A South Korean sailor carries his uncle's remains during a Korean War remains repatriation ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, July 25, 2023. (Zachary Beatty/U.S. Marine Corps)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — Anthropologists and historians from the United States and South Korea have embarked on their annual search for the remains of service members killed during the 1950-53 Korean War.
Ten U.S. military and civilian members of the Hawaii-based Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency began their monthlong mission Monday with counterparts from South Korea, DPAA spokesman Sean Everette said in an email Tuesday.
DPAA and the Ministry of National Defense Agency for Killed in Action Recovery Identification, or MAKRI, partnered to excavate and identify Korean War-era human remains starting in 2011.
The teams “will assess multiple areas for their potential for recovery of remains and follow-on excavation,” Everette said.
The surveyors will explore five cities, including Mungyeong, about 90 miles southeast of Seoul, according to a MAKRI news release Monday.
The other cities — Chuncheon, Hongcheon, Pyeongchang and Hoengseong — are between 30 to 55 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the Korean Peninsula.
The survey areas include a site where an American F-51D Mustang is believed to have crashed during a mission in 1950 and where roughly 30 2nd Infantry Division soldiers were killed in combat in 1951, according to MAKRI.
The teams will employ several search methods, including reviewing combat records, interviewing locals, searching for battle debris and identifying terrain changes based on decades-old aerial photos, the release said.
Since 2000, South Korea has received more than 300 sets of remains from the U.S. and returned 26 sets.
Of the roughly 36,500 U.S. casualties of the war, 7,480 are still unaccounted for, according to DPAA. About 950 of those are believed to be missing in South Korea.
The agencies continue to make headway in identifying remains and accounting for missing troops.
On Dec. 5, 2022, Cpl. Adin Norris Jr., a 21-year-old soldier attached to the 24th Infantry Division, was accounted for by DPAA, according to an agency news release Feb. 6.
Norris, of Kansas City, Mo., was declared missing in action after fighting in Daejon city July 20, 1950, according to the release. His body was eventually recovered and buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii with other unidentified remains from the Korean War.
His remains were disinterred on July 15, 2019, and later identified using DNA analysis.
