For the 2007 updates.
For the September–December 2006 updates.
For the 2005 updates.

June 2006:

Last time, we talked about numbers, this time I'd like to focus on methods. I'll concentrate on one area, the holding camps at Suan that were use throughout 1951 and, for small numbers, afterwards. The Chinese and North Koreans did not return any remains from these camps during Operation Glory in 1954, and, in recent years, we have not been allowed to work in the area. But something very important happened when the North Koreans returned additional remains in 1990 through 1994. Of the 208 caskets, we believe that 97 of them came from at or near the Suan camps.

Men captured in January and February 1951 went to the Suan Bean Camp. It was hit by an air raid late in April 1951, and the Chinese evacuated it quickly. But some men were not able to march out. They stayed at Bean Camp until overtaken by April 1951 POWs, who arrived in May, and helped to move them up to the Suan Mining Camp, about seven miles away. Some of these men left the Mining Camp in June. Like the men who left the Bean Camp in April, they were headed north for camp 1. Then in July 1951, more POWs arrived at the Mining Camp, these were mainly men who had been captured in May. The big movement north from Suan was in September, again to Camp 1. And others, still arriving or left behind, were trucked to Camp 5 in December.

Oh, by the way, don't worry about camp names. There were other Bean Camps and Mining Camps, and at Suan, some men knew one as the other. After the war, we tried to set things down as clearly as we could.

The reason for telling this story about the Suan Camps is that we probably have remains in hand, right now, from the Bean Camp and Mining Camp, as well as the Peacefully Valley site where men stayed before reaching Suan. Within the 97 boxes, we probably have 200 men present, and that is about half of the men who died at the Suan Camps. Every day, anthropologists at the lab at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, are working to piece together these skeletal remains. The quality of the work done by the North Koreans was not very good and we sometimes find portions of the same man in several different boxes. We know this because we can work with DNA samples as well as with the bones themselves. It just takes a great deal of time, man by man as we go.

Last newsletter, I mentioned that 16 men have now been identified from the 208 caskets. Five of these are POWs from the Suan Camps; Cpl Leslie Ray Heath, SFC Walter Leroy Hood, PFC Ross William Katzman, Cpl Arthur Leo Seaton and PFC John Morrise Washington. The effort continues.

This is one reason I've asked so many questions at the reunions about this site. Several other men are being worked right now… I can't say who until the families are notified and "release" the names. But I can tell you this: even with difficult burials, like those of the men who were killed in the air raid at the Bean Camp and those who washed down the hillside in the storm at the Mining Camp, we are able to "build" the remains for identification. I'll have a different story next time.

Please just remember this, we haven't written off any of the sites. If we can go, we will go. If the North Koreans have already worked there, we will do everything we can to press ahead with IDs. And until we can go "boots on ground," we'll keep on preparing.

March 2006:

Steven Thompson of JPAC reports the lost of a former member of JPAC. Marine SSgt Kenneth Pospisil of Andover, MN was killed in action in Iraq during combat actions on December 14, 2005.

The really big item for all of us is the continuing effect of not having teams in North Korea. Later this year, maybe, we honestly don't know. But for now, even with other unrelated work around the world, we have a few extra anthropologists at hand. That means more table work and more identification. Three categories:

Of the 867 official Unknowns from the Korean War, one is at Arlington. Of the 866 from the Punchbowl, seven have now been exhumed, of whom 2 have been identified. Both are Marines who died in the Chosin Reservoir campaign. Requests are now in work to exhume 2 others.

Meanwhile, of the 208 caskets returned by the North Koreans during 1990–1994, 16 have now been identified. From Chosin Reservoir: 2 men; one, Cpl Edwin C. Steigerwalt, was a short-term POW who died en route to Kanggye. Five other POWs from the Suan POW Camps have been identified: Cpl Leslie Ray Heath, SFC Walter Leroy Hood, PFC Ross William Katzman, Cpl Arthur Leo Seaton, and PFC John Morrise Washington.

Also identified are 2 men from the area above the DMZ, 4 aircrew members from a B-29 bomber, 2 men in the Unsan battle zone, and 1 POW working north from Death Valley to Camp 5, SFC Richard Joseph Cabrel.

Between 1996 and 2005, we recovered over 220 sets of remains from throughout North Korea, of whom 26 have been identified: 10 from the Unsan battle zone, 8 from around Kujang, 1 from around Kunu-ri, and 7 from Chosin. We have also identified 1 pilot whose remains were recovered from the Yalu River in Dandong, China. Two of the men from near Unsan were short-term POWs: Cpl Richard Celestine Wasinger from the Unsan battle itself, and Sgt Mitchell Allen Wallace who was a Kunu-ri POW working through the area when he died at a near by village.

The long and the short of it is that we are not just collecting and identifying battlefield deaths. A total of 9 men who died as POWs have now been sent home to their families, and we hope that many others will follow.

Steve related, JPAC is launching a team to South Korea in March for a month of investigations. Chief Warrant Officer Keith Davis, who you remember from the 2004 reunion in Ft. Mitchell, will be leading the investigations. Our hope is to identify sites for recovery operations at a later date. We are also planning to go back to South Korea in August to conduct recoveries and additional recoveries. We currently have two scheduled for excavation in August and our investigations will hopefully add more sites to our recovery list.

We are also developing a lead on a South Korea burial location for a short-term POW. I can give you more information on this case later as things unfold.

Phillip also mentioned that, Mr. Bob Newberry was appointed Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs in January 2006. A new man and a good man, we'll miss those who have come before, but we'll be doing great things with him on board.