August 2002
Summary of news for the entire month.
For recent and daily news, please go to: InterNetwork
August 31, 2002 SWA - Missing in Afghanistan Stories Revived
Here we go again... months ago there were regular reports of 18 missing US military personnel in Afghanistan. Now, a quote from the following article - "An Afghan government source also reported that more than 110 U.S. troops have gone missing in Afghanistan since October, the majority presumed dead. And a U.S. military source told Stratfor that U.S. troops are suffering frequent casualties including fatalities that are going largely unreported in the press. "
August 31, 2002 30 POWs - Their Stories
Words, photos tell story of 30 POWs - Vietnam-era exhibit debuts in Coronado
August 30, 2002 SEA - Remains Found in SEA
A group of Vietnamese scrap metal scavengers found two sets of human remains in the wreckage of a helicopter in southern Vietnam, along with papers indicating at least one may have been an American pilot, officials said Thursday.
August 30, 2002 National POW-MIA Day
Friday, September 20, 2002 (Observed each year on the third Friday of September)
August 29, 2002 WW II - 61 Years Later, Sub Discovered
A Japanese midget submarine sunk nearly two hours before the aerial attack on Pearl Harbour has been found. The two-man sub was found by two University of Hawaii research submarines. It was sunk by a US Navy battleship.
August 29, 2002 WW II - Japanese Sub, Remains, Found at Pearl Harbor
Nearly 61 years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, researchers say they have found evidence that the U.S. military fired the first shot against Japan with the discovery of a sunken Japanese submarine.
August 28, 2002 WW II - Japan Not Remorseful
A Tokyo court acknowledged for the first time Japan's use of biological weapons before and during the Second World War, but rejected demands for compensation by 180 Chinese who claimed they were victims of the germ warfare program.
August 28, 2002 WW II - Court Rejects Unit 731 Compensation Claims
Tokyo on Tuesday acknowledged for the first time its use of biological warfare in China during World War II. But while a Japanese court recognized the crimes, it rejected calls by Chinese survivors for compensation.
August 28, 2002 WW II - Unit 731
The plaintiffs had called two former members of Unit 731 to testify about their wartime duties. One member admitted to cultivating germs, while the other said he piloted a plane that dispersed plague bacillus.
August 27, 2002 WW II - Japan FINALLY Admits to Unit 731 Existence
With the public gallery packed with the plaintiffs' supporters holding photographs of the dead, Koji Iwata, the presiding judge of the Tokyo district court, said the imperial army had contravened the Geneva and Hague conventions by spreading plague, typhoid and other diseases in Quzhou, Ningbo and Changde between 1940 and 1942.
August 26, 2002 Service Held for Pilots
"We must ensure that the lessons learned from this accident are never forgotten, for they gave their lives defending freedom."
August 26, 2002 PGW - Speicher Case Hurt by Talk of War
Talk of war with Iraq has hindered diplomatic efforts to determine the fate of a Jacksonville Navy pilot missing since the Gulf War, one of a group of U.S. senators leading the search for information said yesterday.
August 25, 2002 Civil War - Barton Museum Opens, Includes Roll of Missing
The pine desk standing against a dining room wall is the portable station that Barton brought to battlefields to write letters asking everyone she could think of to send supplies for the wounded. On another wall hangs one of Barton's Rolls of Missing Men, a list of names she used to help locate soldiers killed or taken prisoner.
August 25, 2002 WW II - Kwai Bridge Camp Decoder Passes
She was posted to India, where she was based at the Calcutta HQ of Force 136. Among the tasks assigned to them was encoding and decoding the cyphers for the raid on the POW camp at the bridge on the River Kwai.
August 24, 2002 POW-MIA Memorial Dedicated
The ceremony was to dedicate the first POW/MIA Memorial Monument in the area.
August 24, 2002 KW - CW - Search Team Arrives in North Korea
Forensic experts arrived in North Korea Saturday to search for the remains of American soldiers listed as missing in action from the Korean War. The team will be searching two locations in this reclusive communist nation, said Lt. Col. Orlando Lopez of the Defense POW Missing Personnel Office. He did not elaborate.
August 24, 2002 Remains of Missing Pilots in South Korea Located
The bodies of two U.S. Army pilots whose helicopter crashed into a hillside in South Korea were found Friday, more than a day after the chopper was reported missing on a training flight.
August 23, 2002 WW II - No Happy Ending in POW Search
Shopkeeper James Leeming did not know where to start when he received a letter from a German prisoner of war asking for help to track down a Derby man he met over 50 years ago.
August 23, 2002 WW II - Sailing Into the Past
John Pinkerton is appealing to readers of The Berwickshire News to help him track down the families of four soldiers held at a prisoner of war camp in Greenlaw during World War Two. The model, believed to be based on the ship which brought the prisoners to Britain, was made by four men Sandro, Leuca, Armando and Gigetto held at the camp between 1942 and 1946.
August 22, 2002 US Helicopter with 2 US Pilots Missing in South Korea
A U.S. attack helicopter with two American pilots on board disappeared during a night training flight on Thursday, the U.S. military said. South Korean police said rain and heavy fog were hindering the search.
August 22, 2002 BOSNIA - Scott O'Grady Sues Hollyweird
Twentieth Century Fox is expected to fight a lawsuit filed in Texas this week on behalf of Scott O'Grady, the retired U.S. Air Force pilot whose ordeal in Bosnia was the basis for the 2001 Gene Hackman-Owen Wilson movie "Behind Enemy Lines."
August 22, 2002 KW - CW - US Buys Remains From North Korea
North Korea has received millions of dollars in return for its cooperation for joint searches of the remains. In July, the U.S. government handed over cash to the communist regime's military for this year's operations. Kim refused to specify the amount. South Korean news reports had said the United States agreed to pay North Korea at least $3 million this year.
August 22, 2002 WW II - B-17 Flyover For Former POW
It was the kind of tribute Charlie Bennett would have loved. That's what Bennett's widow says about watching a B-17 fly over her husband's grave in western New York. Bennett was a B-17 pilot during World War Two. On his 13th mission over Germany, his "Flying Fortress" was shot down in 1944 and Bennett spent 13 months as a prisoner of war.
August 21, 2002 Colditz Castle Becomes a Set in New POW Game
Colditz Castle has been reduced to nothing more than a theatrical set for a new Prisoner of War game. Thankfully, by the phenomenal number of letters received at AII POW-MIA from students, young people's interest in the issue is still historical, not entertainment.
August 21, 2002 PGW - Iraq Refuses to Help with Speicher
The United States accused Iraq on Wednesday of refusing to cooperate on the fate of missing American pilot Michael Scott Speicher, shot down on the first day of the 1991 Gulf War.
August 21, 2002 SEA - NLF Update Line
Family Update
August 21, 2002 Sorting It All Out
Members of the 311th Quartermaster Company, an Army Reserve mortuary affairs unit from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, first arrived at the Pentagon Sept. 15 to care for the remains of victims recovered in the airliner crash site. Ever since, they have been cataloging, cleaning, identifying and returning recovered personal effects out of a former stable on Fort Myer, Va.
August 20, 2002 Laurence Jolidon Passes Suddenly
Laurence Jolidon, a veteran war correspondent and author who covered the Persian Gulf War and U.S. forces in Somalia, died Tuesday in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he was serving as media spokesman for the NATO peacekeeping force. He was 64.
August 20, 2002 "Betrayed" by Joseph Douglass
Armed with data uncovered by dozens of researchers, Douglass shows how US officials abandoned over 30,000 American POWs (prisoners of war) and MIAs (missing in action) to Communist regimes after World War II and during the Vietnam, Korean and the Cold wars. Douglass thoroughly examines what the US government knew. He identifies the officials who decided to abandon the captives and details the subsequent efforts to hide information and cover-up what happened.
August 19, 2002 WW II - Wisconsin's 39 POW Camps
Did you know that during World War II Western Wisconsin "hosted" many German prisoners of war? Wisconsin native, Betty Cowley, has written Stalan Wisconsin about this forgotten part of Wisconsin's WWII history.
August 19, 2002 KW - CW - Seven Sets of Korean War Remains Repatriated
Remains believed to be those of seven American soldiers missing in action from the Korean War will be repatriated in formal ceremonies on Tuesday in Korea.
August 19, 2002 KW - CW - Korean War Remains Returned
Remains recently unearthed in North Korea and believed to be those of seven American soldiers missing in action from the Korea War were repatriated Tuesday to the moan of bagpipes and the crack of a 21-gun salute.
August 19, 2002 SWA - 1,000 Afghan POWs Said to Have Been Suffocated
As many as 1,000 prisoners in Afghanistan may have died of asphyxiation in container trucks while being transferred by the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance, according to U.N. and Afghan officials.
August 18, 2002 WW II - Sixty Years Later
A former Japanese prisoner of war in Coventry has welcomed an act of reconciliation in the city.
August 17, 2002 WW II - The Raid on Dieppe
Even veterans of the Second World War raid, carried out largely by Canadian troops, still argue about the legacy of Dieppe, where 907 Canadian soldiers were killed and 1,840 left languishing in prisoner-of-war camps.
August 17, 2002 SEA - POW-MIA Vigil
Since 1966, Doris Maitland has anxiously waited for news concerning her brother, Air Force Commando Controller Andre Guillet, whose plane was shot down in Laos. "My brother is missing and his case is active." "Without vigils and support, nothing will happen."
August 17, 2002 WW II - WW II Flier Remains Sought in Tibet
A U.S. Army team has arrived in eastern Tibet to search for remains of fliers aboard two American planes that went down during World War II, the U.S. Embassy said Friday. The mission is expected to last two months, the embassy said in a statement.
August 16, 2002 PGW - Speicher Television Broadcast Transcript with Family Attorney
Before we went to the break, we were telling you about the Bush administration considering changing the status of Navy Captain Scott Speicher from missing in action to missing-captured. And with all good luck, we are going to keep our fingers crossed here. We have Cindy Laquidara here, who represents the Speicher family, joining us now.
August 16, 2002 PGW - Speicher State Dept Briefing Transcript
"It seems as if the United States is trying to reclassify Michael Speicher, the pilot that was shot down in -- over Iraq as still being alive, rather than -- rather than he was killed. Do you have anything on --"
August 16, 2002 PGW - Change of Status in the Works, May Elicit More Intel
A change in the status of a Jacksonville Navy pilot from missing in action to prisoner of war 11 years after his disappearance over Iraq is in the works at the Pentagon, officials confirmed yesterday.
August 16, 2002 Prisoners of War Endured
In 1998, a prisoner of war museum opened at the Andersonville National Historical Site in Andersonville, Ga., the site of the Civil War POW camp in which 12,920 Union soldiers died during a 14-month period.
August 15, 2002 WW II - Thai-Burma Railway Dedication
More than 300 veterans of World War II who worked on the Thai-Burma railway scattered poppies across a section of the notorious track at the opening of a new memorial on Thursday.
August 15, 2002 DPMO News Postings for 15 AUG 02
The remains of three U.S. Army servicemen previously unaccounted for from the war in Vietnam have been identified and are being returned to their families. They are Lt. Col. Donald Eugene Parsons, of Sparta, Ill.; Chief Warrant Officer Charles I. Stanley, of Cleveland and Sgt. 1st Class Eugene F. Christiansen, of Barstow, Calif.
August 15, 2002 SEA - Kerry, Smith & McCain on Vietnam, Again
Organizers say that more than 200 Vietnamese expatriates and their supporters from around the country will gather at Senator John Kerry's office starting Sunday to protest his efforts to prevent US aid from being tied to Vietnam's human rights record.
August 15, 2002 PGW - Speicher, Another Reason To Bomb Baghdad?
The Bush administration also is actively discussing changing the status of Navy Capt. Scott Speicher, the F/A-18 pilot shot down over Iraq more than a decade ago at the start of Operation Desert Storm. No final decision has been made. But officials Wednesday told CNN there could be a decision in the next several days whether to change Speicher's status from "missing in action," to "missing-captured." Navy sources told CNN there is no new evidence regarding Speicher's fate, but the implication, according to one military officer, is that the change "will become another reason to bomb Iraq."
August 14, 2002 PGW - Speicher MIA to Missing/Captured Considered
The authority to change Speicher's status rests with Navy Secretary Gordon England. Aides said he had not made a decision.
August 14, 2002 PGW - Speicher Status Change Rumored
NBC said military officials insisted there was no new evidence to indicate that even if Speicher was captured that he was still alive. According to NBC, the officials claimed the Navy was under intense political pressure to make the change and that the pressure was coming from hard-liners in the Bush administration and in Congress to further justify an attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
August 13, 2002 Seven ID'd, 2 Missing
The Air Force has released a partial list of the victims killed in the crash Wednesday of a U.S. Air Force MC-130H aircraft in Puerto Rico.
August 12, 2002 POW-MIA Flag Flap at Condo
He says two weeks ago, prompted by the memory of his MIA pal, he hung the prisoner of war flag next to the American flag. McCarthy says condo manager Angie Croker told him itıd be in his best interests to remove the POW flag.
August 12, 2002 WW II - Ex-POW, 3 War Vet Passes
On Thursday night, congestive heart failure did what three wars, a POW camp and two cancers couldn't do to retired Marine Lt. Gen. John McLaughlin. He died at the age of 83.
August 12, 2002 NAF Bits 'N' Pieces Update
Summary of News
August 11, 2002 SEA - Ex-POW, Vietnam Nurse Passes
Hamilton, who was a civilian prisoner of war in the Philippines during World War II and a military nurse during the Vietnam War, died of a brain tumor Sunday in Minneapolis. She was 65.
August 11, 2002 SEA - The Wall That Heals
The Wall That Heals, a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Memorial, is 250 feet long and holds the names of 58,220 men and women killed or declared missing in action during the Vietnam War.
August 11, 2002 WW II - A POW in Nagasaki
Clyde Fillmore sat in a train car 57 years ago waiting for the 40-mile march to another Prisoner of War camp in Southeast Asia.
August 10, 2002 WW II - Japan Buries Unit 731 POW Remains
Government officials laid flowers at a tomb Wednesday, then sealed it on hundreds of human bone fragments, hoping to bury the debate on World War II human experiments by the Imperial Army.
August 10, 2002 WW II - Remains Believed to be Found
THE remains of four World War II Japanese soldiers have been discovered by Australian personnel on the famous Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea. They are examining the bones of another soldier who might turn out to be one of five Australians missing from one of the most important battles of 1942.
August 10, 2002 WW II - Unit 731
A former Japanese soldier who took part in Tokyo's World War II germ warfare program urged the government to confess to killing thousands of people in China in attacks and biological experiments and to compensate the victims.
August 10, 2002 WW II - Australian POWs May Get Settlement
After a wait of more than 55 years, surviving Australian soldiers imprisoned in Japan's notorious POW camps during World War I look set to receive financial compensation in tomorrow's federal Budget.
August 09, 2002 WW II - Remains of Japanese POWs Returned by Russia
The remains of 342 Japanese prisoners who died in captivity in Siberia after the second world war were sent to Japan from the Russian city of Irkutsk, the Interfax news agency reported.
August 09, 2002 KW - CW - Scientist's Death Still a Mystery
Relatives of a Cold War scientist who plunged to his death after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA ( news - web sites) mind-control experiment say they are closing their investigation into his 1953 death.
August 09, 2002 SEA - Book Review
Retired Navy pilot Dave Carey tells the story of how he and his fellow POWs survived more than five years in the prisons of North Vietnam. He analyzes the strengths and strategies that made their survival possible and shows how these forms of faith--in self, others, country, and God--can carry everyone through personal and business crises. A moving epilogue tells of his wife's battle with breast cancer and her death, and how the same strengths helped her and those around her.
August 08, 2002 SEA - NLF Update Line
Family Update
August 08, 2002 POW Medical Studies
The effects of a traumatic prisoner of war (POW) experience on the brain may not be as dramatic as some might predict, according to a team of naval health researchers.
August 07, 2002 POW Memorial Dedication
August 07, 2002 SEA - Moving Wall Announcement
August 06, 2002 WW II - US POWs at Hiroshima Honored
Shigeaki Mori, a 64-year-old Hiroshima historian is memorializing the victims of this cityıs atomic bombing the American victims. For the past 25 years, Mori has tracked down the families of 11 American prisoners of war who died in the blast during their internment.
August 06, 2002 9-11 Remembrance Bracelets
With the first anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and the crash in Shanksville, PA, only weeks away, we have received numerous requests for remembrance bracelets. We do not sell merchandise. Bracelets may be obtained from the following organizations...
August 06, 2002 Civil War - 140 Years Later Remains & Artifacts Recovered
As salvage crews cheered, the 120-ton turret of the USS Monitor, still dented from Confederate cannonballs, was pulled out of the depths by a huge crane on a 300-foot barge. A Civil War-era U.S. flag fluttered from the salvage apparatus and silt-colored water poured out as the turret was swung aboard the barge.
August 06, 2002 WW II - Former POW Passes
J.C. "Buster" Court, who survived 3 1/2 years as a prisoner of the Japanese and served three decades as a Fort Bend County constable, died Monday at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He was 82.
August 06, 2002 CILHI & JTF-FA to Merge
The Department of Defense has recommended the merging of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI) and Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA) into one organization. The goal is to have the organizations merged by October 2003.
August 06, 2002 SEA - Remains Recovered in Laos
The remains of two U.S. soldiers who died in Laos during the Vietnam War have been returned to the United States, a U.S. official said Thursday.
August 06, 2002 WW II - 2 Films Based on POW In Production
The Miramax production of "The Great Raid" featuring former "Law and Order" star Benjamin Bratt commenced filming in Australia two weeks ago.
August 06, 2002 POW Conference Set
A conference on World War IIera prisoners of war held in the Midwest is set for Oct. 6 to 9 at Muscatine Community College and Muscatine Art Center.
August 06, 2002 WW II - Tuskeegee Airmen
They never asked for a memorial, never dreamed that anyone would ever care enough to build them one.
August 05, 2002 PGW - Austalian Ambassador Saw 'Speicher Dossier'
Chances a missing Jacksonville Navy pilot is alive 11 years after being shot down over Iraq are "not small," the United Nations' former chief weapons inspector in Iraq told U.S. senators during a hearing in Washington this week.
August 04, 2002 PGW - S.1339 Passes Senate
Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent. August 04, 2002 SEA - POW Letters Donated
For three years, Shirley Johnson wrote letters to the government, begging officials to retrieve her husband and other prisoners of war from North Vietnam. She kept the correspondence, including letters from the four years before she joined the League of Families in 1970, a group dedicated to writing letters to and lobbying government officials.
August 03, 2002 Soldier Missing in South Korea
Robinson, 31, a cook at Camp Castle north of Seoul, has been missing from his unit for more than a month. He was first listed as absent without leave on June 19. On Thursday Bromellıs 53rd birthday she received a letter from the Army saying Robinsonıs name has been dropped from his unitıs records, his pay has been stopped and he has been declared a deserter.
August 03, 2002 SEA - Vietnam Praised for Openness on Issue
Vietnam has agreed to new measures to help account for Americans missing from the Vietnam War, including giving U.S. experts access to government archives, a senior U.S. official said Friday.
August 03, 2002 57 Year Remains Mystery
The U.S. Naval Hospital is holding a 57-year mystery: Whose skull does Dr. Green have? It seems no one knows whose skull it is that in storage of the U.S. Naval Hospital on Okinawa. Itıs more than 57 years old, has been in hospital officialsı custody for more then two years and is no closer than ever to being sent to a final resting place.
August 02, 2002 SEA - Vietnam Agrees to New Measures
The positive reception from the Vietnamese side is "indicative of a new level of cooperation" on this issue, Jennings said. He said he was also able to inaugurate a program of interviewing senior Vietnam War-era military leaders for information that could help locate missing soldiers.
August 02, 2002 SEA - Remains Identifications Announced
The remains of three U.S. Army servicemen previously unaccounted for from the war in Vietnam have been identified and are being returned to their families. They are Lt. Col. Donald Eugene Parsons, of Sparta, Ill.; Chief Warrant Officer Charles I. Stanley, of Cleveland and Sgt. 1st Class Eugene F. Christiansen, of Barstow, Calif.
August 02, 2002 WW II - Search for Crash Sites Expands
Locating two World War II crash sites in Chinaıs Tibetan Himalayan range will take a 14-man team from the Armyıs Central Identification Laboratory over some of Earthıs toughest terrain. CILHI officials in Hawaii said the group is to arrive in eastern China on Aug. 9 to seek answers about what happened to four people aboard a C-46 transport that crashed in March 1944.
August 01, 2002 WW II - A Lasting Friendship
A lasting friendship begun in World War Two between four German prisoners of war and an Ingoe farmer led to a touching reunion this week.
August 01, 2002 KW - CW - Family Finally Learns Fate
Mamie Boyiddle died without knowing whether her oldest son was alive. Pfc. Silas Wayne Boyiddle -- Mamie's son -- served in the Korean War and was reported as missing in action in June 1951. Mamie endured the unknown for the next 41 years, until her death 10 years ago.
POW-MIA Issue Update September 2002