January 2000

Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork

01 JAN 00: 2,031 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: ARMY: 640 (VN-10, VS-488; LA-107; CB-35); NAVY: 413 (VN-282, VS-92; LA-28; CB-3; CH/OW-8); USMC: 263 (VN-24, VS-203; LA-22; CB-14); USAF: 675 (VN-233; VS-165; LA-260; CB-17); and COAST GUARD: 1 (VS-1). 39 civilians remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: VS-22, LA-12, and CB-5. 552 Americans have been accounted-for post 1973: VN-401, LA-142, CB-7, and CH-2. 183 Americans have been accounted-for during the present administration. Persian Gulf War - unsatisfactory accounting. Korean War - 8,139 remain unaccounted-for, 42 possible remains returned, 4 identifications. World War II - Over 78,000 remain unaccounted-for.

02 JAN 00: Archaeologists believe they have found the remains of the last missing member of the first crew of the historic Confederate submarine Hunley buried in a shallow grave under a South Carolina football stadium. Skeletal remains inside an oversized coffin were uncovered in the parking lot of The Citadel military college football stadium, where the original crew of the submarine, the first to sink a warship in battle, were buried. "Unfortunately, he is all but dissolved," Jonathan Leader of the S.C. Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology said. The Hunley's inaugural crew drowned in 1863 during seaworthiness tests when the submarine was swamped by a wave in Charleston Harbor and water rushed through an open hatch, drowning five men trapped inside. The submarine was refloated, and sailed into history on Feb. 17, 1864, when it rammed a 100-pound charge of black powder into the Union blockade ship Housatonic. The Housatonic sank in less than five minutes. The Hunley never returned from the mission, and was found in 1995 in the waters off Sullivan's Island near Charleston. Plans are to raise the submarine this summer and put it on display in Charleston. Bloated bodies of the drowned first crew were cut up and buried in oversized caskets in the city's mariners' cemetery, which was inadvertently covered over and forgotten when 21,000-seat Johnson Hagood football stadium was built in 1948. The skeletal remains of the four original crewmen were found last year. Officials hope to re-inter all five sets of remains at Magnolia Cemetery in a special ceremony on March 25.

03 JAN 00: A Russian newspaper journalist and five Russian soldiers were freed from captivity in Chechnya on Thursday after spending months in the hands of kidnappers, Russian media reported. Rebel bands in Chechnya have kidnapped hundreds of people in recent years. Most are held for ransom, although some are prisoners of war who are exchanged for captured Chechen fighters.

04 JAN 00: NEWS RELEASE - UNITED STATES PROPOSES RENEWED REMAINS RECOVERY TALKS WITH NORTH KOREA The United States has proposed to North Korean officials that both nations meet to continue negotiations that broke off in Berlin last December. Those talks were to coordinate joint recovery operations of remains believed to be those of American soldiers from the Korean War. Last week, North Korea informed the U.S. government and several veterans' organizations that it held about 415 sets of remains of American soldiers. Later, after inquiries by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, North Korean officials admitted that this was not the case. They now claim to have only one or two remains in their possession, and they estimate there may be another 400 that might be found in the same area. This number was well known to the U.S. officials who told the North Koreans more than two years ago during negotiations and technical talks that our estimates showed there were more than 500 sets of potentially recoverable remains in this area. During the past four years, joint recovery teams have conducted 12 operations and returned 42 sets of remains from this same area.

05 JAN 00: U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley backed Japan's position that the treaty formally ending World War II bans claims for compensation from Americans used as slave laborers in Japan. A number of U.S. prisoners of war accuse some of Japan's biggest companies of using them as wartime forced labor and are suing for compensation. Many of the veterans filed claims in California after a 1999 state law extended the deadline for such actions. The companies say the issue of reparations was covered in the 1951 peace treaty signed in San Francisco. The companies also say the statute of limitations has long since run out.

06 JAN 00: Israeli-allied militiamen today released 25 Lebanese guerrillas and other prisoners who had been held in Lebanon's Israeli-occupied zone, the second such release in three weeks. Today's release and another in December of five Hezbollah guerrillas marked a new stage in efforts to tackle the issue of Lebanese prisoners and Israeli soldiers missing in action in Lebanon. The Hezbollah guerrillas are fighting to oust Israeli occupation troops from a buffer zone Israel set up in Lebanon in 1985.

09 JAN 00: Veterans who were prisoners of war in World War II have withdrawn a New Mexico lawsuit accusing Japanese companies of using them as slave labor, saying they stand a better chance in California, where a state law supports their cause. The California law, enacted last year, allows for such claims by veterans to be filed until the end of 2010. New Mexico law limits such damage claims to three or four years after injuries occurred. In September 10 veterans and one civilian sued five companies in federal court in Albuquerque, saying the companies all were descendants of businesses that made up the Japanese war machine. The ex-POWs sought an apology and compensation for their injuries and labor while working in mines, shipyards and factories. In court documents, the defendants contend the issue of war reparations was covered in the 1951 peace treaty between the United States and Japan. The Japanese government and U.S. State Department have supported that view.

13 JAN 00: The leader of Lebanon's Hizbollah (Party of God) said an Israeli airman missing in action in Lebanon since 1986 may still be alive and that the guerrilla organization was making serious efforts to determine his fate. The Hizbollah was trying to resolve the Ron Arad issue in return for the freedom of an undisclosed number of Lebanese from Israeli prisons. Israel believes Arad may still be alive. Asked if he thought Arad had survived, Nasrallah said: "The possibility still exists." Nasrallah said Arad was until 1989 in the hands of a group in Lebanon led by Amal faction leader Mustapha Dirani -- who was seized by Israeli commandos in 1994 and remains in Israeli prisons. But Nasrallah said Arad disappeared after the men guarding him locked the door where he was being held and went to check reports that some of their relatives were killed in a battle with Israeli troops in Lebanon. "When they returned after a few hours he (Arad) was not there. Until that moment he was still alive." "Now our efforts concentrate on finding out who were the people who took him or what his fate is."

14 JAN 00: DPMO reports that since the end of the Vietnam War, the remains of 552 servicemen have been recovered, identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors. The U.S. is actively seeking to recover the remains of 1,409 men who remain unaccounted-for in Southeast Asia. In addition, the Department of Defense has determined conclusively, after extensive investigations over the span of two decades, that it will not be able to recover the remains of 622 individuals who were killed during the course of the 10-year war. In October 1999, an amendment to the Missing Persons Act was signed into law which addresses the treatment of debriefings of POWs. With the amendment, the act provides statutory protection to debriefings acquired after July 8, 1959. These debriefings cannot be released under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act nor the Privacy Act. The underlying purpose of the amended statute is to protect the privacy and dignity of returned POWs, to protect the privacy of individuals about whom derogatory comments were made, and to ensure the effectiveness of acquiring complete and candid accounts of future returnees' experiences from capture to release. The law does provide that extracts of debriefings may be provided to certain family members, or previously designated persons, that contain information about their missing relative or loved one. The released extract may not contain any derogatory information, nor will the source of the information in the extract be revealed. Finally, returnees may continue to review their debriefs, including the ones protected by this legislation. The custodian for Korean War and Cold War POW debriefs is the National Archives and Records Administration, while the Secretary of Defense is the custodian of Vietnam War POW and MIA debriefings and documents.

The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office has initiated a broad study to examine the worldwide mission of POW/MIA personnel recovery and accounting. The DoD is charged by law with responsibility for policy and oversight of the full range of recovery activity, from pre-combat training, to combat search and rescue to remains recovery. The analysis, called the Mission Area Analysis (MAA), is to help implement the best use of money, resources and technology across the wide range of DOD's responsibilities in personnel recovery and accounting. It will examine the entire range of personnel recovery, to include diplomatic, military, and other means of recovering isolated personnel. The examination will address recovery operations throughout the spectrum of conflict from small-scale contingencies to major theater war and peacetime operations, both at a tactical and strategic level.

In the area of personnel accounting and remains recovery the MAA will analyze all facets of this mission from operational activities to diplomatic effort to achieve the fullest possible accounting of past and future unaccounted-for Americans. It will look closely at the missions and structure and budgets of the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office; the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii; the U.S. Army Casualty and Memorial Affairs Operations Center; the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory; the U.S. Air Force Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory; and the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting; and highlight areas where the Department can most effectively employ its resources to better accomplish the mission. The study began in late 1999 and is scheduled for completion in late 2000.

15 JAN 00: From DPMO -"Two teams totaling 75 mostly Hawaii-based military and civilian specialists departed last week for Laos and Cambodia with hopes of recovering remains that may lead to the identification of American service members listed as missing in action since the war in Southeast Asia. Personnel from Joint Task Force-Full Accounting at Camp Smith and the U.S. Army's Central Identification Lab at Hickam Air Force Base are joining technical representatives from the Lao People's Democratic Republic and the Kingdom of Cambodia to conduct joint investigations and remains recovery operations. In Laos, three primary sites will be excavated. In Cambodia, three primary sites will be excavated and 10 cases are scheduled for investigation."

17 JAN 00: More than a century of mass killings is piling up in the form of unearthed human bones on the banks of the river Dvina in this historic town in northern Belarus. Soldiers from one of the ex-Soviet state's "search battalions," formed to excavate unmarked sites of battles and atrocities, use spades to dig into the hard earth. At this particular site the soldiers believe they are unearthing a World War Two mass grave of Nazi victims, although, as in most of their tasks, they have found little to help them identify either the dead or their killers. About a quarter of Belarus's population was killed during the war and many people still remember the horrors of the Nazi invasion. In Drozdy, an elite Minsk suburb that boasts the residences of the president and foreign ambassadors, the remains of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war dumped in a ditch and not discovered until decades after the war still await reburial. And the remains of an estimated one million unknown soldiers, a small part of those honored in a book called "The Dead Feel No Pain" by front survivor Vasil Bykov, are still scattered unburied across Belarus. The search battalions vow all will be laid to rest no matter how long it takes. "The war is not over until the last soldier is buried," said the head of Minsk's search battalion Viktor Mikhechko.

20 JAN 00: North Korea has discovered more than 400 remains of people likely to be American servicemen killed in the Korean War, a deputy North Korean representative to the United Nations said Friday. Li Gun said his country has offered to return the remains, without conditions. He said the U.S. government would have to act quickly, because the area where the remains were found in December and January is being converted to cropland. At the Pentagon office in charge of POW-MIA affairs, spokesman Larry Greer said North Korea notified the Pentagon of the discovery this week. "We've asked for more details," Greer said. He said his office is leery of unilateral returns of war remains, because in the past they have lacked the anthropological detail needed for individual identifications. In a telephone interview from his New York office, Li said his government believes it will find many more remains, beyond the approximately 415 already uncovered, in an area of North Pyongan Province where land is being moved to create cropland. About 8,200 U.S. servicemen are listed as missing from the 1950-53 Korean War, and the Pentagon has said it believes a few thousand are potentially recoverable from North Korea. In joint recovery operations over the past few years, 42 sets of remains have been recovered. Negotiations on arranging joint recovery operations for this year broke down in December after the North Koreans demanded that the United States donate materials and equipment for children's clothing factories. On Tuesday, Li's office sent letters to several U.S. veterans organizations that said, "Some remains of the U.S. troops killed in the Korean War are being recovered by bulldozers." The letter did not mention the 400 figure. It said that once the land-moving operation is finished, "It will be difficult for us to confirm the remains sites and unable to find the remains forever." Frank Metersky of the Chosin Few group of Korean War veterans said Friday he doubts the North Koreans' sincerity. "We all agree this is a political ploy" to get the Pentagon involved in humanitarian assistance as a condition for the return of remains, he said. "We do not want our government to pay ransom." Li said his government had "suggested" but not demanded that the United States donate children's clothing factories as a means of compensating North Korea for its cooperation in remains-recovery operations. He said the intent was to show average North Korean citizens, whose help he said is vital to recovering remains, that the United States is well intentioned and is no longer the enemy.

23 JAN 00: DPMO researchers recently completed work at the Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, AL to review the extensive holdings on the Korean War. The work focused on the 3rd Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron's unit histories and chronologies for search and rescue missions 1950-53. While reviewing the Maxwell records, the team also found a collection of Southeast Asia search and rescue records, which will be passed to analysts in DPMO. The researchers found several reports which may shed some light on Korean War POWs, including an Air Force Office of Special Investigation debrief of a returned POW. The team also found chronologies of all 3rd Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron activities for the Korean War, as well as documentation on losses vs. returnees of all four services. They also located collections of Southeast Asia search and rescue files both on specific loss cases and also a month-by-month record. Archivists at Maxwell estimated that it would take two researchers at least two weeks to review all 28 boxes of information in this area. As is the standard practice, archival materials will be reviewed by DPMO analysts to determine if they shed any light on any outstanding cases of missing Americans, or if they offer leads not previously explored.

25 JAN 00: With meetings and tempers going on and off like a light switch, North Korea has flipped the ON switch again with an announcement that 415 sets of remains, most likely American from the Korean War, have been unilaterally discovered. Li Gun, representative to the UN, made the startling admission and added that the Communist country has offered to return the remains without any conditions attached. The only caveat - the US must respond immediately as plans for developing the area where the remains are buried is set to begin shortly. This is patently false as it is known that North Korea has 'suggested' the US build children's clothing factories as a sign of good faith and to show their former adversary is no longer an enemy. Leery Larry Greer from DPMO is waiting for more information and details in light of North Korea's penchant for sending unidentifiable, commingled shards. The North Koreans have a dismal track record when it comes to remains repatriation and identification, and anyone wishing to get a better understanding of just how dismal it is should read Paul Cole and past articles on the subject. (Type COLE into AII POW MIA Search Engine and follow the links) While Leery Greer is waiting out the North Korean response, Li Gun has stated that his government estimates 'many more' sets of remains will be unearthed. In the interim, Li Gun has taken the bull by the horns and begun a letter writing campaign to US Veteran organizations in an effort to move things along quickly. His blunt statement goes, "Some remains of the US troops killed in the Korean War are being recovered by bulldozers." The letter may rile some, but the Korean War veterans are unmoved, doubting the sincerity of the North Koreans. As one member of the Chosin Few said, "We all agree this is a political ploy'' to get the Pentagon involved in humanitarian assistance as a condition for the return of remains, " and, "We do not want our government to pay ransom."

Is this sudden windfall really the result of starving North Korea turning land into cropland, thus 'discovering' hundreds of sets of remains, or is it the result of the oppressive nation finally getting tired of warehousing the bones much the same way Communist North Vietnam has done over the years. It worked fro North Vietnam, why not North Korea.

28 JAN 00: Two former Khmer Rouge soldiers helped U.S. officials locate the grave of a marine killed in May 1975 during the botched attempt to rescue the crew of the seized U.S. container ship SS Mayaguez. The three-day battle, the last U.S. military action in Indochina, saw 18 marines, navy and airforce personnel killed on Koh Tang, an island located some 50 km (30 miles) off the Cambodian coast. "A helicopter came in, it was about as high as a coconut tree when we shot it down," said former Khmer Rouge soldier Mao Run. "We didn't want to kill them but they invaded our country so we shot them." Mao Run, 46, met U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/missing persons, Robert Jones, and told him where they had buried one U.S. serviceman and where he had seen other bodies. "I never thought that one day the Americans would come back to collect the bones," Mao Run said. The battle on Koh Tang, which began on May 15, 1975, came a month after Phnom Penh fell to the radical Khmer Rouge and just two weeks after Saigon was taken by communist-led forces in Vietnam. Then U.S. President Gerald Ford ordered the attack in the belief the 39 crew of the Mayaguez, a U.S. ship which had been seized in the Gulf of Thailand by the Khmer Rouge three days earlier, was being held there. Several hours into the assault U.S. commanders based in neighboring Thailand learned that none of the crew was on the island and they had all been released. Jones, who earlier in the week also visited a search site in the jungle near the border with Vietnam, praised the cooperation he and his team received from the Cambodian government and the people, including the former communist fighters. "I'm so pleased that the Cambodian people and the Khmer Rouge are willing to come forward and share with us their experiences," Jones told Reuters. "This demonstrates that, in the passage of time, adversaries during war can come together on a humanitarian mission and have successful relations." The servicemen killed and not recovered on Koh Tang are among 74 still unaccounted for in Cambodia from the war.

30 JAN 00: REMINDER -
DOD/DPMO Family Updates - 22 Jan Los Angeles, CA - 25 Jan Honolulu, HI - 26 Feb Albuquerque , NM

POW-MIA Issue Update February 2000