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Experts to A search to account for the missing in World War II and the Korean War continues today as military forensic experts exhume four graves at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl.
exhume four
Punchbowl graves
The military hopes to use
DNA comparisons to account
for missing U.S. personnelGroup asks Pentagon to reveal burial sites.
By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin
Forensic anthropologists at the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base will then try to match mitochrondrial DNA to identify the Korean War and World War II remains classified as unknown.
Johnie Webb, the laboratory's deputy director, said that in the case of the two World War II remains, his office is fairly certain that one set belongs to Seaman 2nd Class William Arthur Goodwin, who was one of the 1,177 crewmen killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Webb believes the other grave may contain the remains of Seaman Apprentice Thomas Hembree, a sailor from the seaplane tender USS Curtis. That same plot could also hold the remains of Seaman 1st Class Wilson Rice, who also was killed on Dec. 7, 1941.
In the case of the Korean War remains, Webb said two sets of remains were among the 70 American soldiers whose remains were recovered by the North Koreans and returned to the United States under "Operation Glory" in 1954.
They are believed to be soldiers killed during the Chosin campaign, Webb said.
All of the remains are buried in Punchbowl in metal caskets.
They will join two other sets of Korean War remains disinterred on Sept. 15, 1999 after the Pentagon announced a policy to apply DNA technology to try to identify remains previously classified as unknown.
But Webb said forensic experts at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md., have been unable to get a good DNA sample for testing.
Webb said one of the reasons military experts have been unable to get a good DNA sample is "probably because of the chemical that was placed on the remains as it was being prepared for shipment to Hawaii."The military, based on information supplied by the North Koreans and other sources, have a good idea of the identity of many of those soldiers buried as unknown. This is based on the forensic evidence -- such as age, race, dental records and other records -- compiled when the remains were processed in Japan after the war ended.
Donna Knox, president of the Coalition of Families of Korean War and Cold War POW-MIAs, believes the Pentagon should release the names of those American soldiers even if the latest series of DNA testing is unsuccessful.
She said the Army laboratory has been "very diligent" in the way it has handled the problem for the past two years and she is "hopeful that it will be able to overcome that hurdle."
But if it can't, Knox -- whose father was navigator on a B-26 shot down over North Korea on Jan. 13, 1952 -- wants the Pentagon to inform the families of these missing soldiers.
At Punchbowl, 866 sets of unidentified remains from the Korean War are buried in Section U on the mauka side of the crater.
In 1999, Joseph Campbell, president of the USS Arizona Reunion Association, asked Webb to have Goodwin's remains exhumed and tested. He based his request on the research of Lorraine Marks-Haislip, the association's historian; and Ray Emory, who fought the Japanese from the deck of the USS Honolulu on Dec. 7.
Campbell said his brother, Goodwin, was one of two sailors killed in the Arizona's Gun Turret 4. The body of one of the sailors was identified, while the other body was not found until Aug. 29, 1942, while salvage work was being done. That body was never identified and buried in a Punchbowl grave marked unknown.
Six hundred fifty-three Pearl Harbor casualties are buried at Punchbowl as unknowns in 265 grave sites.
Campbell said the military's DNA laboratory told him that "it would take a year to complete the job." Webb is more optimistic. He hopes it can be done in six months.
Campbell said that if the tests are successful, he plans to rebury his brother at Punchbowl. "He's with all of his shipmates."
Except this time it will be with a marker that says "something more than just unknown."
"Whatever the outcome," said Campbell, now 82 and who hopes to journey to Pearl Harbor in December to observe the 60th anniversary of the Japanese attack, "I hope to put closure on this whole thing."
