December 2000

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

01 DEC 00: As of November 2000 - the 'official' unaccounted-for figures are: SEA - 1,991. Persian Gulf War - unsatisfactory accounting. Korean War - 8,100+ remain unaccounted-for, 42 possible remains returned, 4 identifications. World War II - Over 78,000 remain unaccounted-for.

02 DEC 00:"WWII Marine Raiders ID'd by Hickam lab
The remains of the 19 men arrived at the Army's premier forensic lab last December for identification

The list of those identified Nov. 10 Special: Bringing Them Home
By Gregg K. Kakesako Star-Bulletin

Fifty-eight years after they were left behind on a remote Pacific atoll, 19 World War II casualties -- members of the elite Marine Raiders -- have been identified. The 19 were declared missing in action for nearly six decades in the first U.S. offensive against a Japanese outpost, 1,000 miles northeast of Guadalcanal on the island then known as Makin Atoll. Their identification by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory -- the military's premier forensic facility at Hickam Air Force Base -- brings an end to a long-forgotten skirmish that gave the United States a badly needed victory in early days of the Pacific war following the infamous Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. John McCarthy, publisher of the quarterly magazine Raider Patch, said the U.S. Marine Raiders Association hopes to rebury the Makin Raiders with military honors at a special site at Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 17 -- the 59th anniversary of the Pacific commando raid.

But the Pentagon said yesterday that Cpl. Mason Yarbrough, of Sikeston, Mo., will be returned to his hometown for burial next month. McCarthy said he has talked with Yarbrough's family, and there is concern about the health of his 87-year-old invalid mother. "There has been a marker for him over a grave site for the past 50 years," MacCarthy said. "The wake is planned for Dec. 14, with burial the next day." Monument planned So far, the Marine Raider Association, which represents the more than 8,000 Marines who belonged to the special World War II commando unit, has the commitments of 11 of the 19 families. "If our scenario works out," McCarthy said, "they will be buried side by side under individual headstones with a special monument in the center." McCarthy said there will be space set aside for the nine other Makin Raiders who are believed to have been captured after the 1942 raid and later executed on Kwajalein Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. The Army hopes to return to that Pacific island sometime early next year to try to locate those remains.

The names of the 28 Marine Raiders will be inscribed on a special Arlington monument. McCarthy, who served with the Army's 2nd Infantry Division in World War II, has close ties to the Makin Raiders since his sister was engaged to one -- Pvt. Robert Maulding, of Vista, Calif. "He had just turned 19 when he was killed," McCarthy said. "He was just an outstanding person." Remains found in mass grave The 19 sets of remains were excavated from a mass grave in the Republic of Kiribati from the island of Butaritari and returned to U.S. soil in December 1999, and sent to the Army laboratory for identification. There, scientists and anthropologists began the exhaustive forensic identification process, including the use of mitochondrial DNA. The skeletal remains are those of 19 members of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, who were killed in action on Aug. 17 and 18, 1942, during a raid on what was then known as Makin Atoll, and now known as Butaritari.

Courtesy of CILHI Anthropologists and other workers excavate the mass grave on Butaritari Island. U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory uncovered 20 sets of remains, including 19 Marines who were killed in a 1942 commando raid on the remote Japanese outpost. Anthropologists had dug a series of trenches around the suspected grave site before finding the remains, many still wearing boots and helmets. The first recovery mission was held in August 1998 and was followed by two others in November and December 1999. The shallow mass graves were discovered on the northern shore of the island under a crushed coral road. It was the largest and most significant recovery project undertaken by the Army lab since it was created in 1973. The Japanese had occupied the atoll's main island in December 1941 after attacking Pearl Harbor, and constructed a seaplane base in its lagoon.

In August 1942, two companies of Marine Raiders, led by their founder, Maj. Evans Carlson, were dispatched by small rubber boats from the submarines Nautilus and Argonaut, which they had boarded at Pearl Harbor. In the predawn raid, 221 Marines attacked the Japanese garrison, destroying two seaplanes and killing 83 enemy soldiers. In a firefight, Sgt. Clyde Thomason was killed while directing the actions of his platoon. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Island native helps discovery Brad Sturm, Central Identification Lab anthropologist, said Carlson paid a native $50 to bury the 19 Marines, thinking the rest of the Marines had been evacuated to the submarines. But 12 Marine Raiders did not make the beach rendezvous and were left behind. Three were captured a day later, on Aug. 19, 1942. It is not known whether they were taken prisoner or executed. The other nine were caught two weeks later and taken to Kwajalein. Among the Marines who survived the battle was Maj. James Roosevelt, son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was the recollections of Tokerai Bureimo, a 75-year-old Butaritari native, that led the recovery team to the mass grave site. Bureimo said he had helped bury the Marines when he was 16 years old.

Eventually, 20 sets of remains were uncovered. One is believed to be that of a native islander. On. Dec. 17, 1999, the remains of 19 Americans were put aboard a KC-130 Hercules aircraft escorted by a Marine color guard and flown to Hickam Air Force Base. ,Bureimo, who speaks no English, is said to have broken out in a chorus of the Marine Corps Hymn as the remains were placed on the aircraft.

03 DEC 00: World War II warriors The 19 Marines identified are:
Sgt. Clyde Thomason, of Atlanta, the first enlisted Marine awarded the Medal of Honor.
Cpl. Mason O. Yarbrough of Sikeston, Mo.
Capt. Gerald P. Holtom of Palo Alto, Calif.
Field Musician 1st Class Vernon L. Castle of Stillwater, Okla.
Cpl. I.B. Earles of Tulare, Calif.
Cpl. Daniel A. Gaston of Galveston, Texas
Cpl. Harris J. Johnson of Little Rock, Iowa
Cpl. Kenneth K. Kunkle of Mountain Home, Ark.
Cpl. Edward Maciejewski of Chicago
Cpl. Robert B. Pearson of Lafayette, Calif.
Pfc. William A. Gallagher of Wyandotte, Mich.
Pfc. Ashley W. Hicks of Waterford, Calif.
Pfc. Kenneth M. Montgomery of Eden, Wis.
Pfc. Norman W. Mortensen of Camp Douglas, Wis.
Pfc. John E. Vandenberg of Kenosha, Wis.
Pvt. Carlyle O. Larson of Glenwood, Minn.
Pvt. Robert B. Maulding of Vista, Calif.
Pvt. Franklin M. Nodland of Marshalltown, Iowa
Pvt. Charles A. Selby of Ontonagon, Mich."

04 DEC 00: "War's forced labourers get hope from $8m payout
Michael Millett, Herald Correspondent in Tokyo

Soldiers and civilians forced into wartime labour for Japanese companies have vowed to use a landmark 500 million yen ($8.6million) payout for Chinese victims to back further compensation claims totalling millions of dollars. But legal experts have warned the long list of remaining plaintiffs they still face huge problems using the local judicial system to extract justice for their treatment during World War II. The targeted companies, including some of Japan's biggest corporate names such as Mitsubishi and Mitsui, have, with government support, consistently refused to accept responsibility for slave labour claims and yesterday were maintaining that this week's case did not set a legal or moral precedent.

On Wednesday, Kajima Corp, one of Japan's biggest construction companies, agreed an out-of-court settlement with Chinese plaintiffs for a surprisingly large 500 million yen. It will be used to set up a fund, administered by the Chinese Red Cross, to help survivors and families of 986 labourers forced to work in the company's Hanaoka mine, in northern Japan, which was notorious for harsh treatment of its workers. In the dying days of the Pacific War in 1945, the Chinese rioted over rations, killing five Japanese overseers. The rebellion, dubbed the Hanaoka uprising, was crushed, with more than 100 tortured and killed in reprisal. The final death toll was 418 - virtually half the workforce. The settlement, made at the urging of the Tokyo High Court, is not the first involving slave labourers. At least three court settlements have been made for Korean victims. But this is the first involving Chinese and the first to be resolved with a group payout, rather than the distribution of sums to individual plaintiffs. Lawyers representing the Chinese said the company's backdown could have ramifications for more than 60 other compensation claims jammed before the Japanese courts. But success appears to rest more on the ability of plaintiffs to apply political or moral leverage than any legal strategies.

Kajima insisted the settlement did not involve any official acknowledgment of liability and the Government's formal policy is that all compensation claims were settled by the San Francisco Treaty of 1951. The size of the settlement - almost 10 times that sought by the plaintiffs - suggests it may be tied to diplomatic efforts to improve relations with China. A former forced labourer and executive director of the US-based Centre for Internee Rights, Gilbert Hair, said the settlement was a "welcome" one, given the looming case involving US, British, Dutch, Australian and New Zealand victims. That case will be heard in Tokyo on December 18. Prisoner-of-war groups are using controversial Californian legislation to push compensation claims, with 26 cases filed so far in the US against 31 Japanese companies.'

06 DEC 00: Schedule for DPMO Family Briefings/Updates 2001 -
20 Jan 2001 Las Vegas, NV
24 Feb 2001 San Francisco, CA
17 Mar 2001 San Antonio, TX
21 Apr 2001 Cheyenne, WY
19 May 2001 Atlanta, GA
JUN 2001 Family Conferences, Washington, DC
JUL 2001 Family Conferences, Washington, DC
18 Aug 2001 St. Paul, MN
15 Sept 2001 Providence, RI
20 Oct 2001 Orlando, FL
17 Nov 2001 Little Rock, AR

DEC 2001
Holidays - No Updates

10 DEC 00: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and North Korean officials will open discussions in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Wednesday about next year's schedule of joint searches for the remains of American troops missing from the Korean War, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Tuesday. ``We have had considerable success in the last year with recovering remains from North Korea (news - web sites), and we are meeting to set up a schedule for the next year,'' Defense Department spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters. Five joint recovery operations in 2000 found 65 sets of suspected U.S. remains, which were sent back to the United States for positive identification. Forty-two sets were found from 1996 to 1999. More than 8,000 U.S. troops are still missing from the Korean War, fought between 1950 and 1953.

12 DEC 00: "U.S., North Korea Open Talks on 2001 MIA Searches
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Reuters) - U.S. and North Korean officials began talks in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday to set next year's schedule to search for the remains of American troops listed as missing from the Korean War, the United States said. A statement released by the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur said the discussions -- which are due to last until Friday or Saturday -- would center on the search for the remains of around 8,000 American troops still listed as missing in action (MIA) from the 1950-53 war. The talks come a day after U.S. officials said Washington believed it was on the verge of a deal to curb North Korea (news - web sites)'s missile program and is likely to undertake talks that could result in President Clinton (news - web sites) visiting Pyongyang. The Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur has been a regular venue for U.S.-North Korean talks on Pyongyang's missile program, with the most recent meeting between the two sides occurring last month. Five joint recovery operations this year have found 65 sets of suspected remains of U.S. servicemen, which have been sent to the United States for identification.

Forty-two sets of remains were found between 1996 and 1999, of which five have been positively identified and a further 10 are in the final stages of verification, the statement said. A commitment by North Korea to stop long range missile test launches and curtail exports of missiles to countries such as Pakistan and some Middle East states, could prompt Clinton to visit the North Korean capital before he leaves office on Jan. 20. "

18 DEC 00: "No. 751-00
IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2000
U.S., NORTH KOREA REACH AGREEMENT ON MIA REMAINS RECOVERY

U.S. and North Korean negotiators have reached an agreement for 2001 under which joint teams will recover the remains of Americans missing in action from the Korean War, marking the sixth consecutive year that the United States will conduct remains recovery operations in North Korea.
The agreement, following four days of negotiations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, led by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, expands similar operations that have been conducted since 1996.
The 2001 agreement significantly expands the size of the U.S. teams, increases the length of U.S. activities and adds areas of operations around the Chosin Reservoir to the current areas in Unsan and Kujang counties, approximately 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang.
Ten operations will be conducted in the three areas between April and November. Each operation will last 32 days - up from 26 days each in 2000. Repatriation of remains will follow immediately thereafter. The increase in the number of days essentially equates to 60 additional days, or two complete operations, beyond the levels set in the 2000 schedules. The U.S. component of the joint teams was expanded to 28 members from 20.
The agreement also establishes a procedure for sharing records and data related to witness interviews, potential burial locations and other information not previously made available by the North Koreans.
During the five operations in 2000 in the Unsan and Kujang areas, joint teams recovered 65 sets of remains. Forty-two were recovered in the four previous years. Five have been positively identified, with another 10 nearing the final stages of identification. More than 8,100 servicemen are missing in action from the Korean War.
Operations in 2001 will include areas of investigation near Kaechon, approximately 18 miles south of Unsan and Kujang. Kaechon includes an area nicknamed the "Gauntlet," where the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division conducted its famous fighting withdrawal along a narrow road through six miles of Chinese ambush positions during November and December 1950. More than 950 missing in action soldiers are believed to be located in these three areas.
The Chosin Reservoir campaign left approximately 750 Marines and soldiers missing in action from both the east and west sides of the reservoir in northeastern North Korea.
The field teams are comprised primarily of specialists from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI), where the forensic identification work is done after the remains are repatriated. In addition to the mission of recovering and identifying remains from the Korea War, CILHI has the same responsibility in accounting for MIAs from the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and WWII.

More information on U.S. recovery efforts is available at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or http://www.cilhi.army.mil."

20 DEC 00: "U.S. Seeks Access to Army Defector
By ROBERT BURNS .c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Pentagon officials have renewed a request to North Korea for access to four Americans who deserted the U.S. Army in South Korea during the 1960s and are living in the communist North. The request was made during talks last week in Malaysia between U.S. and North Korean officials negotiating an agreement on access to former Korean War battlefields where the Pentagon hopes to recover soldiers' remains. Access to the four Americans - whose presence in North Korea was made public in the United Stats nearly five years ago - was raised as a separate issue and was not resolved, Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's POW/MIA office, said Wednesday. They are the only four Americans known to be living in North Korea. ``We made it a matter of record that we intend to continue to pursue it,'' Greer said. North Korea has denied previous U.S. requests for access to the Americans, who are considered defectors. They said previously that the four are North Korean citizens now and don't want to talk to U.S. officials. ``Interestingly, they didn't reject it this time,'' Greer said. The North Koreans just left it an open matter. Greer's office is interested in interviewing the four to determine whether they know of other Americans living in North Korea. The Pentagon has received numerous reports in recent years of 10 to 15 other Americans in North Korea who were taken prisoner during the Korean War and may remain there against their will. Those reports have not be corroborated. North Korea denies it. The four Americans who defected from U.S. Army posts in South Korea in the 1960s are Pvt. Larry A. Abshier of Urbana, Ill., who left his unit in May 1962 at age 19; Cpl. Jerry W. Parrish of Morganfield, Ky., who deserted in December 1963 at age 19; Pvt. James Dresnok of Norfolk, Va., who left in August 1962 at age 21, and Sgt. Robert Jenkins of Rich Square, N.C., who deserted in January 1965 at age 25. The Pentagon first confirmed that the four were alive and living in North Korea in January 1996."

22 DEC 00: Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update
December 22, 2000
U.S., NORTH KOREA REACH AGREEMENT ON MIA REMAINS RECOVERY
U.S. and North Korean negotiators have reached an agreement for 2001 under which joint teams will recover the remains of Americans missing in action from the Korean War, marking the sixth consecutive year that the United States will conduct remains recovery operations in North Korea.
The agreement, following four days of negotiations in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, led by DPMO, expands similar operations that have been conducted since 1996.
The 2001 agreement significantly expands the size of the U.S. teams, increases the length of U.S. activities and adds areas of operations around the Chosin Reservoir to the current areas in Unsan and Kujang counties.
Ten operations will be conducted in the three areas between April and November. Each operation will last 32 days-up from 26 days each in 2000. Repatriation of remains will follow immediately thereafter. The increase in the number of days essentially equates to 60 additional days, or two complete operations, beyond the levels set in the 2000 schedules. The U.S. component of the joint teams was expanded to 28 members from 20.
The agreement also establishes a procedure for sharing records and data related to witness interviews, potential burial locations and other information not previously made available by the North Koreans.
During the five operations in 2000 in the Unsan and Kujang areas, joint teams recovered 65 sets of remains. Forty-two were recovered in the four previous years. Five have been positively identified, with another 10 nearing the final stages of identification. More than 8,100 servicemen are missing in action from the Korean War.
Operations in 2001 will include areas of investigation near Kaechon, approximately 18 miles south of Unsan and Kujang. Kaechon includes an area nicknamed the "Gauntlet," where the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division conducted its famous fighting withdrawal along a narrow road through six miles of Chinese ambush positions during November and December 1950. More than 950 missing in action soldiers are believed to be located in these three areas.
The Chosin Reservoir campaign left approximately 750 Marines and soldiers missing in action from both the east and west sides of the reservoir in northeastern North Korea.
The field teams are comprised primarily of specialists from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI), where the forensic identification work is done after the remains are repatriated. In addition to the mission of recovering and identifying remains from the Korea War, CILHI has the same responsibility in accounting for MIAs from the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and World War II.

DPMO DIRECTOR ADDRESSES THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
At the personal invitation of Hershel Gober, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW and Missing Personnel Affairs, Robert L. Jones, recently spoke at a gathering of Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) personnel, members of the White House staff, and leaders of veterans' service organizations.
Speaking at DVA Headquarters, Jones used the occasion to briefly discuss the history of DPMO, to update the audience on his initiatives in Southeast Asia, Korea, and China, and to publicize the DPMO Marketing Display, which was arranged in the foyer to the auditorium.
Jones was particularly pleased to speak about his opportunity to accompany President Clinton on his recent trip to Vietnam. He noted that the day-to-day work of DPMO and its partners, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting and the Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii, helped make the President's trip possible. He repeated the words the President spoke at the presumed crash site of Capt. Lawrence Evert, "Our nation has made a commitment that we will not rest until we've achieved the fullest possible accounting for our lost veterans."
In the aftermath of the meeting Jones noted the speech and the marketing display were successes. He also said that it's gratifying to hear the President succinctly tell the world DPMO's mission statement-it shows the importance of our work.

DPMO PARTICIPATES IN VOICE OF AMERICA BROADCAST
DPMO personnel participated in the Voice of America television, radio, and internet simulcast "Talk to America," on December 4th. The producer of "Talk to America," Ms. Irina Burgener, requested they appear on the program to help discuss the "Bring Them Home Alive Act of 2000," which was signed into law by President Clinton on November 9th.
The purpose of this law is to ensure every possible effort is made to produce living, unaccounted-for Americans from the Vietnam and the Korean Wars. The law provides for the granting of refugee status to any national of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, or the Former Soviet Union (FSU) "who personally delivers into the custody of the U.S. government a living American MIA or POW from the Vietnam War." The law provides identical provisions for nationals of North Korea, China, or the FSU in regards to the Korean War. The final provision of the law (and the reason for the broadcast) directs the International Broadcasting Bureau, which administers Voice of America, to broadcast information promoting the refugee aspects of the law to countries covered by the act.
By law Voice of America can only broadcast overseas, so this program was not transmitted in the U.S. Also appearing on the program was a representative of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Ms. Donna Knox, President of the Coalition of Families of Korean and Cold War POW/MIAs.
The DPMO attendees informed Ms. Carol Pearson, the hostess of "Talk to America," of the provisions of the law, and they took the opportunity after every break to say that the U.S. government's top priority is repatriation of unaccounted-for Americans. They also explained that DPMO and its partners currently have mechanisms in place to debrief people who claim to be missing American servicemen, and that experts can interview these people within hours of their arrival at a U.S. embassy or consulate office.
In answer to Ms. Pearson's concerns about possible acts of reprisal from a repressive government toward an individual who attempts to gain U.S. refugee status, the DPMO representatives urged people to use common sense and good judgment before they act.

LAOS AGREES TO PERMIT 50 PARTICIPANTS ON JOINT FIELD ACTIVITIES
On December 5th the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW and Missing Personnel Affairs, Robert L. Jones announced a major breakthrough in negotiations with the Lao government, when the Lao agreed to increase Joint Field Activity (JFA) personnel limitations from 40 to 50. The immediate impact of this decision is to increase the pace of recovery operations. The increase is made possible because the U.S. will now be able to deploy five personnel recovery teams, as opposed to four. The breakthrough occurred in consultative talks held in Vientiane, Laos between Lao officials and U.S. negotiators from DPMO, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA), and the Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI). Prior to these talks DPMO employed a three-step strategy to achieve the ultimate agreement. First, Jones conducted an official visit to Laos in August, in which he expressed U.S. desires for operational changes in JFAs. Two weeks later Jones hosted the Lao Vice Foreign Minister for Foreign Affairs, Phongsavath Boupha, in an effort to gain his support of the changes ? the second step of the strategy. JTF-FA and CILHI also hosted Boupha to support the second step of the strategy. The third step was a series of frank discussions on improving the pace of operations at an operational review meeting held in Hawaii in September. During these consultative talks the Lao agreed to two other operational changes desired by the U.S. These changes will permit JFA extensions on a case-by-case basis, and will permit excavation site selections for future operations on a case-by-case basis, rather than a geographic basis. The U.S. would like the Lao to approve direct medical evacuation flights of U.S. personnel to Thailand, but first, the U.S. must make an agreement with the Thai government. In total, these changes will improve the pace and efficiency of recovery operations in Laos.

Published by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office 2400 Defense Pentagon Washington, DC 20301-2400 (703) 602-2102 www.dtic.mil/dpmo

26 DEC 00: "Honorable Burial at Last for Makin Atoll Heroes Marines' remains left behind in '42 are found Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer  

Three of the men were from Northern California, and all of them, the Marines say, were heroes. The three were Capt. Gerald Holtom, an intelligence officer who went to college in Berkeley and lived in Palo Alto, Cpl. Robert Pearson, an infantryman from Lafayette, and Cpl. I. B. Earles of the San Joaquin Valley town of Tulare. The remains of Sgt. Clyde Thompson, of Atlanta, the first enlisted Marine to win the Medal of Honor, were among those recovered. They were killed in a raid on the Japanese-held Makin atoll in the Gilbert Islands in the summer of 1942. It was a daring operation, conducted in great secrecy 2,000 miles behind enemy lines. The leader was the lean, leathery and tough as nails Lt. Col. Evans Carlson. His right-hand man was Maj. James Roosevelt, son of the president of the United States. The raid electrified the country: It was hailed as the first successful Allied ground attack against the Axis. The Raiders' motto "Gung Ho!" -- a Chinese expression meaning "work together" -- became part of the American vocabulary. There was even a hit movie, with Randolph Scott playing Carlson. Yet the Makin raid was a victory that never was, a muddled and confused affair in which the Americans nearly surrendered to a defeated enemy. The raid also alerted the Japanese enemy to American capabilities, and the Japanese took vigorous countermeasures with serious and bloody consequences. "This thing was a real screwup, a mess," said Ben Carson, a retired Forest Service officer who was a private in the raid. Worse, the raiders left behind 19 of their dead comrades and nine living Marines. "Marines never forget their dead. Marines never leave their dead," said Jack Dornan of the Marine Raider Association, which is composed of veterans of the raiders, the elite of the elite corps. The nine Marines left behind were captured, taken to Kwajalein Island and beheaded. "This thing has been haunting me and many others for years," said Graydon Harn, who along with Carson led attempts to find the graves of the 19 dead Marines on Makin and have them returned to the United States.

BREAKTHROUGH TO UNCOVER REMAINS
It was a long and difficult battle. The Defense Department had searched for the bodies in 1948 but found nothing. Years later, Harn and Carson, backed by their comrades in the Marine Raiders Association, began pressuring the Pentagon, writing their representatives in Congress and using computers to broaden the scope of their work. "I could not have done it without the help of Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse, " Carson said. Furse, a Democrat from Oregon, represented the district near the Republican Carson's home in Hillsboro, near Portland. "I could not have done it without the computer," said Harn, who got a computer as a gift from his family. He went to work sending e-mails all over the world, especially to the island of Butaritari, which is part of the Makin atoll, a tiny slice of the independent nation of Kiribati. The Marine Raiders put pressure on the Pentagon's POW/MIA office, which has been working on identifying military remains in Vietnam. A forensic anthropologist and his team went to the island in 1998 and got a huge break when an 82-year-old islander named Bureimoa Tokarei came forward to say he had buried the men when he was a boy of 16 and knew the location. The remains, including dogtags and bits of uniform, were removed later, taken to the armed services forensic lab in Hawaii, where, using DNA and dental records, 19 men were positively identified last month. The memory of those Marines was strong on Makin; when a U.S. Marine honor guard went to the island last winter to move the remains to the United States, Bureimoa Tokarei, who does not speak English, came to attention and began to sing the Marine Corps anthem. "He sang it completely," Harn said. "The whole thing. He knew more verses than I did."

ELITE FIGHTING FORCE
The pull of tradition and valor was very much part of Carlson and his raiders. The Raiders were an elite unit specializing in guerrilla tactics. They existed only for two years; then they became part of Marine legend. Carlson was the son of a preacher, a professional officer who had served in the Army in World War I, later joined the Marines as a private, became an officer, served in China and won the Navy Cross in Nicaragua in the 1930s. He also made powerful friends: while assigned to the Presidential Security Detail at the "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Ga., he was noticed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Carlson went back to China and studied the guerrilla methods used by Mao Tse Tung and his communist army. He also took note of their "Gung Ho" spirit. Carlson wrote regular reports for the eyes of the president only. When America entered the war, Roosevelt was being pressured by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to form a small, elite force along the lines of the British commandos. Carlson also was friendly with James Roosevelt, then a Marine reserve officer. He got the job, and two battalions of raiders -- called "Carlson's Raiders" by the troops -- were formed. Carlson made the younger Roosevelt his executive officer. Their first mission was a surprise raid on the obscure Makin Atoll. The purpose was to divert the Japanese from the real attack on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, capture documents and knock the Japanese off balance. The Raiders, handpicked and led by Carlson himself, trained in amphibious war near Honolulu. But while Carlson was long on bravery and theory, he was short on detail.

SUB-PAR TRAINING
Carson remembers that though the men were to make the assault from submarines, they never trained on subs and had never even been on a sub before. Nonetheless, in early August, they sailed from Pearl Harbor aboard two old submarines, the Nautilus and the Argonaut. But when they got to Makin, huge seas were running. "It was just a hellacious storm," he said, "The waves must have been 20 feet high." They had a terrible time launching the rubber boats. In fact, they had never launched boats from a submarine. Many of the boats were swamped. They lost a lot of equipment, a lot of ammunition. The Marines -- there were 13 officers and 208 enlisted men -- got ashore before dawn when it was "as dark as the inside of a black cow," Carson said. The idea was to surprise the sleeping Japanese garrison. But one Marine accidentally fired his rifle, a sound that would wake the dead, and the Japanese boiled out of their barracks. It was the Raiders' first fight, and it was fierce. "I remember the heroism, " Carson said. "We were seeing that for the first time. There was the heroism of those men." The Japanese were outnumbered, but the Raiders didn't know that. The enemy made several terrifying Banzai charges, attacks that sent most soldiers running, but not the Marines. The Japanese also employed snipers in the trees. It was a sniper who killed Capt. Holtom, the only officer to die. "He was buried near where he fell," Carlson wrote the family later. "He died like a man and a true patriot." The battle for Makin was desperate and confusing. The Marines ran short of ammunition, and at one point, Carlson thought the Raiders had lost and wanted to surrender. The Marines sent a note to the enemy by a Japanese messenger, but in the confusion the messenger was shot and killed.

LAND OF CONFUSION
By the next morning, it turned out that the Japanese were all dead. The Marines had won. But they were disorganized. Some of them, without much direction, made their way back to the submarines. It was a terrible mess. Even the outboard motors didn't work, and neither did the radios. The men had to paddle out to sea, hoping to spot the submarines. They hadn't intended to hold the island anyway. But when they counted heads, four Marines were missing, left behind. Five men volunteered to go back to try to find the missing men. "We were back in the safety of that boat," Carson said, "and they went back for their buddies." But Japanese planes had been alerted and flew over Makin and dropped bombs. The submarines dived, and when they surfaced, there was no sign of any Marines. The submarines couldn't wait. The element of surprise was gone and they couldn't stay in enemy waters. So they headed back for Pearl Harbor. They received a hero's welcome, and Adm. Chester Nimitz himself was there to meet the Raiders. It was a famous victory.

DESERTED ON AN ISLAND
On Makin, the lost Marines held out for a while, but they were alone, thousands of miles from friendly forces. They surrendered, and were killed by their captors on Kwajalein. The fate of those men still haunts the Marines. Old men now, but still proud. "There is one thing you learn in the Marine Corps," said Harn, who is 78 and in poor health. "There are feelings that last all your life. We became like brothers. Like brothers." Sixteen of the men from Makin will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, including all that is mortal of Holtum, the intelligence officer from Palo Alto, and Pearson, the infantryman from Lafayette. Earles will be buried next to his father and mother in Tulare. There will be a ceremony at Arlington Aug. 19, the 59th anniversary of the day they died. The remains of the nine Marines executed on Kwajalein have never been recovered. They are still there, like a memory that will not fade away."

29 DEC 00: "Attorney: Wallenberg May Still Be Alive
By BRUCE DUNFORD Associated Press Writer

HONOLULU (AP) - An attorney for the family of Raoul Wallenberg, who helped tens of thousands of Jews escape Nazi death camps, believes the Swedish diplomat is still alive. Russia acknowledged last week that Wallenberg was wrongfully imprisoned in Soviet prisons on espionage charges for more than 2 1/2 years until his death. Details remain unclear. But family attorney Morris Wolff said in a letter to President Clinton that he had received reports that Wallenberg, who would be 88, is in a mental institution near Moscow. In a letter dated Dec. 27, Wolff asked Clinton to "enlist (Russian) President Vladimir Putin to release Wallenberg, or to allow an international committee ... to examine the evidence." "There is a genuine possibility that Wallenberg is still alive," Wolff told Clinton. Wolff said Friday that a former prisoner of war named Andre Tamas, who was released earlier this year after 50 years in a Russian hospital, had indicated he had seen Wallenberg there. Wallenberg, who vanished in 1945 at age 32, was a member of one of Sweden's wealthiest and most prominent industrialist families. During World War II, he distributed Swedish passports to Jews in Nazi occupied Hungary, won diplomatic protection for whole neighborhoods in Budapest and organized food and medical supplies. His efforts are credited with saving at least 20,000 lives. Many former Soviet prisoners continue to claim Wallenberg was alive as late as the 1970s and 1980s."

30 DEC 00: "The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs will be hosting the 2001 DoD Personnel Recovery Conference at the Crystal City Hyatt Hotel in Arlington, Virginia 22-24 January 2001.

Senior members of the DoD leadership to include OSD, JCS, Services and Unified Commands will attend and be participating in panels, seminars and discussion groups' Also senior officials from the intelligence,interagency , industry and coalition communities will attend.

This years conference will also discuss the issues, findings and recommendations from the recentely completed DPMO Mission Area Analysis and Business Process Reengineering Assessment for Personnel Accounting and Recovery.

Additional information can be found on the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) web site at http://www.ndia.org under "Meetings and Events", then "=under "Schedule of Events", then "January 22-24 The DPMO Personnel Recovery Conference'"

30 DEC 00: REMINDER -
DOD/DPMO Family Updates - Jan 20 - Las Vegas, NV

31 DEC 00: A final thought -

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own. And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."

Major Michael O'Donnell, Jan. 1, 1970, Dak To, Vietnam. O'Donnell, a helicopter pilot, went Missing In Action March 24, 1970, during a rescue attempt. His remains were returned in 1995. He was identified in 2001.

POW-MIA Issue Update January 2001