Korean War Ex-POW Association: Current JPAC Update

JPAC 2006 updates, September - December

For the 2007 updates.

For the March–June 2006 updates.
For the 2005 updates.

Vietnam Vets Dog Tag project:

Central Identification Laboratory at JPAC reports that in 1994 a tourist to Hue City, Vietnam, purchased more than 1,400 dog tags believing they were from Americans listed as missing in action (MIA). A check of the dog tags revealed that although none appear to be those of an MIA, most are genuine and were worn by Americans during the war. These soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines served with honor and returned home after the war, their dog tags, however, didnt. The CIL has started the dog tag project to reunite lost dog tags with their owners or family members and to collect some background information on how they were lost. Visit JPAC for the full story.

December 2006:

One of the strangest stories to come out of the Korean War concerns a large group of POWs who simply disappeared. Sadly, we know exactly what happened to them, even though we do not know, by name, who they all were. Doesnt seem possible, but it is all too true.

Our story begins with the fall of Taejon, South Korea, 20-22 July 1950. Men were gathered up and began to march north. Some POWs had already gone north, from the first actions of the Korean War. This extended group joined up at Seoul early in August and continued on to Pyongyang in September. Today, it is very well known as the Tiger Group. Many good men died, but there were many survivors as well.

Now comes the surprise: a second group followed Tiger Group north. It contained men late in leaving Taejon, and others from Hadong, Anui, and Chinju, and others from Yongdong and from the early battles along Naktong Front. This group of POWs also made its way to Seoul, where most arrived at the end of August 1950. There were almost 350 men in this group. Many of these POWs wrote their names on black boards in the school house where they were held. Some were already dying, and the North Korean guards were in a hurry. The nearby landing at Inchon took place on 15 September, and Seoul was back in allied hands on 26 September. But this second POW group had already slipped north, arriving in Pyongyang around 12 October. More and more men died, some were accidentally killed by strafing aircraft. And the North Koreans were even more desperate, for allied forces were marching north, in close pursuit.

This second group of POWs, still with about 300 men, left a rail station at the north side of Pyongyang on 18 October. Two days later, exactly 100 men were taken off the train at Sunchon Tunnel. The train left, and instead of feeding their prisoners, the guards opened fire then fled north themselves. Elements of the 187th Airborne and the 1st Cavalry Division found the survivors: 8 men had already died before the guards opened fire, 67 were killed, but amazingly, 25 men, most wounded, lived to tell. And they tried to provide names of others, who had already died or who were still on the northbound train.

Later that day, the train stopped again at the Kujang Tunnel. It could go no farther. About 125 men who could still march were prodded on, but 33 others could go no farther. Guards showed them no mercy, but again, amazingly, 3 men survived to tell their stories. The 125 men who continued north disappeared from the face of the earth, or nearly so. You see, there were 3 more survivors. These 3 men reached Manpo at the end of October, just in time to join Tiger Group as it began its long march toward the Apex Camps far up the south bank of the Yalu River. We now know that the 125 men of the second group had died along the way, most by violence. Of the 3 men who reached Tiger Group, 2 survived the war. They helped to fill in the details, but so many names were now lost. They could not remember.

In very rough numbers, almost 350 men in this second group left Seoul, 20 escaped and 30 died en route to Pyongyang. Another 10 men escaped there, and about 20 died. At Sunchon, 75 died and 25 were recovered alive. At Kujang, 30 died and 3 were recovered. The final 125 marched north, of whom 3 finally reached Tiger Group. One of our problems is to reconstruct the names of those lost. Some were remembered by name, and some names were recorded on black boards at Seoul and Pyongyang. All of the men who died at Sunchon are known by name, but only about 5 of those who died at Kujang. (Those at Kujang were buried near the rail line, and their bodies were lost again when the Chinese entered the war. We simply dont know who most of them were.)

But we keep trying. We have looked very closely at all of the human remains returned during 1954, after the Armistice, and at all of the human remains returned separately by the North Koreans in 1990-94, and at all of the remains that we have recovered in North Korea during 1996-2005. You see, even when we are working in the far north, we know that we could be dealing with the last remains of a man lost much farther south, well down in South Korea.

Amazingly, a few survivors from this group of men got together at Branson, MO, for Memorial Day 2006: present were William W. Henninger, Sr. [Sunchon], Valdor William John [Sunchon], Sherman Lee Jones [Kujang], Robert Lee Sharpe [Sunchon], Edward Norman Slater [Kujang], Walter R. Whitcomb [Kujang], and James W. Yeager [Sunchon]. Our very best wishes go to all of them!

September 2006:

At Nashville, some of you had questions about Camp 5 on the south bank of the Yalu River at Old Pyoktong. (In recent years, the North Koreans have moved the "name" several miles west, to create New Pyoktong, so the site of Camp 5 is now known as Tongju-ri. Up to their usual tricks…) How many men died at Camp 5? We have a tradition, based on best memory and best estimation, of 1600. But we can come up with only about 1100 names. Here's why: many of the men who died in February and March of 1951 took with them the names and memories of others who had already passed. But at least we know this much: when the North Koreans and Chinese returned some of the Korean War burials during Operation Glory in September 1954, they marked 556 as coming from Camp 5. We were able to identify and sent home all but 75 of them. These 75 are now among the Unknowns individually buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu. More recently, during 1990–94, the North Korean returned 208 caskets from several locations. They marked 21 of these caskets as coming from Tongju-ri, their present name for Camp 5. The quality of the work here is interesting. 75 Unknowns from 1954 have pretty good integrity as individual men, and most were likely exhumed from up on the slope beyond the back water arm. But the 21 caskets from Tongju-ri have mixed skeletal remains, which we are trying to sort out. Perhaps 50 men are present. These may have come from lower down by the edge of water across from Camp 5. So we have about 125 unidentified men from Camp 5 in possession right now. The earlier 75 are buried, and the more recent 50 are in respectful storage above ground. Friends at the lab at Hickam AFB are cutting many of the bones from the 50 to try for DNA matches that lead to identifications. Later, they would like to exhume some of the 75 as well, but first things first, since several of the other men are already in the works.

You might find one bit of news to be surprising, remember Camp 5: stand near the pagoda sick house and look down toward the two toes of the peninsula. You are looking almost due west, over your right shoulder, to the north, is the back water arm. Men were carried across the ice or around the edge to be buried, as well as could be done, in the winter of 1950–51. Then came springtime, and many of these shallow burials washed away. But what happened next? Only a small creek flows into the back water arm; this is not the main course of the Yalu River. Many years later, the North Koreans built a dike about half way down and drained the upper portion. This is now an area for small crops and such. If we ever get back to Camp 5, we'll look at this drained area very closely, and probably begin digging near the edges.

Many of the human remains that once washed down are probably still there, they will be skeletal, and mixed, and incomplete. But very likely, we can still do some recoveries. We would hope to find a few, then tens, then well over a hundred. Once again, putting back together and cutting bones for DNA samples will be the core of the process. Don't get discouraged, there are still some good men to find. I just hope that all of this can begin in our lifetimes. We are not working in North Korea this year… Let's see how 2007 unfolds!