March 2009
New Year has begun, and we are looking back over many of our records.
We’re trying to resolve several questions that could prove helpful to recovery teams going into the field in 2009. As I write in late January, we have not yet had direct contact with North Korean authorities. There is still a little time, as Winter moves toward Spring. But we do not have any firm basis for expecting to go back into North Korea this year. If we do return, it would likely be to one of the two base camp sites from which we were working 2005, either at the Chosin Reservoir or at the Unsan battle zone. Some of our equipment was left stored in place, it may still be usable, and a single recovery effort might be a good, transparent way to begin anew. We are faced with several “if so” questions. We know that, but such questions typically resolve themselves one at a time, as events continue to unfold.
A longer-term concern, beyond immediate work in battle zones, is how many men we could expect to fi nd at the former POW camp sites. Camp 5, of course, is the worst case. Up to 1,600 men died there, with some of the earlier names pretty much unknown to us. Friends of friends died, and with them, living memory was lost. Once the Chinese took over control of Camp 5 from the North Koreans, around April 1951, record keeping became much better. But there are still gaps, name conflicts, and inconsistencies extending well into the Summer of 1951.
During Operation Glory, in September 1954, the Chinese and North Koreans returned 556 sets of human remains from Camp 5, and all but 75 of these were successfully identifi ed and sent home to their families. The 75 others are now among the Unknowns buried at the National MemorialCemetery of the Pacifi c in Honolulu, Hawaii. Right now, we’re tracking over 500 names either known or suspected to have died at Camp 5. If the long-held estimate of up to 1600 deaths is near to accurate, then another 500 to 600 men, mainly from among the missing in November and December 1950 battles around Unsan, Kunu-ri, Ipsok, and Kujang, are still at rest among the Camp 5 burials. Even if we have over-stated the total number of deaths at Camp 5, including some men from, say, the Pukchin-Tarigol holding point, we still have a large number of missing men at Camp 5 or en route . . . each one, a possible recovery.
Someday, if we can enter Camp 5, we’ll be looking at known burial areas behind the Pagoda sick house, and along the ridge running up the spine of the peninsula, and at the very toe where some of the fi rst burials took place. But most importantly, we’ll be looking along the edge of the old back water arm just above the peninsular camp.
Thankfully, a small stream trickled into the Yalu River there: most of these burials were not along the shore line of the main river. We know that there were wash-aways in springtime floods, but many of these remains would have collected farther down the course of the side stream, still along the side of the peninsula. The upper area of this back water arm has now been diked. There are huts and a soccer field for the small police or army garrison, and even what appears to be vegetable gardens. We can’t say for sure until we are actually “boots on ground,” but our most productive exploration would probably be along the former shore of this back water arm, just below the old high water line, and especially along the extended axis of the small side stream that finally flows into the Yalu River. All of this is a bit speculative. But can you see, in your mind’s eye, how we can set up the outline of an exploration long before arriving on scene?
Half a world away, at Hickam Air Force Base and at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, I’m very thankful that additional table space is now becoming available at Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s new, expansion facility. Any remains coming back from a situation like Camp 5’s would surely be fragmentary and commingled: we expect that and we can deal with it. If we do succeed in finding a large remains concentration, we will have the tables we need to do “simultaneous re-articulation.” That will speed the process of making selections for DNA sampling and, then, the final identification process.
We are trying to prepare in depth, even for Camp 5, oh so far away. Then there are the Apex Camps where so many men from Tiger Group died, and the Pukchin-Tarigol sites, and the Suan Camps, and several other locations. Well, what can we do now? We estimate. We get our notes together. We hope for the best. Our task is to be ready, whenever… and hopefully soon.