September 2007

Last time we spoke of Tiger Group, the first organized gathering of U.S. POWs in the Korean War. Most were taken during the opening days, from 6 July near Osan falling back to 22 July 1950 near Taejon. Not everyone captured during this early period became part of Tiger Group, but many did. Picking up the story, by foot and train they worked north, reaching Manpo on the south bank of the Yalu...
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March 2007

This will be the start of a series of items I’m providing, but I’m also looking for odd bits of memory that might help things along a bit later, when we get back into North Korea. As POWs go, Tiger Group came first, they stayed longest, and many good men did not survive that first terrible Winter. Right now, we’re trying to “prep up” for one or more missions into...
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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. Doesn’t 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...
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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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