Press Release | Aug. 22, 2024

Soldier Accounted for from Korean War (Barrett, A.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Pvt. 1st Class Arlie P. Barrett, 19, of Bluff City, Tennessee, killed during the Korean War, was accounted for June 7, 2024.

In August 1950, Barrett was a member of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. He went missing in action after his unit engaged in combat actions with the North Korean People’s Army along the Naktong River west of Yongsan, South Korea, on Aug. 10, 1950. Due to intense fighting in the area, his body could not be recovered at that time. The exact circumstances of his death were unknown.

On Dec. 29, 1950, Unknown Remains X-334 Miryang (X-334) was recovered near the village of Chirhyon-ni, roughly eight miles from where Barrett was reported MIA. The remains could not be identified as Barrett at the time, and they were subsequently buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, known as the Punchbowl.

In June 2021, DPAA personnel disinterred Unknown X-334 and sent the remains to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.

To identify Barrett’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as chest radiograph and other circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and mitochondrial genome (mtG) analysis.

Barrett’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Barrett will be buried in Mountain Home, Tennessee, on Sept. 27, 2024.

For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.

Press Release | Aug. 16, 2024

Soldier Accounted for from Korean War (Hardman, K.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Sgt. Kester B. Hardman, 22, of Smithville, West Virginia, killed during the Korean War, was accounted for May 2, 2024.

In Dec. 1950, Hardman was assigned to M Company, 3rd Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He was reported missing in action after his unit engaged in intensive combat actions in the vicinity of Sunchon, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Following the armistice in 1953, North Korean forces claimed Hardman died in the spring of 1951 while in captivity at POW Camp 5, on the Pyoktong Peninsula. His remains were not identified during or immediately after the war.

Following the war, in 1954, the opposing nations reached an agreement to exchange war dead, the execution of which was known as Operation GLORY. One set of Unknown remains, designated X-13467 OP GLORY, was reportedly recovered from the 1st Marine Division Cemetery at Yudam-ni, D.P.R.K. While most losses interred at Yudam-ni were primarily Marines, several other sets of remains were identified as POWs who had died at Camp 5. Investigators could not identify X-13467 at the time, and they were then sent to Hawaii where they were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu.

In July 2018, DPAA personnel exhumed Unknown Remains X-13467 from the Punchbowl and sent the remains to the DPAA laboratory, for analysis.

To identify Hardman’s remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as chest radiograph comparison and circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Hardman’s name is recorded on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, along with the others who are still missing from the Korean War. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Hardman will be buried in Smithville, West Virginia, on a date to be determined.

For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.

Press Release | Aug. 15, 2024

Soldier Accounted for from WWII (Brown, C.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Pvt. 1st Class Clossie D. Brown, 36, of Frankfort, Indiana, killed during World War II, was accounted for April 25, 2024.

Brown was assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division in the European Theater during World War II. Shortly before midnight on New Year’s Eve 1944, German forces launched a major offensive operation in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace-Lorraine, France, known as Operation NORDWIND. The German attack surged through Allied defenses along the Franco-German border, and the ensuing battle enveloped two U.S. Corps along a 40-mile-wide front. In the following few weeks, Company F found itself assigned to a 7-mile sector at Reipertswiller and Wildenguth, France. At some point on Jan 21, Brown was killed, but due to the intensity of the fighting his body was unable to be recovered. With no record of German forces capturing Brown, and no remains recovered, the War Department issued a “Finding of Death” in January 1946.

Beginning in 1946, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, began looking for missing American personnel in the Reipertswiller area. On June 15, 1947, a French demining unit in the Obermuhlthal forest, northeast of Reiperstwiller, discovered fragmentary human remains and Pfc. Brown’s identification tag. The recovered remains, designated X-5723 Neuville (X-5723), were analyzed, but at the time scientists were unable to make a positive identification. They were interred at the U.S. Military Cemetery at St. Avold, France, known today as Lorraine American Cemetery.

DPAA historians have been conducting in-depth research into Soldiers missing from combat around Wildenguth and Reipertswiller, and believe that the fragmentary remains comprising Unknown X-5723 could be associated with Brown. They also determined that additional remains, designated X-8046 St. Avold, could also represent portions of Brown. In June 2021 and Aug. 2022, Department of Defense and American Battle Monuments Commission workers exhumed X-5723 and X-8046, and transferred the remains to the DPAA Laboratory for analysis.

To identify Brown’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological and other circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Brown’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at Epinal American Cemetery in Dinozé, France, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Brown will be buried in Frankfort, Indiana, on Sept. 24, 2024.

For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.

Press Release | Aug. 15, 2024

Soldier Accounted for from WWII (Calkins, W.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Army Private William E. Calkins, 20, of Washington County, Oregon, who was captured and died as a prisoner of war during World War II, was accounted for Apr. 17, 2024.

In late 1942, Calkins was a member of Company B, 31st Infantry Regiment, when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December. Intense fighting continued until the surrender of the Bataan peninsula on April 9, 1942, and of Corregidor Island on May 6, 1942.

Thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members were captured and interned at POW camps.  Calkins was among those reported captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese. They were subjected to the 65-mile Bataan Death March and then held at the Cabanatuan POW Camp #1. More than 2,500 POWs perished in this camp during the war.

According to prison camp and other historical records, Calkins died Nov. 1, 1942, and was buried along with other deceased prisoners in the local Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 704.

Following the war, American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) personnel exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and relocated the remains to a temporary U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. In 1947, the AGRS examined the remains in an attempt to identify them. Two of the sets of remains from Common Grave 704 were identified, while the remaining 8 were declared unidentifiable. The unidentified remains were buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial (MACM) as Unknowns.

In 2018, as part of the Cabanatuan Project, DPAA exhumed the remains associated with Common Grave 704 and sent them to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.

To identify Calkins’ remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y chromosome DNA (Y-STR) analysis.

Although interred as an Unknown in MACM, Calkins’s grave was meticulously cared for over the past 70 years by the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC). Today, Calkins is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.  A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Calkins will be buried in Hillsboro, Oregon, on Sept. 13, 2024.

For family and funeral information, contact the Army Casualty Office at (800) 892-2490.

Press Release | Aug. 12, 2024

Pilot Accounted for from WWII (Manown, J.)

Washington  –  

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced today that U.S. Navy Reserve Lieutenant Jay R. Manown Jr., 26, of Kingwood, West Virginia, killed during World War II, was accounted for May 23, 2024.

In the fall of 1944, Manown was an aviator assigned to Navy Torpedo Squadron 20 (VT-20), USS Enterprise. On Sept. 10, Manown and two other crew members aboard a TBM-1C Avenger (Bureau Number 17018), took off from the USS Enterprise on a mission to conduct air strikes against enemy targets in Malakal Naval District, Palau Islands. Witnesses from other aircraft in the formation saw Manown’s plane struck by enemy anti-aircraft fire and crash into water near Malakal. There were no indications that Manown or the other crewmembers exited the stricken aircraft prior to the crash, and all efforts to recover their remains were unsuccessful.

Following the war, the American Graves Registration Service, the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel, conducted exhaustive searches of battle areas and crash sites in Palau, concluding their search in the summer of 1947. Investigators could not find any evidence of Manown or his aircraft. He was declared non-recoverable July 16, 1949.

From 2003 to 2018, the BentProp Project (now known as Project Recover), with members from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of Delaware, and DPAA conducted multiple investigations resulting in the location of a site associated with the incident. Later, in May 2019, Ships of Exploration and Discovery Research (SHIPS), another DPAA partner organization, excavated the site and recovered possible osseous remains and other material evidence. In Sept. 2021, a subsequent excavation was completed by Project Recover and Legion Undersea Services (Legion), where additional remains and material evidence were recovered. Finally, in July 2023 Project Recover and Legion completed a third excavation at the site, collecting further osseous materials and material evidence. This evidence was all sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis.

In 2023 the DPAA laboratory scientifically identified the other two crewmen from Manown’s crash site, further supporting the belief that Manown’s remains were also recovered.

To identify Manown’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological and circumstantial analysis. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis.

Manown’s name is recorded on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in the Philippines, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.

Manown will be buried on October 29, 2024, in Kingwood, West Virginia.

For family and funeral information, contact the Navy Casualty Office at (800) 443-9298.