North Korea return remains of US Soldier

[Drache]

 The remains of a US soldier who died in a North Korean prison camp in January 1951 are being returned to California, where he will be buried with full military honours on Friday.

Robert V Witt, a 20-year-old corporal with the 7th Infantry Division, was reportedly captured when his unit was overrun by Chinese forces east of the Chosin Reservoir on December 1, 1950.

Remnants of the unit, known as Task Force Faith and part of the United Nations Command, began a fighting withdrawal from their positions in one of the most storied battles of the 1950-53 Korean War. Cpl Witt was only reported missing in action on December 2.

A total of 13,547 UN troops were released by North Korea in exchanges of prisoners of war before and after the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, with Cpl Witt's fellow prisoners telling debriefing teams that he had been captured in the chaos of the battle and died from malnutrition.

The repatriated POWs estimate that he died on January 31, 1951. His remains were not, however, handed over in subsequent exchanges.

During a relative thaw in relations between Pyongyang and Washington in the early 1990s, North Korea returned 208 boxes of human remains, followed by a further batch in 2000. The remains were transferred to the Department of Defense's POW/MIA Accounting Agency, based in Hawaii, where experts set about the long and painstaking process of identifying the individual servicemen. In all, the agency found bones from more than 600 US personnel.

To identify Cpl Witt's remains, scientists were able to extract DNA that was then matched to his brother.

"I am so happy", Laverne Minnick, the younger sister of Cpl Witt, told the Long Beach Press Telegram.

"He's going to be home, where he belongs, with his family", she said.

Mrs Minnick was 17 when the Army notified their parents that Cpl Witt was dead.

"When I got up the next morning and looked at my dad, his hair was grey", she said. "It was brown the day before.

"Many people say that's not possible, but that's what I remember", she added. "That's how upset we were".

At present, more than 7,800 American personnel remain unaccounted for, more than 60 years after the Korean War ended.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/11955031/US-soldiers-remains-to-be-buried-in-California-64-years-after-death-in-North-Korea.html?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

[AKcharger]

Always great to see closure for these people's family's when a hero can return home.

What's never reported is we had to pay the DPRK for each set of remains returned, ostensible to cover their "costs"...it was just a money making scheme to theme...they should all be destroyed!