December 2007

The year is winding down, and quite a bit will be happening in 2008. As of right now, we do not have an invitation to enter North Korea for continued recovery work. But we are hoping. These things unfold at their own pace. But there are other developments that we can speak about…

Between March and September 2007, our recovery teams explored across much of South Korea. This was not unusual, for we have a standing invitation. But we did have a chance to do something we hadn’t tried for a while. We walked parts of the POW evacuation routes north. The area we explored, this time, was used by men captured in February and May of 1951. The village of Hwachon, now a real town, was the main stopping point. It was also our starting point. From there, the main road worked north then gradually west to cross the base of what would later be known as the Iron Triangle. Night by night, POWs marched on through a valley between Kumhwa and Chorwon, then farther northwest into the present DMZ. There were recoveries along this route during the Korean War and afterwards, but it had been some years since anyone had gone village by village in a systematic way, speaking with local inhabitants every day. A real advantage here: the South Korean government is making a strong effort to re-settle the area. Many of the people living there now are children and grandchildren of those displaced during the war. This is hill country, but garden, terrace, and even tree farming are possible. While hiking up from Hwachon toward Kumhwa, our team from Hickam AFB recovered two sets of human remains believed to be U.S. POWs who died en route north. We’re now working on IDs.

Some of the team members who work in South Korea also do work in Europe and other places, and they will not be back in South Korea until next year. But, with any luck we’ll have work ongoing in both North and South Korea in 2008. Scheduling becomes an art, because the anthropologist who recovers human remains is not allowed to make the final ID. This has to be “reviewed work” by someone else. But the same person can be used to identify someone else’s recovery, and prior field experience in the same general area can be very helpful. So in a given case, an anthropologist might [1] return from field work in Europe, [2] complete the identification of a Korean case that he or she did not recover, then [3] go to either North or South Korea for more field work, and [4] return to do yet another ID on remains that had just come in with a different team. Gets complicated, but the system works.

Meanwhile, other developments… Recent recoveries from North and South Korea are kept in respectful storage above ground at the Central Identification Laboratory, belonging to Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. A lot of progress has been made toward identification of these men, as well. We now know to a certainty that many of those returned by the North Koreans between 1990 and 1994 were POWs who had died at the Suan Bean Camp and the Suan Mining Camp. Six of these men from Suan have already been identified. About 20 others are in work, right now, and some will be completed before year’s end. For February 1951 POWs, this includes some of the men accidentally killed in an air raid on 22 April 1951. Here, one name will lead to another. In many cases, we’ve already discovered which men were buried together, and which men separately. The logic unfolds in small steps, and this work will also continue into next year.

Between 1990 and 1994, the North Koreans returned other men who had died in Camp 5 at Old Pyoktong. There were 20 caskets from Camp 5, now known as Tongju-ri, containing the partial remains of around 50 men. DNA sampling continues as we write. One of the problems here is that the North Koreans and Chinese had already returned human remains from Camp 5 during Operation Glory in September 1954. Most of the returns in 1954 were individual burials from well above Yalu River or from behind the pagoda sick house. But the returns in 1990-94 appear to have been from common burials, low down along the back water arm of the Yalu River. So they were badly commingled. But separation work continues. Later, we should have some identifications from here, as well.

We’ve been looking at these returns from Camp 5 very carefully because we hope to be working in the same area at some future time. We know that most of the back water arm, behind Camp 5, has been diked and drained. So our work will probably begin just below the old water line, for there were many wash-aways from the Winter burials, which were just covered by rocks and ice and brush. In some cases, we expect to find additional portions of skeletal remains that we received in 1990-94. We are working with some of these, which are substantially complete, now, to press ahead for IDs. But I wouldn’t be surprised if others, later on, will require recombination from different sources, the past turnovers and our own future work.

One final item… We still have 867 Unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii. One went to Arlington National Cemetery as the Official Unknown from the Korean War. But since then, ten others have been exhumed, and six of these men have now been identified. It might come as a surprise, but three of these exhumations were of men returned from Camp 5, of whom one has been identified. Here the question was one of taking a very close look at newly discovered dental records, and even a chest x-ray. Work continues on the others. We will probably exhume three or four more men next year, based on recently developed leads. But if we can get back into North Korea, our first obligation becomes recovery. We don’t like the idea of leaving remains in possession unidentified, but at a given point, there are only so many hours and so many anthropologists who can do the final ID.

I’m very optimistic about next year. The recovery teams working out of Hawaii have worldwide obligations, but we know that we will be able to cover possible work in both North and South Korea. We also know that we will have fully qualified anthropologists rotating in and out of the main laboratory, between times in the field, and that they will be able to continue identification work. Several cases are nearing completion, right now. All I can do at this point is to help with a few details here and there… and hope for an early invitation to continue recovery work in North Korea. No need to write to anyone… in fact, it’s better if you don’t… Things are already moving along. But an occasional prayer would be very welcome.