JPAC 2005 updates

2008 updates
2007 updates
2006 updates - March-June / September-December

December 2005:

Questions of status: to be a KIA or a known POW death, or an NBD (non-battle death) someone had to see the death and report it; a lot of men were simply lost on the battlefield. Unless someone reliable reported them as KIA or something else, they became MIA instead. Most are likely KIA, with some short-term POWs (and early Camp 5 deaths) mixed in.

After the Korean War, in September– November 1954, the Chinese/North Koreans returned 4175 caskets containing a total of 4219 bodies, from all over. Of these 2944 were Americans and all but 416 were identified and sent home. The 416 Unknowns from North Korea were buried individually at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. The total number of Unknowns is 867, including those from South Korea. Work continues, one of these was identified in 2003, other to follow.

The North Koreans returned 208 more caskets during 1990–94. To date, we have identified 14, with several others to follow. Family DNA samples are a big help here.

During Joint Recovery Operations 1996–2005 we have recovered over 220 sets of remains. The people at the lab in Hawaii are sorting out the exact number. Of these, 24 have been identified. I don't have an exact breakout by year, several others are now in progress.

Final item: we do not pay for remains but we do pay for honest efforts, labor, torn up crops, gasoline, and such.

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October 2005:

July 21, 2005, the Department of Defense POW/MIA Personnel Office (DPMO) announced that remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Cpl. Leslie R. Heath, of Bridgeport, Illinois. His interment was scheduled for August 20 in Bridgeport.

On the morning of April 23, 1951, Heath and more than 80 members of the A Company, 1st Battalion, 5th RCT were captured by the Chinese Communist forces. They were held in a temporary POW camp known as Suan Camp Complex, in the North Hwanghae Province, North Korea. A former American POW who was returned to the U.S. through Operation Little Switch recounted that Heath died in June 1951 while imprisoned.

On May 24, 2005, the Defense POW/MIA Personnel Office announced that specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) came out of North Korea with an unknown number of remains of US servicemen lost in two major battles during November–December 1950. Two of the remains have been identified. One was identified as Cpl. John O. Strom, of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, a member of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry, 1 Cavalry Division, who was reported missing in the early days of November 1950 near Unsan.

The second set was identified as PFC Lowell W. Bellar of Gray, Indiana, a member of Company M, 31st Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, who was killed on December 1, 1950, near Hagaru-ri. PFC Bellar was buried on July 15, the date of his birth in 1931.

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June 2005:

The Department of Defense has identified remains found last summer in China as those of Roseburg, Oregon native Robert Snoddy, who was co-piloting a spy plane shot down in November 1952. His sister, Ruth Ross, of Creswell, Oregon received the news and said she will bring his cremated remains to be buried near their father's grave in Eugene, OR. His only child, Roberta, born weeks after he died, and Ms. Ross plan to retrieve Snoddy's remains from Hawaii, where government investigations and forensic anthropologists worked to identify him.

May 31, 2005, Dallas, Texas. With jets from his old squadron streaking through the clouds overhead in a "missing man" formation, Air Force Captain, Troy "Gordie" Cope was finally laid to rest Tuesday. More than 50 years after his jet crashed during a dogfight in the Korean War. In February 2005, the Pentagon announced it had identified the remains of Cope, whose case put a spotlight on a Russian role in the 1950–53 Korean War that was kept quiet for decades. In 1995, a U.S. businessman spotted Cope's name on a dog tag on display in a military museum in the Yalu River city of Dandong, China.

During a search by Pentagon analysts of Russia's Podolsk military archives in 1999, documents describing Cope's downing on September 16, 1952 were discovered. They included statements and drawings by Russian pilots who had flown the MIG-15s for the North Koreans. The documents contained detailed reports on a search of the crash site by Russian and Chinese officials, giving the Pentagon enough detail to ask the Chinese government for permission to send a team of U.S. specialists to investigate. U.S. Officials found aircraft debris and human remains there in May 2004. Cope, who was 28 when he was shot down, left behind a wife and three young sons.

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May 2005:

May 24, 2005. Specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) have recovered remains believed to be those of American soldiers missing in action from the Korean War. The remains will be repatriated to U.S. control at Yongsan Military Compound in Seoul. From Seoul, the remains will be flown to Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, where the forensic identification process will take place in the JPAC laboratory to determine the precise number of recovered American soldiers. This is the first repatriation of remains from this year's recovery operation in North Korea and marks the beginning of the 10th consecutive year for the mission there.

Since 1996, 33 joint operations have been conducted in North Korea during which remains believed to be those of more than 220 Soldiers which have been recovered. There are more than 8,100 MIAs from the Korean War.

The JPAC specialists consisted of a 27-man U.S. element divided into two recovery teams. The first team operated near the Chosin Reservoir where the 1st Marine Division and the Army's 7th Infantry Division fought Chinese forces November–December 1950. Approximately 1,000 Americans are missing in action from battles of the Chosin campaign. The second team recovered remains in Unsan County about 60 miles north of Pyongyang. This area was the site of battles between communist forces and the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry and 25th Infantry divisions in November 1950.

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March 2005:

Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) has announced that the following remains which were retrieved in Korea have been identified during 2004:

• SFC Jeremiah Casey, MIA 28 Nov 1950, 32nd Inf, 7th Div.
• Cpl Charles A. Williams, MIA 27 Nov 1950, 32nd Inf, 7th Div.
• Sgt Carl E. Sheraden, MIA 27 Nov 1950, 32nd Inf. 7th Div.
• CPT. Troy G. Cope, MIA 16 Sep 1952, 335th Ftr Intcp Sq. USAF
• CPL David E. Pursley, MIA 14 Jul 1950, 955th FA BN

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