June 1999
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
01 JUN 99: 2,061 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: Vietnam - 1,535 (North, 554; South, 981); Laos - 444; Cambodia - 74; and the Peoples Republic of China territorial waters - 8. 154 Americans have been accounted-for during the present administration: Vietnam - 82; Laos - 64 and Cambodia - 6. 522 US servicemembers have been accounted-for through unilateral and joint efforts. 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.
Pete Peterson has plenty of reasons to be bitter - 6 * years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and the loss of his wife and 17-year-old son. But the former congressman who became the first US ambassador to Vietnam since the end of the war in 1975 likes to look to the future, not the past, and to reconciliation, not hatred. His long, emotional journey is the subject of an hour long documentary that premiered before a full house in Hanoi today -- Memorial Day in the United States. It will air in America on PBS on Sept. 7. US documentary filmmaker Sandy Northrop begins with Peterson's May 9, 1997, arrival in Hanoi, where he was greeted by a handful of American businessmen, then flashes back to his years in prison. Using Vietnamese archival footage, Northrop graphically illustrates the isolation and pain the POWs suffered.
The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) was recently certified by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors, recognized as the leading agency in forensic laboratory accreditation. AFDILs DNA operations support not only identifications for the U. S. Army's CILHI from Southeast Asia, Korean War, Cold War and World War II losses, but also the identification process for current death investigations within the DoD. AFDIL provided the key scientific information was used in the identification of the Vietnam Unknown as 1st Lt. Michael Blassie, and continues to break new ground in the use of DNA for resolving cases that require application of this technology.
04 JUN 99: Representatives of the U. S. and Laos will begin joint investigations and remains recovery operations pertaining to Americans missing and unaccounted-for in Laos. This will be the 43rd joint field activity in Laos since the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting was formed in January 1992. Operations are planned in the province of Savannakhet and are scheduled to last 30 days. The joint team plans to excavate two primary sites, with seven alternate excavation locations. The U. S. team consists of 42 military and civilian specialists experienced in remains recovery operations, and will be joined by Lao officials. Of the 2,061 missing and unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia, 444 are from Laos.
Going for $160,000: one prisoner of war camp. Single owner, original buildings (somewhat used). The 17-acre camp, which has 50 prison huts, a chapel and a theater, was built by Italian POWs in the early 1940s, then used to hold captured Germans. It forms part of the 470-acre Low Harperley Farm in County Durham, northeast England, which has been put up for sale for $17 million after the death of farmer Charlie Johnson. One of the huts still contains original paintings done by German prisoners, he said.
05 JUN 99: The Pennsylvania Senate Intergovernmental Affairs Committee will hold a public hearing on a resolution memorializing the federal government to take action for the release of Americans held against their will in North Korea. Testifying from the US Department of Defense will be Robert L. Jones, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, POW/Missing Personnel Affairs; Army Lt. Col. Marty Wisda, Plans and Policy Directorate; and Chuck Henley, Director of Legislative Affairs. Also testifying will be Robert Egan, who will offer evidence on Americans in North Korea. This will be the second hearing on Senate Resolution 25, which state Senator Stewart J. Greenleaf introduced. Witnesses at the initial hearing on May 3 addressed the need for federal action on the 8,100 American soldiers missing since the Korean War and the US government's procedures with regard to missing personnel. The Department of Defense representatives are expected to address criticism by several of the witnesses at the first hearing about federal responsiveness to families of the missing.
07 JUN 99: The remains of two American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from the war in Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial in the United States. The Pentagon announced Monday the positive identification of Marine Capt. Robert A. Holt, of Reading, MA, and Marine Capt. John A. Lavoo, of Pueblo, CO. They were flying a combat mission over Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam, on Sept. 19, 1968, when their F-4B Phantom jet crashed with no trace of survivors.
08 JUN 99: Congressman Philip M. Crane (R-IL), Chairman, Subcommittee on Trade of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on U.S.-Vietnam Trade Relations, including the President's renewal of Vietnam's waiver under the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. The hearing will take place on Thursday, June 17, 1999, in the main Committee hearing room, 1100 Longworth House Office Building, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Oral testimony at this hearing will be from both invited and public witnesses.
09 JUN 99: After months of negotiations, 16 Germany companies that profited from Nazi-era slave labor announced details of a promised compensation fund Thursday, including a provision to pay victims living in eastern Europe less than those in the West. DaimlerChrysler AG, BMW AG and other major industrial concerns agreed to establish the fund under growing pressure from class-action suits in the United States on behalf of former slave laborers. The companies said they will make payments to forced laborers who worked for six months or more, and that claims will be honored in part based on need. The amount of the lump-sum payments will be based on the average pensions in the claimant's home country -- accounting for the lower payments in poorer eastern European nations than in the United States, Canada and other western nations.
10 JUN 99: Iran and Iraq exchanged on Tuesday the remains of 106 soldiers killed in their 1980-88 war, Iranian state radio reported on Tuesday. It said the bodies of 47 Iranians and 59 Iraqis were exchanged at the Shalamcheh border post in southwestern Iran. Iranian and Iraqi teams combing the former war zones have found tens of thousands of bodies since a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire halted the war in 1988. In April 1997, the two countries released and repatriated about 6,000 prisoners of war in the biggest swap since 1990. The latest POW swap and the resumption of visits by Iranian pilgrims to holy Shiite Moslem sites in Iraq have marked a slight warming of ties between the former war foes. Relations are still strained partly because each country hosts rebels fighting the neighboring state's government.
13 JUN 99: Secretary of Veterans Affairs Togo D. West Jr., announced a new development project for VA's Salisbury, NC, National Cemetery that will meet the burial needs of area veterans for more than 50 years. Salisbury was designated a national cemetery site in 1865. The cemetery is historically significant and was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It includes the remains of American veterans of every war and branch of service throughout US history. During the Civil War, Salisbury was a major confederate military supply depot, housing trainloads of materials sent south from Richmond, Va. In 1863, Salisbury became a prisoner of war camp for captured Union soldiers. By late 1864, over 10,000 men crowded its six-acre compound, resulting in a staggering mortality rate. Of the 10,000, more than 5,000 died of starvation and disease. All traces of the prison had been swept away by the end of 1868. A cemetery remained on a small hill in which the Union POWs were buried in 18 parallel trenches. Among the estimated 11,700 unknowns interred in these trenches are the remains of Robert Livingstone, a Union soldier who died in the prison camp in 1864. Livingstone was the oldest son of Dr. David Livingstone, the noted African missionary and explorer. In October 1992, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a plaque showing the location of the burial trenches.
15 JUN 99: Two American heroes are being laid to rest in Arlington in June 1999. They are Colonel Ted Guy, United States Air Force, who was a longtime prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and Colonel Lloyd L. "Scooter" Burke, Colonel, United States Army, who was the recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service during the Korean War.
17 JUN 99: The Defense Department announced that the Vietnam Unknown crypt at the Tomb of the Unknowns will remain empty. As you will recall, the remains that were originally buried there in 1984 were identified last year as those of Air Force First Lieutenant Michael Joseph Blassie and that he was subsequently laid to rest near his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. For more information on this you may go to: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.com/vietnam.htm. The Defense Department also announced that the cover to the crypt for the Vietnam Unknown will be engraved to read: "Honoring and Keeping Faith With America's Missing Servicemen, 1958-1975." It will be dedicated on POW/MIA day (September 17, 1999) by Defense Secretary William Cohen.
18 JUN 99: The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office annually facilitates U. S. government briefings to families of unaccounted-for Americans. Briefers from every element of the POW/MIA accounting team presented update briefings to hundreds of family members and concerned citizens. The Vietnam War briefings were held during the 30th Annual Meeting of the National League of Families. Keynote speaker for the League's candlelight dinner was Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre. The Cold War and Korean War briefings were conducted separately for family members of servicemen from those conflicts. The government briefers represented several agencies specializing in accounting missions. They range from senior policy officials to analysts and scientists responsible for the wide range of responsibilities of this mission. The agencies included the Department of State; the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office; the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory; the Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii; the Joint Task Force - Full Accounting; the casualty offices of the Air Force, the Army, the Navy and the Marine Corps. The briefings followed a basic agenda consisting of government presentations, a general question and answer period, and one-on-one sessions with family members as necessary.
The National Alliance of Families also held their annual meeting. The Alliance testified before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade. Speakers for the Alliance were: Congressman and former Vietnam POW Sam Johnson (R-TX.), General Roland Lejoie, chairman of the US Russian Joint Commission, Robert L. Jones, DASD DPMO, Dr. Timothy Castle, Thomas Hawley, Senator Stewart (PA), Mark Sauter, Senator Smith (R-NH), Susan Messinai, Al Santoli, Dr. Samuel Dunlap, and Roger Hall.
19 JUN 99: North Korean officials did not show up today for a ceremony to hand over remains believed to be those of US soldiers killed in the Korean War, the American-led UN Command said. Command officials from Seoul waited for five minutes before deciding that the North Koreans would not arrive for the ceremony at this border village inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. The North Koreans were to have transferred four sets of remains unearthed by a joint U.S.-North Korea recovery team in northern North Korea early this month. US Maj. Gen. Michael M. Dunn, representing the command, issued a statement denouncing North Korea for failing to return the remains "for reasons that defy explanation and understanding." "The return of remains is a purely humanitarian issue," Dunn said. "The North's refusal to turn over the remains ... demonstrates their insensitivity to the families of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice."
21 JUN 99: The German government has sent about $18 million to the United States for distribution to more than 200 Americans who survived Nazi concentration camps, a State Department official said today. The United States and Germany agreed to keep secret details of the basis for how much each individual claimant would receive, he said. Attorney General Janet Reno asked the Justice Department's Foreign Claims Settlement Commission to try to determine how many other Americans might be eligible for German compensation. More than 1,360 claims were filed, but the US government sought reparations only for those who were held in recognized concentration camps. As a result, hundreds of Americans, including US soldiers who were prisoners of war and US citizens who worked in slave labor camps, were turned away, according to attorneys representing those claimants. The settlement does not involve people who became American citizens after having survived concentration camps.
23 JUN 99: AP reports that a US Defense Department official arrived in Cambodia on Wednesday to energize efforts to account for American servicemen missing in action from the Vietnam War era. Robert Jones, deputy assistant secretary of defense for POW/missing person affairs, said at the Phnom Penh airport that he will push during his three-nation tour for a regional conference to coordinate the search for remains of MIAs and prisoners of war. If the United States can secure the support of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the conference is expected to streamline the work of the US military's Joint Task Force/Full Accounting search teams. Jones was greeted at the airport by Lt. Gen. Pol Saroeun, head of the Cambodian POW/MIA committee. He also will meet with Prime Minister Hun Sen and top generals to discuss the proposed conference. Of the 81 US servicemen and civilians who were lost in Cambodia during the Vietnam War era, five have been positively identified since official search missions in Cambodia began in 1992. The remains of two people believed to have been US Marines were recovered earlier this year. They are thought to be two of 15 Marines killed in a May 15, 1975, rescue of the US merchant ship Mayaguez and its crew after it was captured by communist Khmer Rouge forces. The remains were repatriated in April to an Army laboratory in Hawaii for identification. US search teams also recently found scraps of clothing, bone fragments and an identification card in eastern Cambodia believed to belong to four soldiers lost in two separate helicopter crashes during the Vietnam War.
24 JUN 99: The remains of two soldiers missing in action from the Korean War have been identified and returned to their families for burial in the United States. They are identified as US Army Cpl. Charles W. Tillman, Columbia, SC, and US Army Pfc. Herbert Ardis, Detroit, MI. The remains of Tillman and Ardis were recovered about three miles apart in an area approximately 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. The remains of both soldiers were recovered during investigations and excavations directed by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office following negotiations with North Korea in 1996, 1997 and 1998. The US teams conducted ten excavations from 1996-99 inside North Korea and have recovered 39 remains of American servicemen lost during the war.
25 JUN 99: LEGISLATION UPDATE: S. 484 - Bring Them Home Alive Act Of 1999 - A bill to provide for the granting of refugee status in the United States to nationals of certain foreign countries in which American Vietnam War POW/MIAs or American Korean War POW/MIAs may be present, if those nationals assist in the return to the United States of those POW/MIAs alive. Sponsor: Sen Campbell, Cosponsors: 13 - Sen Gregg, Sen Helms, Sen Brownback, Sen Bunning, Sen McConnell, Sen Hutchinson, Sen Grams, Sen Schumer, Sen Mack, Sen Allard, Sen Smith, Sen Torricelli, Sen Fitzgerald. H.R. 1926 - Bring Them Home Alive Act Of 1999 - A bill to provide for the granting of refugee status in the United States to nationals of certain foreign countries in which American Vietnam War POW/MIAs or American Korean War POW/MIAs may be present, if those nationals assist in the return to the United States of those POW/MIAs alive. Sponsor: Rep Hefley, Cosponsors: 37 - Rep Rohrabacher, Rep McCarthy, Rep Shows, Rep Holden, Rep Diaz-Balart, Rep McHugh, Rep Ortiz, Rep Schaffer, Rep Fossella, Rep English, Rep Green, Rep Whitfield, Rep Granger, Rep Burton, Rep Kelly, Rep Gutierrez, Rep Davis, Rep Fletcher, Rep Forbes, Rep Cunningham, Rep Shays, Rep Filner, Rep McCollum, Rep Hilleary, Rep Lucas, Rep McGovern, Rep King, Rep Lewis, Rep Hunter, Rep Hostettler, Rep Tancredo, Rep Talent, Rep Wynn, Rep Saxton, Rep Bilirakis, Rep Peterson, Rep Pallone. H. RES. 172 - A resolution to authorize and direct the Archivist of the United States to make available for public use the records of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Missing Persons in Southeast Asia. Sponsor: Rep Gilman, Cosponsors: Rep Taylor, Rep Talent, Rep Rohrabacher. H. RES. 16 - A resolution to establish a Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs. Sponsor: Rep King - Cosponsors: Rep Cramer, Rep Oberstar, Rep McCarthy, Rep Frost, Rep Bilirakis, Rep Lazio, Rep Kelly, Rep Luther, Rep Calvert, Rep LaHood, Rep Canady, Rep Ramstad, Rep Peterson.
A group of former Japanese prisoners of war held in Siberia after World War II will ask the UN Commission on Human Rights to recommend that the Japanese government compensate them for unpaid wages during the period of their captivity, group members said Wednesday. According to the group, the former Soviet Union captured about 640,000 Japanese military personnel at the end of World War II, and took them to Siberia as forced laborers. Of the total, about 60,000 died in labor camps, said the group, which has about 10,000 members. Upholding two lower court decisions, the top court said their losses were a part of the wartime suffering that affected all Japanese people, and that the Constitution did not provide compensation for such hardships, putting an end to the plaintiffs' 16-year-old legal battle. The plaintiffs had insisted the Japanese government is responsible for the payment of wages for labor carried out by prisoners of war, in line with the 1949 Geneva treaty on war prisoners and the 1956 Japan-Soviet joint declaration. The Geneva treaty stipulates that POWs' countries bear the final responsibility in compensating them for forced labor. Japan renounced its right to seek compensation concerning its prisoners of war held in Siberia when signing the joint declaration with the Soviet Union.
30 JUN 99: REMINDER -
DOD/DPMO Family Update - 17 JUL 1999 - St. Louis, MO
POW-MIA Issue Update July 1999