The agency that accounts for missing American servicemen

The bones surrender their secretsTWO hundred and eight boxes were handed over by the North Koreans, but American scientists quickly realised that the remains inside them belonged to many more lost servicemen. The consignment of bones, acquired in the early 1990s, was augmented by 33 American expeditions, spread over a decade. Although those were tightly escorted, recalls Johnie Webb, who went on some of them, the North Koreans were 'very receptive'. Too receptive, perhaps: some of the specimens the Americans dug up had been freshly reburied for them to find. The visitors brought hard currency; their hosts wanted them to succeed.The North Korean haul'altogether containing the remnants of over 600 individuals'has its own section in the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency's new laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbour-Hickam, on the outskirts of Honolulu. The scenes inside the lab and beyond its windows are grimly contrasting. Outside stand monkey-pod trees and the mountains of Oahu; inside are rows of tables on which rest skeletons, individual skulls or hip bones, and grisly scraps. The Korean project exemplifies...Continue reading
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