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....
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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 used 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...
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March 2006

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....
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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...
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