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Remains of US
WWII soldiers
on way home
By SHEILA LASIBORI
THE remains of 14 US soldiers are finally on their way home after they
were recovered from three separate WWII crash sites in Morobe province.
The remains of the 14 soldiers will be taken to the Joint PoW/MiA
Accounting Command (JPAC) headquarters in Hawaii where forensic tests
will be carried out to identify the remains so they could be returned to
their respective families and buried with full military honour.
“We remember the soldiers who lost their lives not only for the United
States but for the rest of the world … for freedom and democracy,” PNG
Defence Force Commander Commodore Peter Ilau said yesterday during the
repatriation ceremony at the PNGDF headquarters chapel at Murray
Barracks.
National Museum’s Herman Mandui released the remains to the US
government through a document he signed with US Ambassador to Papua New
Guinea Leslie Rowe.
“The people of the United States have not forgotten about the war. They
have not forgotten about you,” Ms Rowe said.
She also remembered soldiers who fought in wars throughout the world and
lost their lives, including the PNG servicemen who fought alongside
Allied Forces during WWII.
James Pokindes of the Hawaii-based forensic laboratory said it would
take some months to conduct scientific tests on the remains before they
could be identified and their families informed accordingly.
The remains were found by 34 JPAC officers sent to PNG last Jan 18 to
recover the remains of US soldiers who died during the war.
The team received help from the local people.
“We were basically looking for personal things,” Mr Pokindes said,
adding such things like rings, life jackets, and parachutes that could
have been worn by the soldiers at the time their aircraft crashed were
very valuable specimens to help them identify the remains of the
soldiers.
One of the three sites was the crash site of a bomber aircraft where 12
people were believed to have died.
Mr Pokindes said a passport of one of the soldiers had been found but
will not be revealed until the forensic tests have been carried out.
Since 1979, JPAC has recovered and identified over 1,300 formerly
accounted-for Americans from all over the world, and the US government
has been conducting recovery missions in PNG since 1979.
The JPAC officers and transfer case containing the remains will leave
the country on March 30 on board a C-17 military transport aircraft.
 
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