March 1999
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
01 MAR 99: The 'official' unaccounted-for figures are as follows -2,065 Americans are still unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War; Vietnam - 1,539 (North, 557; South, 982); Laos - 444; Cambodia - 74; and the Peoples Republic of China territorial waters - 8. Kosovo/Yugloslavia - 3 American POWS. 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.
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbel (R-CO) introduced the 'Bring Them Home Alive Act' of 1999. This bill would grant asylum in the United States to foreign nationals who personally deliver a living American POW/MIA from either the Vietnam War or the Korean War to the United States. Citizens of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, or any of the states of the former Soviet Union who deliver living American POW/MIAs from the Vietnam War would be granted asylum here. Similarly, citizens of North Korea, China, or any of the states of the former Soviet Union who deliver living American POW/MIAs from the Korean War would also be granted asylum. Of course, that foreign national's immediate family, including their spouse and children, would also be granted asylum in the U.S. since their safety, and even their lives, would most likely be imperiled by such a daring rescue of surviving American POW/MIAs.
02 MAR 99: Two multinational recovery teams, made up of 73 individuals, are on their way to joint excavation sites in Cambodia and Laos. The teams consisting of JTF-FA, USACIL-HI as well as technical personnel from the respective nations of Cambodia and Laos will participate. Three primary sites involving 30 cases will be searched and excavated in Laos. The plans for Cambodia include two sites with 7 cases. These are the 42nd and 17th Joint Field Activities conducted in Laos and Cambodia, respectively.
Great Britain has answered the former-POWs of Japan with a resounding 'NO.' As a result of a 40 year-old treaty that 'settled' the issue, Minister of State Derek Fatchett ruled that ther would be no further action in support of British survivors. The Minister is quoted, that former POWs are "not on the government's agenda." In response, the ex-POWs have demanded that the British government address and settle their compensation claim if it is unwilling to petition Japan on theri behalf.
05 MAR 99: The remains of three American servicemen missing in action from World War II have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial in the United States. They are identified as Maj. Frank H. Blakey, Millbrook, AL; 2nd Lt. John S. McConnon, Pittsburgh, PA, and Tech. Sgt. Wayne O. Shaffner, Martinsville, IL.
08 MAR 99: After a protracted and ongoing battle, the POW/MIA FOIA litigation has resulted in the release of 29 documents.
The POW/MIA FOIA Litigation suit against the CIA produced 29 documents in an attempt by the CIA to deceive the court that all other information had been declassified. The CIA located a cabinet of documents concerning the POW/MIA issues that had not previously been identified in either communication to Roger Hall, plaintiff in the suit against the CIA or to the court. These released documents are only the first of the CIA load of documents, this is the first layer that was protecting the withheld documents we seek. The CIA has a wealth of information on POWs and this is the first in their front-end -loading attempts to release the least significant information to try to discourage the POW/MIA pursuits in the interests of the POW/MIA families, veterans, researchers and the American public.
08 MAR 99: More than 50 years after the Japanese army attacked China with germ weapons and conducted gruesome experiments on thousands of human beings, Japan is resisting demands that it compensate the victims or make records of the atrocities public. The Japanese government has declined to cooperate with efforts by the Justice Department to put the names of several hundred surviving veterans of the germ warfare operations on a list of suspected war criminals barred from entering the United States, U.S. officials say. It has also rebuffed researchers seeking access to a vast archive of military documents in Tokyo that detail the World War II activities of the Japanese Imperial Army, including its chief biological warfare arm, known as Unit 731.
Newsweek in its March 8, 1999 issue - Voices of the Century - spoke of the following: SAFWAN, March 3, 1991: The Iraqis came to this airfield to surrender to Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. The first demand I made of the Iraqis was that they immediately return all our POWs, and I wanted an accounting of exactly how many they had. This fellow came back with some numbers, a few here, a few there - about 40 in all. I wanted to make absolutely sure that if they had any bodies of our soldiers, we got those back too. This guy stopped and said, "Wait - before that you have to tell us how many POWs of ours you have." "Right now," I answered, "we have 60,000 and we're still counting." His jaw dropped - he just had no idea. The look on his face was classic. He was stunned, his eyes bugged out. I remember that moment more than any other.
09 MAR 99: South Korea's intelligence agency released Tuesday the names of 454 kidnaped South Koreans who have remained in North Korea since the armistice agreement in 1953. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said there are also 231 prisoners of war (POWs) from the 1950-53 Korean War who are still alive in North Korea. "It is estimated that the total number of South Koreans kidnaped by the North is 3,756, of whom 3,302 people have returned home and 454 are still in the North," the NIS said. It also said that 231 of the 470 POWs identified by North Korean defectors and repatriated POWs are still alive in North Korea.
North Korea today rejected a South Korean proposal to swap political and war prisoners, saying there are no South Koreans being held in the North. South Korea released 17 long-serving North Korean political prisoners in a special amnesty in late February and offered to swap them for about 300 South Korean war prisoners.
15 MAR 99: South Korea's Red Cross on Monday appealed for help to international agencies for the release of people "kidnaped" by North Korea, including those taken prisoner of war in the 1950-53 Korean War. A Red Cross statement here said its head, Chung Won-Shik, sent a letter to the groups calling for help in securing the "quick release" of those taken forcibly since the end of the conflict. "It is in the hope of harnessing the attention of the international community for the pursuit of peace and freedom that we ask your esteemed organization to give your heartfelt concern for the detained people in North Korea so that their release may be duly hastened," the letter said. It said there was enough evidence "to the claims that people currently detained in North Korea may be subjected to compromising conditions and unjust treatment that undermine their freedom," it said.
17 MAR 99: The remains of three American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial in the United States. They are identified as Navy Cmdr. John C. Mape, San Francisco, CA.; Air Force Maj. John E. Bailey, Minneapolis, MN; and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class John F. Hartzheim, Appleton, WI.
19 MAR 99: Australian Owen Campbell is perhaps one of the greatest survivors of the Second World War in this part of the world. He was captured, kept by the Japanese in a detention camp in Singapore in 1942, before being sent on a nine-day voyage along with 1,800 Australian and 750 British Prisoners-of-War (POWs) to Sandakan, Sabah or British North Borneo then which was also under the control of the Japanese Military. Only six men survived the first march. Asked to relate his experience, he said: "I was in the Death March, I escaped and was picked up by the locals." Campbell who was accompanied by wife, Evelyn, said he is here not just to remember but to thank the local people who had helped him escape death and "after seeing them again, the sad part is gradually disappearing." Campbell is the only living survivor of the March. 20 MAR 99: Two senators asked Navy Secretary Richard Danzig to change the Pentagon's official "finding of death" for a Navy pilot shot down in the opening hours of the 1991 Gulf War to "missing in action," reflecting evidence of doubt about whether he survived the crash. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Speicher of Jacksonville, Fla., went missing when his Navy F-18 Hornet was shot down on Jan. 16, 1991, in an air-to-air battle with an Iraqi fighter jet. He was the first American lost in the war and the last still unaccounted for. The senators said they were informed on March 12 by the Defense Department's POW-Missing Personnel Office that its position on whether the available evidence indicates Speicher perished in the crash of his plane is "we don't know." In light of that, Speicher's status should be changed to missing in action -- "a status that more accurately reflects the available evidence and provides a presumptive Ôbenefit of the doubt' to Lt. Cmdr. Speicher,'' the letter said.
Speicher was the only American killed on Iraqi territory whose remains were not recovered.
21 MAR 99: The Red Cross launched an international campaign to raise awareness of the 50-year-old Geneva Conventions -- the rules which govern conduct in war -- which it says are widely flouted in modern-day conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it wants to raise public awareness of the issue with the help of a media campaign using celebrities such as musician Vanessa Mae and actress Isabella Rosselini. Mae, a young British violinist with a worldwide following who attended the launch, said she wanted to make the general public, especially her young fans, more aware of the plight of victims of war. "The Geneva Conventions are the only barrier between us and barbarism," she said. The Conventions, which demand protection of civilians, prisoners of war and wounded soldiers in wartime, have been ratified by nearly all countries of the world.
22 MAR 99: AP reports that callers to a television show called "In Search of Comrades in Arms"' have helped find the remains of 300 Vietnamese missing since the Vietnam War. Col. Chi Phan, head of television programming for the army, said Monday the remains were located by officials based on 4,000 tips from viewers. Phan said the program, which began airing in 1993, runs 10 times a week. Each episode of the program is five minutes long and gives the names, birth dates and pictures of missing fighters.
Iran released 449 Iraqi soldiers captured during the 1980-1988 war in return for 53 Iranian detainees, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
A Scranton man killed during World War II was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery this month, bringing closure to a family that never fully accepted his death until the body was found. Sgt. Lemuel Herbert, known to his friends as Harry, was taken as a prisoner of war. When the POW camp was liberated, witnesses told the Army that Herbert's captors had shot him in the head, and the Army changed his status from missing in action to killed in action. For decades, the body remained missing. The remains were found in January 1998 by a farmer plowing a field near Kommerscheid, Germany. An Army ID tag was found with the remains. But it took about a year for the Army to confirm the identity using dental records and anthropological analysis.
23 MAR 99: Burial at Arlington National Cemetery would be restricted to a select few, including those who die on active military duty, under legislation that passed the House Tuesday. The measure, an outgrowth of disputes several years ago over waivers granted by the administration, passed 428-2. The bill also won House approval in the last Congress but was not taken up by the Senate. Under the bill, burial at Arlington would be limited to members of the Armed Forces who die on active duty, military retirees, recipients of the Medal of Honor and other top awards, former prisoners of war and the president and former presidents.
31 MAR 99: Three U.S. Army soldiers were missing in Macedonia near the Yugoslav border Wednesday night after possibly being captured by members of the Serb military or police while on a reconnaissance mission, the Pentagon and NATO officials said. An immediate search and rescue mission was launched, involving ground and helicopter teams from several NATO countries and the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps based in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, U.S. officials said. Searchers included 80 to 90 soldiers on U.S. Blackhawk and British helicopters. The Army team had been on a daytime reconnaissance mission in the Kumanovo area of Macedonia near the southern Yugoslavia border when they reported ''they received small arms fire and said they were surrounded,'' according to NATO. ''No more was heard from the patrol,'' a NATO statement said.
On Wednesday, March 31, 1999, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, a class action complaint was filed on behalf of United States veterans of World War II, against Japanese companies who used United States prisoners as forced laborers during the war, including Nippon Sharyo, Ltd.; Mitsubishi Corp.; Showa Denko, Ltd.; Sumitomo Corp.; Yodogawa Steel Works, Ltd.; Nippon Steel Corp.; and Mitsui and Co., Ltd. The complaint seeks money damages and other relief on behalf of former United States prisoners of Japan, who were forced to labor for Japanese industry during World War II, in violation of international law and under inhumane conditions. The complaint asserts claims for violations of international law, for unjust enrichment, for injuries in tort, and for unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent business practices.
The United States and communist North Korea will jointly begin the largest search yet for remains of American soldiers missing since the Korean War, officials said. A military official said the exact date when the first US team would enter North Korea had not been set, but it was likely to be some time in April. "Under a deal last December, they agreed to conduct such searches six times this year. The first team should start going in April," he said. The US conducted five rounds of excavations last year and a total of 22 sets of remains were unearthed during the joint exhumation and handed over to the US. North Korea has so far handed over 112 sets of remains believed to be of US servicemen killed in the 1950-53 war.
3 US Army Personnel have been hostile captured and held in the Kosovo-Yugoslavia conflict. The men were taken prisoner on 31 MAR 99 and images of the men were shown on RTS, the official Serbian network. The men are identified as; SSG Andrew A. Ramirez, SSG Christopher J. Stone and SPC Steven M. Gonzalez. Let us all pray for their well-being and safe return and for the strength and courage of their families.
30 MAR 99: REMINDER - DOD/DPMO Family Update - 17 APR 1999 - Hartford, CT
POW-MIA Issue Update April 1999