With the Sept. 9, 2024, accounting of Army Cpl. Billie Charles Driver, 18, from Dallas, Texas, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency marked the identification of the 700th missing personnel from the Korean War. Driver, member of the 1st Calvary Division, perished in the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter, Sept. 5, 1950.
"This is an incredible milestone," said Kelly McKeague, DPAA director, "It is reflective of the talent and dedication of the Department of Defense personnel who dutifully serve this sacred mission."
Since 1982, forensic scientists have painstakingly and skillfully analyzed recovered remains to reach this accounting milestone and return fallen Korean War personnel back to their families for proper burial honors. This number is in addition to the roughly 2,000 Americans whose remains were identified in the years immediately following the end of hostilities, when the North Korean government returned more than 3,000 sets of remains to U.S. custody.
"The Korean War Identification Project was established to oversee the identification process for all Korean War laboratory cases," said Kristen Grow, project lead. "Our dedicated team represents the largest project in the DPAA Laboratory and involves remains from varied sources, including unilateral turnovers, field recoveries, cemetery disinterments and cases turned over to us by our esteemed partner organization in South Korea. Cases from Korea represent highly commingled human remains involving thousands of missing persons from varied proveniences."
During the more than three-year-long conflict, the United States suffered approximately 36,500 casualties. There are still more than 7,400 missing from the Korean War. Of these, the agency's researchers believe that about 5,300 are located in North Korea.
"The Korean War Identification Project highlights the challenges and successes encountered through a multi-disciplinary approach, involving the expertise of historians, anthropologists, odontologists, and DNA and isotope specialists, who collaborate closely with family members in the pursuit of identification and resolution," Grow said. "Our devoted team considers it a privilege to contribute to this poignant mission every day, where we have the chance to facilitate the reunion of missing service members with their families and loved ones."
It was not until 1990 when the North Korean government resumed unilateral turnovers of missing U.S. service members through the United Nations Command to the United States. From 1990 to 1994, North Korea repatriated 208 boxes of human remains, which came to be known as the K208. While the North Korean government stated that each box represented the remains of a single service member, forensic analyses determined over 700 to be represented. To date, 155 individuals have been accounted for from this turnover.
From 1996 to 2005, DPAA's predecessor organizations conducted 37 Joint Recovery Operations in North Korea, alongside officials of the Korean People's Army. Anthropological and odontological analysis performed by DPAA, and DNA analyses performed by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner system revealed a high degree of commingling and a crossover of skeletal elements belonging to the same individuals between the K208 and recovery operations.
"Our Korean War Program has faced tremendous challenges over the years, to include gaining the cooperation of the Korean People's Army in North Korea in past years. For much of the past three decades, we made little progress identifying the remains we recovered in North Korea, but in the past ten years, we turned the corner and began seeing huge success in identifying remains of our Korean War missing from a variety of sources. There have been innovations both in technology and in processes," said John Byrd, DPAA laboratory director.
In total, 153 identifications have been made from the ten years the U.S. teams were allowed to operate in North Korea.
"Most of the remains we recovered in North Korea have now been identified and we are always hopeful that relations will reach a point again that we can receive more remains and resume work in North Korea," Byrd added. "We will remain diligent in resolving as many of these Korean War cases as possible."
In July 2018, DPAA proposed a plan to disinter 652 Korean War Unknowns from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. This effort became known as the Korean War Disinterment Project. The project consists of seven phases and DPAA is currently exhuming caskets in the fifth phase of the project. To date, 232 Americans have been identified through this disinterment project.
Since DNA testing began in 1992, there were two major issues affecting DNA analysis of Korean War samples. The first issue was having appropriate Family Reference Samples to compare to the unknown remains. By 2010, through the diligence of the Service Casualty Offices, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System had received references for 92 percent of the original 8,100 missing service members.
The second issue that arose in the disinterment project is the ability to extract DNA from the remains in the caskets. In the 1950s, officials treated the unknown remains with chemical preservatives prior to burial, which severely degraded the available DNA. However, the cutting-edge DNA scientists, preeminent in the world, at the AFMES have determinedly resolved this challenge.
"Starting in 2000, knowing that the Korean War samples had been treated with chemicals that degraded DNA, AFMES scientists started a research initiative that took 16 years, with several key advancements developed by AFMES and improved scientific instruments before fielding the first fully accredited DNA Next Generation Sequencing method that worked with highly degraded samples," said Tim McMahon, director of the AFMES DNA Laboratory. "The easiest way to explain the method is that we developed a human mitochondrial DNA bait with a metal molecule on it that was specific for human DNA. The mtDNA bait binds to the human mtDNA, and we use a magnet to pull the human mtDNA out of the solution. AFMES is still the only forensic laboratory with this capability and since 2016 we have increased our success rate to over 65% and processing capabilities to 120 samples per month. This does not seem like much, but in 2016, capabilities were 5 samples per month and a 24% success rate. To date this method has produced results that have supported 165 Korean War identifications. That would not have occurred using traditional DNA testing."
Another step toward accounting for the Korean War missing occurred on July 27, 2018, with the historic summit between then-President Donald Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un after which North Korea turned over 55 boxes, referred to as K55, purported to contain the remains of American service members killed during the Korean War. After the remains were accessioned into the DPAA Laboratory, based on anthropological and DNA analyses, it was determined to be an estimated 250 individuals represented in the K55 boxes.
"Don't give up," said Sam Storms, son of Army Maj. Harvey Storms who died during the Korean War and was identified in 2019, when asked what advice he would give to families waiting on their loved one's return in a 2021 interview. "I never expected it [to] happen."
Storms was 34 years old when he left his pregnant wife and three sons to fight in the Korean War. He would perish on Dec. 2, 1950, when his unit was attacked and fought in hand-to-hand combat in freezing conditions in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Storms is one of the 93 identified from the K55 boxes. He was buried in front of his four sons and fellow Korean War Veterans at Arlington National Cemetery in 2021.
Despite North Korea not engaging in repatriation and recovery discussions since the K55 turnover, the agency remains committed to providing the fullest possible accounting of Korean War personnel.
"Despite North Korea being the only country who does not cooperate on this humanitarian mission," McKeague said. "This 700th identification exemplifies the resolute determination of the United States to bring them home."