July 1, 2024

DOD Updates Families of Vietnam War Missing

The Defense Department has a steadfast and sacred commitment to finding, recovering, identifying and repatriating the remains of its heroes who are unaccounted for, said Kelly K. McKeague, director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.McKeague spoke yesterday to family members of missing service members who fought in the Vietnam War. Today,

June 30, 2024

WWII POW honored by Coloradans on his final journey home

Colorado Springs, CO — After 82 years, Army Air Forces Technician Fifth Grade Clifford Harley Strickland, a WWII POW (Prisoner of War) from Colorado, is finally coming home. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency confirmed his identification on December 20, 2023.Strickland enlisted in the Army in April of 1940, more than a year before the United States entered the war. He

June 24, 2024

A ‘Buffalo Soldier’ was killed in 1945. His remains were just identified.

Lemuel Dent Jr., an African American from Charles County, Md., died in fierce fighting in Italy during World War II.Three months after the World War II battle at the Cinquale Canal in northwest Italy, searchers with the U.S. Army’s Graves Registration Service found the body of an American soldier buried in an isolated location.It was actually half

June 3, 2024

80 years after D-Day, a dedicated team works to bring missing airmen home

Washington — Minutes before plunging to their deaths, five airmen successfully dropped 14 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne near their landing mark over Normandy, France from their C-47. It was just after 2:44 a.m. on June 6, 1944. The airmen completed their mission but lost their lives.The remains of the pilot and crew chief were recovered days later but the

May 28, 2024

Military labs do the detective work to identify soldiers decades after they died in World War II

Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska — Generations of American families have grown up not knowing exactly what happened to their loved ones who died while serving their country in World War II and other conflicts.But a federal lab tucked away above the bowling alley at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha and a sister lab in Hawaii are steadily answering those lingering questions, aiming to

May 16, 2024

Personal Effects Provide Clues in Search for Missing WWII Airmen

A 25-member team from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency is in the Normandy region of France searching for three missing airmen whose C-47A aircraft was presumably shot down by German anti-aircraft fire on D-Day, June 6, 1944.Air Force Master Sgt. Raul Castillo, the team's lead support investigator, or LSI, works closely with the scientific

May 9, 2024

DOD Team in France Searching for Missing WWII Airmen

In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, a C-47A aircraft from what was then U.S. Army Air Corps' 304th Troop Carrier Squadron, 442nd Troop Carrier Group, participated in the D-Day airborne operation in France.The aircraft carried a crew of five, along with 14 paratroopers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division.All 14 paratroopers exited the

May 6, 2024

US’ ‘unknown’ POWs were buried in a Japan mass grave 80 years ago. Can an American forensics team finally identify them?

Nearly 80 years after 62 US airmen held as prisoners of war were buried in a mass grave after perishing in a fire that consumed the Tokyo Military Prison, a new effort is under way to identify their remains and bring closure to their families.That complicated and time-consuming task falls to the historians, forensic anthropologists, archivists and

May 1, 2024

Take the ridge: Project to aid the recovery of missing servicemen reaches Guam

From the beach at Asan, the U.S. Marines faced a daunting task: battle their way up the heights to Adelup Point, occupied and fortified by the Japanese.The same technology used to locate Maya ruins amid the jungles of Guatemala is recreating the scene of the 1944 Battle of Guam in intricate detail, potentially leading to the recovery of missing

April 26, 2024

Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency director speaks at AFCLC seminar

Air University in Montgomery welcomed a very special guest to speak at the AFCLC seminar.To watch the video news story, click here.