited all available repositories when attending DPMO family updates in locations throughout the United States, a program that has proven highly successful. Research at the National Archives in College Park, MD (NARA II), and the Washington National Records Center (WNRC) in Suitland, MD, has proven very fruitful, resulting in discovery of many thousands of pages of relevant information, which was ultimately forwarded to the service casualty offices and the families of those who remain unaccounted-for.

In the Washington area, NARA II remains a main focus for records research for SPAR and RA. Archival personnel continued to review services records stored there as well as other classified archives it maintains. For example, in early 1999, DPMO researchers uncovered almost 15,000 classified documents (21 cubic feet) from the 1950–1954 UNC/Army Forces Far East Command records at the WNRC in Suitland, MD, that related to unaccounted-for servicemen. From these documents, 4,800 pages were electronically scanned into a DPMO database. These documents were then reviewed for POW/ Missing Personnel matters in coordination with the U.S. Army declassification team and sent to the casualty analysts for further evaluation.

In 1999, DPMO archival researchers and the U.S. Army declassification team cooperated to identify and declassify an extensive collection of UNC POW/MIA accounting records from 1950–1954. The Army declassification project initially identified 700 boxes with potential DPMO/Missing Personnel information. SPAR archivists and RA analysts reviewed them and identified 145 boxes for further examination, citing 31 cubic feet of records, which directly pertain to the POW/ Missing Personnel issue. DPMO researchers and analysts scanned these records, consisting of approximately 4,800 pages of data, including more than 550 Far East Air Forces Casualty Questionnaires, which were completed by repatriated Air Force POWs. These electronic images are being indexed and incorporated into a fully searchable database containing accounting data from all of the services. With the cooperation and assistance of WNRC staff, the records were moved from the WNRC in Suitland to the Army’s declassification facility Arlington, VA, reviewed, and scanned. Of special note was the discovery of one of the iterations of the 944 list and the 6004th Air Intelligence Squadron reports, which DPMO researchers had been searching for since 1995.

Additionally, it was at WNRC that SPAR archivists uncovered a 19-cubic-foot accession from the Kokura Mortuary in Japan that contained a roster of Operation Glory (1954–1956) repatriated remains. It appears to be a bona fide list of the 4,167 remains that were returned to U.S. control through the UNC after the Korean War, which SPAR researchers have sought since 1995. In addition, records found in this accession could facilitate the identification of some of the 865 unidentified U.S. personnel who are interred at the Punchbowl.

DPMO researchers made 10 trips to the NPRC in St. Louis, MO, during 1998 and 1999. They pored over more than 500 boxes of records—more than 1,000 linear feet of records—some of which are nearly 50 years old. The researchers had to leaf through each individual page to determine whether the information contained therein was of benefit to the POW/MIA mission.

Ground unit records often hold information on fighting positions where units had unrecovered casualties. DPMO concentrated on reviewing records from the U.S. Army regimental diaries for the period of November through December 1950—the timeframe of the first major Chinese involvement on the ground--to obtain an accurate depiction of battles in which thousands of men were captured, missing, or killed in major engagements. To date, 45 reels of microfilm containing these reports have been reviewed. Pertinent data gathered from all of these records were forwarded to the appropriate service casualty office for dissemination to the next-of-kin. Additional information was found on casualties in the U.S. Army’s Center for Military History in Washington, DC; the Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, PA; the Infantry Center Museum at Fort Benning, and the National POW museum in Andersonville, GA. Information gleaned from this research was used to update the 1999 PMKOR database and the field search case data used by CILHI on JROs.

In another collaborative research project, analysts from the RA directorate and CILHI accompanied SPAR archivists to the N P R C a nd recently found d o c u m e n ts including deck logs concerning six USS Brush c r e w m e m b e rs who were initially listed as MIA w h e n t h e ir destroyer hit a mine on 25 September 1950. The Brush was providing offshore gunfire support near Tanchon, Korea. Archival documents at the NPRC indicated that these six crewmembers were killed in action (remains recovered). These reports were disseminated to the service casualty office for further notification and forwarding to the next of kin.

DPMO researchers have made several attempts to develop an aircraft loss database to account for U.S. aircrew members lost during the Korean War. The initial attempts resulted in separate databases for U.S. Air Force and Navy Department losses. Initially, a DPMO researcher developed a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that contained the type of aircraft, tail number, unit, and date removed from the inventory. He compiled the database using records from the Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA), Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, the repository for aircraft assignment records. These were the Air Force gain/loss inventory records, initiated originally by Air Materiel Command. The data were electronically searchable but did not contain any information on the fates of the crewmembers involved.

DPMO researchers also reviewed more than 500 cubic feet of archival records of the U.S. Air Force Headquarters, Far East Air Forces (FEAF) and the Headquarters, Fifth Air Force, located at NARA. These records contain extensive aircraft loss data, casualty data, and operational summaries that provide detailed circumstances of losses of U.S. aircraft and aircrew members.

DPMO researchers next compiled a U.S. Navy Department database, using historical and aircraft loss data from the Navy and Marine Corps history offices. This 224-page document contained extensive data on approximately 1,200 aircraft losses, including circumstances of loss and the fate of the aircrews.

Another DPMO researcher developed a complete aircraft loss database in 1997–2000. This project entailed finding USAF aircraft loss data at NARA II and at the AFHRA. DPMO researchers also obtained copies of the airfield search cases from CILHI. After an extensive search, a DPMO researcher found the Korean War–era FEAF, FEAF Bomber Command, and Fifth Air Force records at the NPRC. These records contain extensive aircraft loss and casualty data on Korean War fixed-wing aircraft losses of all services. Two researchers spent two months at the NPRC reviewing these valuable Korean War records. Some of these data are now part of a special collection at the Textual Records Branch, NARA II. The researcher conducted extensive analysis to link specific aircraft losses with the crews and their ultimate fates. The completed database contains 3,200 incidents (approximately 35,000 data fields) with approximately 5,000 crewmembers, including data on Allied aircrews.

The Korean War Aircraft Loss Database contains information on aircraft type and tail number, date of loss, circumstances of loss, status of crew, crash location, and blood chit number, if available, for Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps incidents. The data are cross-referenced to more than 800 hard-copy airfield search case files that contain detailed circumstances of loss of Air Force and Navy Department aircrews. No complete record of Korean War aircraft losses of those services existed before this time. Analysts can electronically search the database and then refer to the hard-copy airfield search case files for details on specific losses. This document will be a significant research tool for analysts, historians, researchers, and academicians.

Of tremendous benefit to the development of information on lost aviators is the USRJC research initiative in the Russian Ministry of Defense Archives at Podolsk, which started in the summer of 1997. Access by U.S. researchers to this material was the result of years of negotiation with the Russian side. Although some documents from Russian archives had been provided previously, the U.S. side did not have access to the archives to conduct independent research. The Russians had for years maintained that they had provided all the information pertinent to Americans that could be found in their archives. The U.S. side, led by U.S. Representative Sam Johnson (TX), continued to persist. A glimpse of the material was obtained when a television reporter was allowed access in 1994 and videotaped unit photo albums from the 64 th Fighter Aviation Corps (FAC) units documenting their shootdown claims during the Korean War. The videotape was shown on international television and used to convince the Russians that they did indeed have material that could help account for missing Americans.

The Russians released the first large batch of documents found by U.S. researchers during the 15 th Plenary Session in 1998. These 6,000 pages of documents and 300 pages of photographs copied from the Podolsk archives had direct relevance to the loss of U.S. aviators and aircraft of all types. All material pertained to the 64 th FAC, which flew the majority of combat sorties during the war for the Communists. The material contained descriptions of air battles between Soviet and UN air forces, most of which were American. The records often described where aircraft crashed, provided hand-drawn maps with statements from local citizens, and noted whether parachutes were seen or remains found. Some denoted aircraft wreckage photography. The U. S. side believed more archival information from this repository would make it possible to determine the fate of greater numbers of Americans still missing in action.

After receiving the first set of 6,000 pages, the U.S. side has been able to review declassified documents in the archives of the 64th FAC and request copies of pertinent material. Transfer of the copies to the United States was erratic at first, requiring high-level Russian government input and complex arrangements. Complicating matters, the Russian side halted all work in the archives and the release of copied material during the NATO bombing operations in Kosovo in 1999. Continued efforts on the part of the JCSD element in Moscow have now brought this work to a routine state in which U.S. researchers work in the archives eight days monthly and receive copies every month upon payment for services. The more than 14,000 pages of archival documents received to date are being analyzed to clarify the fates of unaccounted-for American servicemen from the war. Some of the documents may be of assistance to CILHI search and recovery teams on the North Korean JROs. Documents are catalogued, reviewed, and analyzed for correlation to specific U.S. missing servicemen. Those that correlate to a missing serviceman are then translated and provided to the service casualty offices for forwarding to the next of kin and placed in the missing man’s case file. For public access, the material is also forwarded to the National Archives, record group 330 I.81, in the original Russian. Those Russian documents that have been correlated to loss incidences have been translated into English and redacted for public release at NARA and the Library of Congress. By the end of 1999, these data provided information clarifying the circumstances of loss and in some cases the fate of the crew for a total of 139 missing servicemen.

Aside from air loss research in the Russian archives, the U.S. side of the USRJC has opened discussions with a number of officials in Eastern Europe over the past five years. Based on the recognized value of increased cooperation with Eastern European countries on POW/MIA issues, U.S. visits to Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, and Sofia resulted in productive discussions with government officials as well as private citizens sympathetic to the commission’s goals and objectives. The dialogue generated a number of archival research and interview programs both to investigate specific allegations and broaden the search for general knowledge these former Communist countries may have had concerning Americans unaccounted for.

Noteworthy among the archival research initiatives in Eastern Europe was an effort by both the Czech government and U.S. researchers to investigate allegations of Korean War prisoner transfers through Czechoslovakia to the former USSR. A former Czechoslovak general officer who had defected in 1968 alleged in sworn testimony to Congress that he knew of medical experiments conducted on U.S. POWs by Czech personnel in Korea as well as their transfer to the former USSR. Acting on a request by the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic and later by the urging of the U.S. side of the commission, the Czech Office to Document Crimes of Communism, an office of the Czech Police, investigated the allegations with an eye to criminal prosecution. In the search for evidence, both this Czech office and JCSD conducted research in various Czech archives. Moreover, both elements conducted interviews of persons potentially knowledgeable of the allegations, including surviving members of the Czech medical teams deployed to North Korea during the war, the staff of the Prague Central Military Hospital, former attaches, and other veterans of the war. Neither investigation produced evidence of Czech involvement with the experimentation or transfer of American POWs.

One of the keys to resolving the cases of unaccounted-for POWs lay with the POW debriefings stored in the Washington area. Starting in 1996, SPAR and RA researchers, augmented by more than 35 reservists, reviewed more than 3,000 Korean War Army POW returnee debriefs at Fort Meade, MD. The debrief team spent more than eight months reviewing an estimated 1.8 million pages. They entered critical accounting data into an extensive DPMO database. In 1999, SPAR archivists reviewed more than 1,250 debriefings, cataloguing and including over 27,000 sighting reports into the database. Researchers also copied more than 18,000 pages of information, including over 12,000 Army Forces Far East Forms 545 (Witness to a POW Death). The information obtained describes loss incidents, POW physical condition, movements, locations after capture, POW camp descriptions, and reports of death with possible burial sites, all of which will contribute directly to development of field search data to aid in future recoveries by CILHI investigators. The database now contains information from more than 3,210 debriefs, with more than 64,000 sighting reports.

DPMO researchers also found more than 100 U.S. Army Korean War POW debriefs in U.S. Department of Justice records. These debriefs are being reviewed for accounting data on missing U.S. personnel and will be incorporated into the database from the Army debriefs at Ft. Meade.

SPAR researchers reviewed a portion of a 10,000-reel collection of microfilmed Soviet gulag and Ministry of Internal Affairs prison system records at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. In addition, researchers obtained a copy of the index to this important collection from the vendor, which will assist in future research efforts. Additional visits to other domestic universities were also carried out. SPAR archivists visited libraries at the Universities of Texas, Alabama, Hartford, Arizona, and Chicago and at Northwestern, Notre Dame, and DePaul Universities in conjunction with DPMO Family Updates near those locations. An initial electronic catalog search at the University of Texas, the sixth largest university library system in the United States, provided researchers with more than 1,600 leads in numerous languages and noted a Special Collection repository as well. DPMO researchers are scheduled to follow up this initial visit at the University of Texas.

Additional research was also carried out at the Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, James Carter, Richard Nixon, George Bush, and Ronald Reagan presidential libraries. These research facilities contain materials from the collections of the White House, the NSC, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the State Department during the tenure of the associated presidents.

A DPMO researcher discovered copies of the initial Air Force Korean War POW debriefs in the Headquarters, U.S. Air Force Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence files at NARA II and another set in the Army Surgeon General files at the WNRC. Another dozen or so debriefs were found at the AFHRA. A total of 248 debriefings were found, which contain information pertaining to 233 of the 235 repatriated POWs (3 from Operation Little Switch in April 1953, 217 from Operation Big Switch in August–September 1953, and 13 of the 15 returnees from China released in May and August 1955). These documents, together with the casualty questionnaires to which they refer, provide valuable information on personnel from all services who remain unaccounted for. The repatriated POWs completed casualty questionnaires on other POWs they had encountered in the Communist POW camp system, and the information they contain assists in DPMO’s accounting effort.

During April 1999, SPAR archivists made their third archival trip to Pyongyang, DPRK, visiting the Victorious Fatherland War Museum, the People’s Grand Study House, and the Sinchon Museum. As a result of this and prior visits to these facilities, DPMO archivists reviewed and photographed more than 500 documents, photographs, and personal items, including everything from laundry tickets to pay stubs and W-2 statements. Although the visits to these facilities achieved limited results, the information gained proved to be significant. During the third trip the amount of information gained was less than on previous trips, but the archival team did obtain a photograph of an open page from what is believed to be a significant shootdown log of an American aircraft. The F-4U shootdown described correlated with both U.S. records and the commercial memoir of a North Korean aviator who defected to the United States in 1953. Future archival trips are currently being negotiated with the DPRK, and DPMO archivists will press to obtain more information from this log. Also, during the last archival trip the team requested permission to interview the DPRK soldiers, all veterans of the Korean War, who work at the facilities. Permission was not granted, but future teams will pursue this line of research.

SPAR researchers also visited the China University in Hong Kong en route to Pyongyang and determined that there are records in the university’s collection that could contain information pertaining to Americans missing from the Korean War. Further research at the Hong Kong university, and other regional universities, is now being pursued.

Although several visits to the American Red Cross Headquarters in Washington, DC, proved unsuccessful, SPAR researchers, while on other duties, traveled to the ICRC Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to inquire as to their holdings.

The initial visit indicated that there were significant records available, and two SPAR archivists traveled to Geneva to perform archival research during March of 1998. They obtained 500 pages of documents from the period of the Korean War, which ultimately helped clarify the fate of four individuals listed in the PMKOR database. The relevant documents were provided to the Family Support Directorate and ultimately forwarded to families of the missing. Additionally it was determined that records are available from World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. Arrangements have been made for additional research at the ICRC in Geneva during 2000.

As a result of contact from an independent researcher, a DPMO archivist, while on vacation, visited the Public Records Office (PRO), at Kew Gardens, in London, England. The PRO is the repository for 900 years of documents including World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Initial information located at the PRO suggests that there are possible archival leads concerning Americans missing from Korea. The information contained in the debriefs of returnee British POWs may provide details pertaining to Americans still missing. Ostensibly there could be information held at the PRO concerning Americans missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. SPAR’s brief visit to this archival facility yielded lists of Americans that correlate to information recorded in Operation Big Switch and Operation Little Switch. The classified records are currently unavailable and could also yield significant information for DPMO. Contact has already been made with the UK Defense Attaché and PRO officials to obtain access to these classified records.

Information from archival research, augmented by the oral history program, and the review of the contents of more than 100 titles in commercial publication have substantially expanded DPMO’s base of knowledge on the Korean War. These sources enabled DPMO to develop information on every POW camp and temporary holding point, and their prisoner populations for the entire war. From this research, DPMO analysts have compiled databases for each POW camp cemetery and UN registered cemetery, highly useful information for eventual search and recovery operations. Other research into the early war battles has enabled DPMO to augment the CILHI field search case locational data for the massive engagements with the Chinese in November 1950 in the Chosin, the Chongchon, and the Kuryong River areas. Those data have been key to the development of the search team packets for the joint recovery operations in North Korea.

SPAR archivists continue to visit archives and repositories in the United States and worldwide to obtain information concerning those unaccounted for from World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. They search in any and all locations, ever mindful that our task is to obtain information that is germane to the accounting effort and that will ultimately be provided to the families of those unaccounted- for and the public.

Chapter 4: Outreach

On 20 March 1999, the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) arranged for a meeting in Sacramento, CA, with the next-of-kin of servicemen still missing from the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the Cold War. Families were invited from a 300-mile radius, and the service casualty offices collected 137 responses from families living in Northern California. The families of 37 men (24 Army, eight Air Force, and five Navy) still missing from the Korean War attended the event.

The intent of the meeting was to inform the families of the total U.S. government effort to bring home the missing men. Offices of the U.S. government with responsibility in the POW/Missing Personnel issue were present, including DPMO, the Joint Task Force— Full Accounting from the Pacific Forces Command, the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI), the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), and the casualty and mortuary offices from each of the services.

These U.S. government offices provided presentations on the U.S. policy of active engagement with the governments of Asian countries and Russia, where U.S. servicemen were either lost inside of, or close to, the borders. Also mentioned in detail were the ongoing search and recovery programs, the live American POW investigative effort, the worldwide archive research program, and the mitochondria DNA (mtDNA) database. The service casualty offices provided each family member a paper that contained a synopsis on all information known to the Department of Defense (DoD) concerning the circumstances of loss and efforts to recover their missing service member. While this meeting was restricted to family members of unaccounted-for servicemen, the evening before, these same government representatives held briefings for veterans and concerned citizens at the Department of Veterans Affairs offices in downtown Sacramento.

The Family Update Program

The family and veterans meeting in Sacramento is repeated in a major metropolitan area 11 times each year, including a national meeting held in Washington each June. Every region of the country has been visited since 1995 at least once, and DPMO has hosted a total of 63 meetings through October 2000. Larger metropolitan areas such as: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Seattle, and Denver; as well as smaller cities such as: Albuquerque, Pensacola, Rochester, Hartford, Canton, and Bangor, have been chosen as venues. The Sacramento meeting had the largest number of Korean War cases represented by family member participants up to that time. This outreach program is a highly beneficial initiative for getting the message out on POW/ Missing Personnel issues and has interest even at the National Security Council level. Feedback is overwhelmingly positive, and for some families, it is the first contact from the government in nearly 50 years. Each program includes time for families to personally discuss their case with DPMO, Joint Task Force—Full Accounting, and service casualty experts. These sessions have dual benefit, as some families have provided information to DoD that survived from lost records germane to the case file of the unaccounted for.

One of the extraordinary veterans outreach initiatives undertaken by DPMO was the submission of a request for special recognition for bravery of a returned POW. DPMO in 1996 submitted through U.S. Army channels a request for the Silver Star Medal to former Korean War POW Sergeant Wayne “Johnny” Johnson, who had risked his life by compiling and concealing from Chinese guards a list of 459 POWs who died mostly in the early stages of the war. His effort contributed in a large measure to the Far East Command and the service staffs’ efforts to account for POWs who never returned. In the summer of 1996 the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Dennis Reimer, awarded Johnson the medal. Publicity from this event and a subsequent Reader’s Digest article by Malcolm McConnell resulted in contact with hundreds of next of kin of MIA that the services had not heard from in 44 years.

Accessing Information on POWs/Missing Personnel

DPMO has cultivated other avenues to pass along information through public affairs channels, senior officer speeches at veterans’ conventions, periodic news releases, and a Web site. The news releases, special research reports, and databases such as the Personnel Missing Korea List and the Air Loss Database are on the Web site.

Aggressive research and response to congressional questions and family, concerned citizen, and veterans’ telephone calls and written requests for information further aid the effort. For the Korean War, DPMO researches and answers about 250 inquiries per year. In one such request for records on a lost B-26 aviator, DPMO discovered that the unaccounted-for serviceman’s file had been destroyed in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire at St. Louis. Still, by compiling the records of the other missing men from the crew from that facility and other locations, DPMO was able to provide reconstructed records on the lost aviator to the next of kin. Moreover, because of the establishment of an international archives network on POW/MIA issues, DPMO, per the family request, was able to facilitate contact between the same next of kin and British former POW offices.

The Missing Persons Act (Title 10, United States Code, Sections 1501-1513), passed by Congress in 1996, drove much of the outreach effort, as it directed information from any source discovered on specific unaccounted-for individuals to be passed to the next of kin. Pursuant to this law, and the DoD Instruction that implements it (DoDI 2310.5), the service casualty offices have worked actively to locate the next of kin of missing servicemen so that information discovered from various search endeavors can be forwarded to them. Support also comes from veteran service organizations (VSOs), which pass along information on the addresses of known next of kin.

Other government agencies responsible for record keeping have facilitated the acquisition and sharing of POW/Missing Personnel information. In the early 1990s, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) organized the Korean War POW/ Missing Personnel holdings by various service, agency, major historical event, and media categories. In 1997, NARA published the handbook Records Relating to American Prisoners of War and Missing-in-Action Personnel from the Korean War and During the Cold War era. In accordance with the McCain bill and the Missing Persons Act, information that may pertain to the treatment, location, or condition of United States personnel who remain not accounted-for as a result of service in the Korean War is sent to NARA not later than one year after it is received. NARA indexes these and other government files retired after 50 years for public access. Much of the material is accessible using their online system. Material can also be accessed by calling ahead for specific files to be pulled for reading room appointments. Some translations of Russian archival material on the Korean War and unaccounted-for servicemen has also been scanned and sent to the Library of Congress for posting on its Web site at http://lcweb2.loc. gov/frd/tfrquery.html

An executive order (EO) affecting Korean War–era documents was signed by President Clinton in April 1995 (EO 12958). This order, while addressing a variety of information security and declassification issues, includes a provision to declassify documents 25 years old and older, which would include documents from the Korean War. Automatic declassification called for under the EO does not pertain under certain narrowly defined conditions such as intelligence sources and methods, information acquired from foreign governments, statutory protections, and continuing security programs. Nevertheless, most documents originated by DoD pertaining to the Korean War can be declassified because they contain information that no longer requires continued protection.

Declassification of Korean War documents is a coordinated effort of NARA, its presidential libraries, and other archives, and the document originators. Therefore, the Korean War document declassification effort is largely borne by the services, intelligence agencies, and the Department of State. DPMO alone does not have the authority to conduct this declassification; nevertheless, the position of the organization is for the broadest possible release of Korean War documents. Many thousands of documents have been automatically declassified and are in custodial possession of NARA and affiliated presidential libraries.

While most information related to Korean War missing servicemen is open to the public, privacy considerations for the next of kin do preclude some public access. In order to maintain a level of privacy that may be desired by a family, the McCain bill was made retroactive to the Korean War in 1993. Statutory provisions such as the McCain bill and the Privacy Act take precedence over executive orders when there are apparent conflicts in these directives. Service casualty offices and DPMO since 1996 have maintained records of families who have taken the option not to allow information on treatment, location, or condition of a POW/MIA to be released to third parties.

Family Member Organizations and Veterans Service Organization Roles

Family members and VSOs are direct participants in the U.S. government strategy to impress upon foreign governments the importance of the POW/Missing Personnel issue. DPMO has arranged delegations of these constituencies to visit North Korea on two occasions in 1997 and 1998. Organizations represented were Korean and Cold War families of the POW/MIA, Coalition of Korean and Cold War Families of POW/MIA, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Chosin Few and the Korean War Veterans Association. A meeting was also arranged with DPRK representatives during the December 1998 DPMO and DPRK talks in New York. The delegations met with the KPA and MFA officials that DPMO deals with routinely and made the argument for accounting from a family and veterans perspective. They also visited the remote excavation sites in northwest DPRK on these trips. DPMO on their behalf has been brokering for a like visit to Beijing since January 1999.

These organizations routinely correspond in writing with the governments of the Korean War adversaries to express the desires of their membership. Such correspondence helps to reinforce U.S. government positions on POW/Missing Personnel issues such as the compensation and the repatriation issues mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2.

MtDNA Database

Because of the development of DNA technology since 1985, families are now direct partners in the identification process. The development of the Family Reference Sample database of maternal relatives of the 8,171 ,men still missing from the Korean War will greatly enhance the ability to use mtDNA in the identification process. Since 1993, the military departments have attempted to obtain maternal family reference samples for the database of the AFDIL on mtDNA. The service casualty offices have instituted an outreach program that has made great strides in contacting family members from the Korean War missing. As of May 2000, Korean War next of kin had contributed 1,686 mtDNA samples to ADFIL. CILHI used mtDNA to support the identifications of 40 percent of its total worldwide cases.

The service casualty offices have streamlined the process for blood sample contribution by sending out individual kits to families. Some services also by 2000 had integrated phlebotomy services, whose technicians now travel to the family’s home and take a blood sample for the DNA sequence.

Chapter 5: The Commitment

It was evident from the first ceasefire negotiation sessions at Kaesong in 1951 that the U.S. government intended to get an accounting for the men still lost from the Korean War. Numerous segments of the government have pursued the issue during and since the end of the war. This goal has been clearly enunciated in U.S. government words and actions.

DoD has followed up the Secretary of Defense Perry Proclamation of May 1996 with an ambitious program of remains recoveries in North Korea, making over 90 recoveries since that year. The DPMO Strategic Plan for Korea calls for continued multiple JROs into country from 2001 forward. Back in the U.S., CILHI and DPMO analysts will continue to develop information on unidentified remains in the Punchbowl so that more disinterments can be made on our own soil. The ambitious recovery schedule and resulting laboratory workload requirement is backed by 1996 and 1999 through 2004 increase in manpower strength. The increases were recommended by the U.S. Army Manpower Analysis Agency so that CILHI could execute the Korea recovery missions as well as the other worldwide commitments. The Korean War 50 Year Commemoration has given cause for additional recoveries in South Korea as well.

DPMO is continuing to work on the live prisoner issue—in every forum with Korean War adversaries DPMO policy makers are pressing the DPRK delegations to allow access to U.S. Army deserters to North Korea from the 1960s. These men might be of assistance in resolving some of the sightings. DPMO will continue to broker the North Koreans for information on defector reports of Korean War era Americans left behind. The goal is to be able to get access on the ground in North Korea and thoroughly investigate every unresolved sighting.

Other elements in the DoD scientific community aside from CILHI are ready to support the accounting effort. AFDIL, at the forefront of the DNA technology, will continue to build the Korean War database from its current 1686 samples. The San Antonio TX, Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory (LSEL) has conducted considerable case work for DoD on Southeast Asia unaccounted for cases. The laboratory has gradually built a set of Korean War era equipment samples and technical manuals for comparison purposes for the support of the Korea mission when needed.

The search for information that will lead DoD to the whereabouts of these missing men is a worldwide search. Numerous military archives, National Archives centers, as well as academic libraries and private collections in museums around the country present a continuous challenge in covering in a systematic and timely manner. Archives of former adversaries in North Korea and China remain largely out of reach now, but access is only a matter of time with the maturing of the relationship with those countries, with respect to the Korean War. While U.S. researchers may realistically not expect to get access to GRU and KGB archives, the Russian Air Force records at Podolsk remain open and have provided new information on 130 lost aviators. Additionally, the Eastern European repositories in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as the archives of the former East Germany hold promise for continued research. Over 450 total worldwide archive collections have been identified with potential for Korean War materials germane to the issue.

The search for witnesses continues as well. The 1000 U.S. Korean War veteran interviews have provided information from foxhole deaths to POW camp cemetery burials. Russian military veterans from the war have also been forthcoming. Initiatives set up in 1999 and 2000 on expanding the oral history program populations’ hold the promise for access to heretofore-untapped sources of information. These sources will include ROK veterans who fought side by side with U.S. soldiers throughout the war. Our Chinese Korean War adversaries, through the PRC’s office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have begun to allow access to their veterans as well.

While considerable research remains to be done to develop more information on our unaccounted for servicemen, DPMO and other researchers acting on its behalf in the 1990s have built a tremendous knowledge base on this issue through investigative efforts. The determination of the realm of all possible unaccounted for from the war is being achieved with the Personnel Missing Korea List; an 8171 name list derived from three different U.S. government listings. This dynamic document continues to improve with research by DoD with input from the public. A separate listing of 3200 all-service aviation incidents was created as well.

In an effort to reexamine POW populations that could have been held back during or after the war, DPMO researchers are finding that the vast majority of POWs who did not return simply died in the camps and on the death march routes. The research into this matter included review of every prison camp and POW holding point; it encompassed the review of archived debriefings and rescreening of surviving veterans. The Rand Study of 1993 came to the same conclusion that unaccounted for populations were not large enough for train loads of many hundreds of men to be housed or held back in China or sent to third countries. DPMO researchers further noted that hundreds of the wartime MIAs presumed dead after the war for the lack of witnesses, were likely killed in their loss incidents.

While the U.S. side of the USRJC believes that there is a high probability that a small number of men, such as aviators for technology exploitation purposes, were transferred to the Soviet Union, investigation continues to develop that position and identify possible individuals.

Two years after the signing of the Armistice Agreement, President Eisenhower at a ceremony announcing the revised Code of Conduct, stated, “No American prisoner of war will be forgotten by the United States. Every available means will be employed by our Government to establish contact with, to support, and to obtain release of all our prisoners of war.” And these men have not been forgotten. It is a fitting tribute that those men still unaccounted for and their families are to receive special recognition during the three-year period of the 50 th Commemoration of the Korean War. Indeed, at the 25 June 2000 Commemoration kickoff, which took place at the Korean War Memorial, President Clinton announced the identification of two more servicemen, Sergeant Hallie A. Clark, Jr., and Corporal James T. Higgins. Their remains had been recovered during Joint U.S. and North Korean recovery operations in 1998 and 1999. He further recognized their next of kin, who were in attendance.

The search continues. Within ten days of the 25 June commemoration, a CILHI team operating in North Pyonggan Province, North Korea, began the recovery of 12 more U.S. servicemen missing since November 1950. At the conclusion of this recovery operation, these men were repatriated with full UNC and USPACOM military honors in Yakota, Japan and later at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii respectively.

Glossary of Terms

AFDIL Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory
ABMC American Battle Monuments Commission
AFHRA Air Force Historical Research Agency
CILHI Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii
CMAOC Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Operations Center
CPV Chinese People’s Volunteers
DASD Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
DIOR Directorate of Operations and Reports
DMZ Demilitarized Zone
DoD Department of Defense
DPMO Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office
DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
EO Executive Order
FAC Fighter Aviation Corps
FEAF Far East Air Forces
ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff
JCSD Joint Commission Support Directorate
JRO Joint Recovery Operation
KPA Korean People’s Army
MAC Military Armistice Commission
MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs
MIA Missing in Action
MND Ministry of National Defense (Republic of Korea)
MtDNA Mitochondria DNA
NARA National Archives and Records Administration
NARA II National Archives, College Park, MD
NPRC National Personnel Records Center
NSC National Security Council
PACOM U.S. Pacific Command
PMKOR Personnel Missing Korea List
POW Prisoner of War
PRC People’s Republic of China
PRO Public Records Office (United Kingdom)
RA Research and Analysis (directorate)
RECAP-K Returned or Exchanged Captured American Personnel-Korea
ROK Republic of Korea
SPAR Special Projects and Archival Research Directorate
VSO Veterans Service Organization
UNCMAC United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission
USFK U.S. Forces Korea
USRJC U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIA Affairs
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
WNRC Washington National Records Center

References and Acknowledgments

Alexander, Bevin. Korea: The First War We Lost, New York: Hippocrene, 1986

Cole, Paul. POW/MIA Issues: Volume I, The Korean War. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica 1994

Committee Documentation of the Secretary of Defense’s Advisory Committee on Prisoners of War, 1 August 1955

Comprehensive Report of the U.S. Side of the U.S. Russia Joint Commission POW/MIAs, Joint Commission Support Directorate, DPMO 17 June 1996

Department of Defense Instruction 2310.5, Subject: Accounting for Missing Persons, 31 January 2000

Department of Defense Policy for Korean War Accounting, 8 May 1996

Hermes, Walter G. U.S. Army in the Korean War: Truce Tent and Fighting Front. Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1966

Information Paper, UNC-KPA Scientists Meeting Summary, UNC Remains Working Group, 28 January 1994

McConnell, Malcolm. “Johnson’s List” Reader’s Digest, January 1997.

Memorandum of Agreement: Agreement on Remains Related Matters, KPA and UNC, 24 August 1993

Memoranda of Agreement, DPMO/DPRK: New York Agreement on U.S./DPRK Remains Talks, 9 May 1996, Agreement on Joint Korean War Accounting Efforts, 14 May 1997, 13 December 1998,

Record of Agreement Concerning DPRK and U.S. Joint Recovery Operations, 9 June 2000

Naylor, William. Korean War POW Returnee Debriefing Records Research, DPMO, 16 February 2000

Rowley, Arden A. Korea POW, A Thousand Days with Life on Hold 1950-1953, Mesa, Arizona: Tanner, 1997

United Nations Command Senior Member, Military Armistice Commission letter to Korean Peoples Army and Chinese Peoples Volunteers, Subject: Burial Sites of UNC military personnel at Camp No. 5., 21 December 1982

U.S. Air Force Manual, 200-25, Missing in Action—Korea, Washington, DC, 16 January 1961

U.S. Forces Far East Command, Assistant Chief of Staff, J-2, A Study in Repatriation, 25 September 1953, Amended 6 October 1953

The Korean War Remains Recovery Issue, Diplomatic History (1985-1996), Office of Korean Affairs, Department of State, undated

The Transfer of U.S. Korean War POWs to the Soviet Union, Joint Commission Support Directorate, US-RJC, 1 October 1993

War Dead Exchange Under Way in Korea, New York Times, 1 September 1954

Wehrkamp, Tim. Records relating to the American POW and MIA Personnel from the Korean War and during the Cold War era, NARA, Washington DC, 1997

A DPMO writing team led by LTC Daniel Baughman compiled this report. Contributing writers included Dr. Angelo Collura, Maj Jean MacIntyre, Maj Russ Scott, Mr. John Kinczel, Mr. Ed Sprague and Mr. Philip O’Brien. Ms. Peggy Marish-Boos designed the report layout. DPMO thanks OSD/ ISA, CJCS/J5, UNCMAC, USA Center of Military History, CILHI and AFDIL for their helpful comments.

DEFENSE PRISONER OF WAR/ MISSING PERSONNEL OFFICE