Bringing Them Home: How Should We ID Lost Soldiers

NPR and Propublica recently published a report in which they investigated the process by which unknown U.S. soldiers from WWII, Korea and the Vietnam wars are identified with the goal of returning the remains to family members. My ears pricked up because, as I wrote about in Lost Boys of WWII, I have a WWII soldier who died when the aircraft in which he was flying crashed into a mountain in Burma (now Myanmar). His mother went to her grave never knowing how her son died or if he suffered in the process. The records were only declassified after her death.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

It turns out that the methods used by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) to identify remains are outdated. In this age when DNA testing is routinely used to positively identify remains, including victims of the 9/11 attacks and even massacre victims buried in mass graves in Bosnia, the U.S. Government only uses DNA to confirm matches already made by other means. Methods such as examining teeth and measuring bones to determine height can only lead so far in the identification process, assuming the remains have been disinterred at all. The current process proceeds in the following manner:

1. Historical records are analyzed to determine if identifying remains in a particular area (battlefield, crash site, etc.) is feasible.
2. Archaeologists disinter remains.
3. Physical remains are examined in the JPAC laboratory.
4. DNA is used only to confirm an identification made based on the previous work.

In contrast, a DNA-led strategy would involve disinterring available remains, conducting DNA tests on them as well as on living family members of the deceased and then comparing the two data sets to identify matches.

Of the approximately 83,000 people listed as prisoners of war or missing in action, the Pentagon estimates that about half could be identified and returned to family members. At the current rate of about seventy identifications per year, the chances of returning very many within the lifetime of anyone who actually knew them is. . . well. . . not very good. In addition, during the several hundred years it would take to identify all of these lost soldiers at the current rate, living family members appropriate for DNA testing could die out making positive identification next to impossible. While I am sure that those charged with the difficult work of examining the bones of the fallen try their hardest to reunite them with their families, it seems crazy to me that we spend over $100 million dollars each year using outdated methods with so little to show for it, especially when DNA-led techniques used in other recovery missions can quickly produce many more results. As an example, the effort in Bosnia to identify victims in mass graves yielded about 400 identifications per month at the height of the project. 400 identifications per month or 4800 IDs/year versus an average of 70 per year. Hmmm. If the goal is to bring soldiers home I know which method I would choose.

Other problems with the process of identifying POW/MIAs include several layers of bureaucracy and a reluctance to disinter multiple remains in the hope of identifying a single soldier. Some families have done their own investigations into the available records to try to narrow the field. Even in cases when the families believe their loved one is among a set of remains the powers that be have refused to remove them for testing apparently because they didn't want to disturb men who had already been honorably buried. According the NPR/Propublica report only about 4% of the cases for disinterment move forward. While I can only speak for myself, if my soldier's remains were in a group grave I would be happy to have the remains disinterred if it meant that DNA testing could be done to possibly bring my man home.

My soldier and his comrades will likely never be repatriated because of poor relations with Myanmar, the uncertainty of the crash site and the fact that any remains are surely long gone. But for families who have soldiers buried in group unknown graves, I wish they stood a reasonable chance of bringing their loved ones home. Unfortunately, unless the current state of affairs changes, most will never be able to obtain closure by laying to rest their men who gave their lives in defense of their country, in marked graves.

You can read more about this story here.

Lost Boys of WWII

“What happened to my son?” “Did he know he was about to die?” “Did he suffer?” These are questions my great-grand aunt surely asked herself for the last thirty-something years of her life. Nearly 70 years ago today Lulu (Flynn) Elson lost her only son during World War II. While this was understandably a blow to her, the worst part was that she spent the rest of her life wondering how he died. Sadly, she went to her grave without answers. It is some consolation to me that I now know what happened to him thanks to declassified information.

Harris W. Elson was a Sergeant in the Air Force's 11^th Bombardment Squadron stationed in the China Burma India theater of operations. Early 1942 was a tense time in the region. Japan had recently invaded Burma, pushing out Allied forces. The invasion severed the Burma Road, 717 miles of narrow road winding through the mountains from Lashio, Burma (now Myanmar) to Kunming, China. The only supply line for carrying war materiel into China was now gone. The Allies feared that with China isolated, the Japanese could divert resources from China toward fighting the Americans in the Pacific. [1] With Burma lost and a ground assault out of the question, the Allies presumably hoped to limit Japanese air power in the region.

To that end, on June 3, 1942, Harris Elson's plane and five others left Dinjan, India. Their mission was to bomb the airfield in Lashio, Burma before continuing on to Kunming, China. Shortly after take-off they were immersed in clouds and the planes lost sight of each other. Five of them managed to regroup, one of them Elson's, and despite the heavy clouds, bombed the Lashio runway from a height of 1,500 feet.

Less than a minute after the main group struck the target squarely, the sixth plane arrived and successfully dropped five bombs down the middle of the second runway. Two enemy fighters pursued the sixth bomber, being an easier target than five planes flying in formation. The bomber's top-gunner quickly disabled one enemy aircraft, but the other engaged the Americans for about thirty minutes. The enemy made over ten passes, before finally desisting. Sergeant Zeuske was an early fatality in this skirmish, but fortunately, the bomber safely reached Kunming.

Meanwhile, the other five planes were flying in formation at an elevation of 10,000 feet. Due to the mountains and frequent rain, they soon found themselves again engulfed by clouds. Only two of the five bomber crews and only one of the planes eventually reached Kunming. Through the mist, the soldiers must have watched in horror as they glimpsed the lead plane crash into the side of a mountain. Blinded by cloud cover, two of the other planes did the same. “The other two aircraft missed the mountain by only a fraction, the crews, for just a moment, were close enough to observe grass and trees through the heavy cloud, and they observed the flash caused by the others' crash.” [2] Despite the enshrouding weather, one plane managed to arrive in Kunming in one piece. The other ran out of fuel en route and crashed in the jungle. The crew jumped from the plane and finally reached Kunming two weeks later. Fortunately, those who perished probably never saw it coming.

The  B-25 Mitchell, shown below, may have been the type of plane flown on this mission.

 This photo came from Wikipedia.  According to that site: "This file is a work of a sailor or employee of the U.S. Navy, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain."

I found the information about Harris Elson's plane in the Missing Air Crew Reports at Fold3. These records were declassified in 1982. That was too late for Lulu, but I'm happy I can finally answer Lulu's question, “what happened to my son?” Unfortunately, Harris Elson's remains may never return home.

According to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) there are still more then 73,000 Americans from World War II who remain unaccounted for. Harris Elson, is among them. I am probably one of only a handful of people who would wish to see his remains repatriated as neither he nor his siblings had children.

Should relations between the US and Myanmar improve it could eventually pave the way for search and recovery operations to take place, assuming there is good information to indicate where to search. Even if relations improved and remains from his crash site were recovered and returned to the US one obstacle would remain to be surmounted. His remains would need to be positively identified. This can only be done through a mitochondrial DNA test. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is used because it is smaller in length and more prevalent in the body than genomic DNA. Therefore, more material is present in the remains to yield a useable sample. The other good thing about mtDNA is that anyone who descends through the same female line could provide a comparison DNA sample with a simple swab of their cheek.

Currently, there are 2360 servicemen (from the WWII, Korea, Vietnam or the Cold War conflicts) for whom a DNA sample is urgently needed (as of June 5, 2012). If a sample is a match it could return a serviceman's remains to his family for burial. If it is not a match, it could still narrow the field. Even if you have no MIAs in your tree or are not an eligible donor you can still help. If you can find, through reverse genealogy, someone who has the same mtDNA sequence as the deceased, they could submit a sample and possibly send a soldier home. If you want to help, I encourage you to visit the JPAC website which allows you to search a list for each conflict in either PDF or Excel format.

As genealogists, part of what we do is to bring the dead back to life by learning their history. I think that is a worthwhile thing, even if only a few of my relatives see the results of my work. Here is our opportunity to make a bigger impact. If we each spend a little time trying to identify a DNA donor, something that is made easier with the 1940 census, perhaps we can help to bring a dead man home and give him back to the living.

For those who are interested, the comrades of Sgt. Harris W. Elson who perished on the mountainside in Burma are:

1^st Lt. Langdon D. Long, 1^st Lt. Robert W. Martin, 1^st Lt. Fred S. Olson, 1^st Lt. Eugene F. McGurl, Sgt. Lee E. Allen, Sgt. Fitchew D. Sims, 1^st Lt. James F. Holbrook, 1^st Lt. John H. Herzog, 1^st Lt. James M. Chandler, S/Sgt. Omer A. Duquette, Sgt. Frank J. Fasanell, Sgt. Marlow W. Kaufmann, Sgt. Edgar P. Loomis, Maj. Gordon C. Leland, 1^st Lt. Roy H. Mink, 2^nd Lt. Jack W. Kincheloe, M/Sgt. Anthony J. Dominiak, S/Sgt. Melvin J. Gardner, Sgt. Charles R. Hedge and Sgt. Charles R. Thorp.

1. Clayton R. Newell. Burma, 1942. 12-1-1994. Center of Military History, CMH Pub 72-21.
2. Missing Air Crew Reports (MACRs) of the US Army Air Forces, 1942-1947, M1380. Original records held by NARA. Microfilm images accessed through www.fold3.com. MACR 15936.