FIRST KOREAN WAR UNKNOWN IDENTIFIED

[Mike Davino <mdavino@yahoo.com>]

It looks like the DoD is finally making some progress
on identifying remains of unknowns from the Korean War
that were buried in the Punchbowl cemetery in
Honolulu.

I think that the remains were treated with a substance
that interfered with DNA identification.

Mike Davino 

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of
Defense

No. 349-03
(703)697-5131(media)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2003
(703)697-5737(public/industry)

FIRST KOREAN WAR UNKNOWN IDENTIFIED

The remains of a Korean War U.S. Marine buried as an
"unknown"
have been identified and returned to his family.  He
is Pfc.
Ronald D. Lilledahl of Minneapolis, Minn.  This marks
the first
unknown serviceman from the Korean War to be
identified.

On Nov. 28, 1950, Lilledahl's unit, Company C of the
7th
Marines, was surrounded by Chinese forces on the west
side of
the Chosin Reservoir and cut off from supporting
units.  During
a seesaw battle throughout the day, Lilledahl
reportedly was
struck and killed by enemy fire and buried in a
shallow grave.
In the ensuing withdrawal, C Company was unable to
retrieve all
of its dead, including Lilledahl.

Following the armistice, the North Korean government
returned
remains believed to be those of U.S. servicemen, but
forensic
technology at the time was unable to make positive
identifications on more than 800 of those.  They were
interred
in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific,
known as The
Punchbowl, as "unknowns."

In 1999, the U.S. Army Central Identification
Laboratory Hawaii
(CILHI) exhumed two of the Korean War unknowns for the
purpose
of possible identification.  Between 1999 and 2002,
CILHI
scientists submitted 10 bone or dental samples to the
Armed
Forces DNA Identification Laboratory but no usable
mitochondrial
DNA data could be extracted from the remains.

Broadening their search effort, CILHI researchers
uncovered a
postage-stamp sized chest x-ray in Lilledahl's medical
records
at the National Personnel Records Center.  The
scientific staff
enlarged it many times and was able to show very
strong
consistency with the remains.  The final piece of
evidence
confirming his identity came from a new computer
program
recently developed by CILHI, which allows scientists
to compare
dental remains to a vast database of almost 40,000
dental
patterns seen in the U.S.  Lilledahl's were unique
among the
entire database, lending tremendous weight to the
significance
of the match.

Annual negotiations led by the Defense POW/Missing
Personnel
Office since 1996 have enabled CILHI teams to conduct
25
operations in North Korea, recovering what may be 178
remains of
Americans.  More than 8,100 are still missing in
action from the
Korean War.

[Web version:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2003/b05212003_bt349-03.html]

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