AFDIL continues to process family reference specimens (FRS) as part of the overall identification
process. As of March 31, 2001, the backlog of specimens was down from 1,638 to 1,622. The lab is
reporting out 40-60 cases a month. The total so far during fiscal year 2001 is 341 FRS. The U.S.
Army turned in more FRS in February than the other services. The Army brought in 23 new family
references.
AFDIL has just received the rest of its FY2001 funding (total of $5.5 Million). Their budget
allows for 49 scientists who work on POW/MIA remains. Budget requests for the FY 2003-2007 budget
have already been put together and are working their way up through the DoD chain. The DoD budget
will then have to move into the formal budget process.
AFDIL is seeking another 41 positions by the year 2006, in anticipation of increased recovery
operations. CILHI has been operating on a 10/2/1 team structure (10 for Southeast Asia; 2 for North
Korea; 1 for worldwide.) That structure is about to increase to 10/5/3 and will, no doubt, produce
more remains for identification.
CILHI continues to lose its scientists to state and private labs, which are able to pay more.
This constant turnover slows down the process and adds to the cost of DNA sequencing. AFDIL is now
looking into ways to resolve this problem. Meanwhile, the facility has hired a training coordinator
to minimize the impact of personnel turnover.
DNA Sequencing of Punchbowl Remains
Scientists at AFDIL do not yet know why they have not been able to extract DNA from remains
that were disinterred from the Punchbowl Cemetery in Hawaii over the last couple of years. The
problem appears to come from the preservative powder that was sprinkled on both WWII and Korean
War remains years ago. The powder either degraded the DNA so that none is left to be extracted,
or it somehow bound the DNA to the bone, making extraction by traditional means impossible.
Jim Canik, director at AFDIL, says his researchers have not given up and they are not yet out
of ideas. Unless the DNA has been destroyed, there should be a way to separate it from the bone.
AFDIL researchers are now networking with scientists from the Smithsonian Institute and other
facilities who have experience that might be helpful.
Possible Name Associations with Punchbowl Remains
In Volume 3, Issue 3 of the Update & Review (published October, 2000) we ran an article about the
possible association of specific missing men’s names with remains that were returned from North Korea
during Operation Glory and buried at the Punchbowl Cemetery in Hawaii as unknowns. Our article
referenced a report done by author Lawrence Jolidon, who has spent considerable time and effort
researching the Korean War missing. Mr. Jolidon, essentially, compared the roster of names included by
North Korea with the Operation Glory remains with the list of missing men (PMKOR). There were 239 names
that were common to both lists.
Since that time, the Coalition has been communicating with DPMO, CILHI, Mr. Jolidon and other
sources to follow-up on the issue of whether, in fact, the names of some of the men buried at the
Punchbowl might actually be known, even if they cannot be associated with a specific set of remains.
We received a letter of explanation from DPMO, which represented their analysis of the issue. That
analysis, titled DPMO White Paper: Punchbowl 239, is re-printed below.
After having read the White Paper, we still have several questions and are not satisfied that
a complete analysis of this issue has been done. We find the White Paper to be confusing and it
seems to dismiss without inquiry the fate of many men. There might well be a satisfactory
explanation to the issues that bother us, but we have not heard one yet.
We have asked DPMO to make a clear and concise presentation on this issue at the annual family
briefing in D.C. this July. Meanwhile, those of us in the Coalition who are pursuing this issue will
continue our work. We will have an in-depth analysis of the outcome of this research and inquiry in
our summer issue of the Update & Review.
Meanwhile, the text of DPMO’s White Paper is printed here for your review. Stay tuned for more
on this issue. There are some important questions that still need to be answered.
DPMO White Paper Punch Bowl 239
A private researcher, reporter and author, Mr. Larry Jolidon, compiled 239 names which he believes may
be Korean War unaccounted-for servicemen whose remains can be identified in the National Memorial Cemetery
of the Pacific [NMCP], also referred to as the Punch Bowl. Mr. Jolidon took two documents that were in the
public domain, compared the names in them, and found 239 names common to both. He offered a tentative
conclusion-that the 239 were possibly buried as Unknowns in the Punch Bowl. Records from the U.S. Army
Mortuary in Kokura, Japan, indicate otherwise. This paper examines these documents and explains the final
disposition on the remains associated with the 239 names cited by Mr. Jolidon.
First document: the PMKOR - Personnel Missing, Korea - contains the names of 8,200 servicemen
lost during the Korean War. Forty of the PMKOR names are resolved cases, but are retained for historical
purposes. The other 8,160 are indeed missing men, whether killed in action [KIA], missing in action [MIA],
dead as prisoners of war [POW], or non-battle deaths [NBD].
Second document: the "Alphabetical Roster of Evac's Received Under Operation Glory as Named
Cases" contains 1,934 names derived from Chinese and North Korean transmittal forms received during Operation
Glory from September through December 1954. During this period, the Chinese and North Koreans returned a
total of 4,167 containers of human remains. After forensic examination, these proved to be the remains of
4,219 different individuals. Identification efforts followed. By the time the Kokura facility closed on 29
February 1956, 2,944 of the 4,219 individual sets of remains had been found to be American, and all but 421
of these were identified by name. Later, before burials occurred at the Punch Bowl NMCP in Hawaii, five more
American remains were identified. This left 416 American remains returned during Operation Glory which were
unidentified and buried as Unknowns in the Punch Bowl. It is important to understand that the "Alphabetical
Roster" is only a transcription of information provided by the Chinese and North Koreans. To the best of our
knowledge, the "Alphabetical Roster" does not represent forensic work by the Chinese and North Koreans, and
it certainly does not represent work done by the U.S. Government. Only 858 of the 1,934 names associated with
specific sets of American remains by the Chinese and North Koreans on the "Alphabetical Roster" proved to be
correct.
This brings us to the remains associated with the 239 names cited by Mr. Jolidon. For 186, there is no
possible linkage with any Unknown at the Punch Bowl NMCP. First, 176 [or 73.6 percent of the 239] were
successfully identified as someone else and shipped to cemeteries throughout the United States for burial.
Each of the other 10 sets of remains [4.2 percent of the 239] tells a slightly different story, as follows:
five were not forwarded to the United States-of these, four were cited as non-American persons of Asiatic
descent, and one as British. Two other sets of remains were, in fact, identified as being the persons named
on the "Alphabetical Roster" and brought home for burial. Coincidentally, a different person of a very similar
name still appears on PMKOR-a possible source of honest confusion. Two cases stand as "unconfirmed." We do not
have specific information on their identification or other disposition-our records for Operation Glory are
incomplete with respect to those names. But we do know that these are not among the 416 Operation Glory Unknowns
found to be American and buried in the Punch Bowl NMCP. The final case, here, is of a serviceman identified by
name and returned to the United States-he is one of the 40 resolved cases mentioned above which are retained
on PMKOR for historical purposes.
We now move to the 53 cases associated with Unknown remains in the Punch Bowl NMCP. Each was found to be
an American who could not be identified by name. They fall into two sets. For 33 [13.8 percent of the 239],
forensic work done at Kokura excluded the name provided by the North Koreans-we do not know who these men are,
but can say that the remains do not match the names cited, for reasons such as size, age, dentition, or race.
For the other 20 [8.4 percent of the 239], there is simply not enough forensic evidence to either confirm or
exclude the possibility that the "Alphabetical Roster" names associated with these remains are correct.
Summary: Of the 239 cases of Korean War unaccounted-for servicemen cited by Mr. Jolidon, fully
186 have achieved some sort of final disposition. All but three sets of these remains were determined to be
individuals other than those suggested by the Chinese and North Koreans during Operation Glory. Of the
remaining 53, working records show that 33 cannot be the names originally cited-altogether, we can exclude
91.6 percent of the remains from the name associations as provided by the Chinese and North Koreans. For
the other 20 names there is simply not enough forensic evidence to confirm or exclude the possibility that
the names offered by the North Koreans and Chinese match the associated remains.