| U.S. - Russia Still Searching for POW/MIAs | |
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Dateline: 11/27/00
As adversaries and allies in past armed conflicts, the United States and Russia share a common bond, the commitment that no missing soldier will ever be abandoned.
Since 1992, the U.S. - Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs
has been searching for information
concerning the circumstances of loss and to establish the fate of missing
servicemen from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War and the Vietnam War. The
joint commission
is a group of senior American and Russian executive and legislative-branch
officials that meets periodically to assess and to coordinate policy, research
and investigative efforts on clarifying the fate of missing American and Russian
servicemen. Information is gained primarily through
archival research and interviews of veterans, government officials, and other
knowledgeable Russian and American citizens. During a two-day session in Moscow during the week of Nov. 13, the commission's co-chairmen,
Maj. Gen. Roland Lajoie, USA (retired) and Gen. Major Vladimir Zolotarev, signed
the executive summary to the commission's joint report on the results of work
conducted from 1995-2000. The executive summary highlights the commission's
accomplishments and identifies areas for further research and investigation. From a U.S. Department of Defense press release of Nov. 22, 2000, here are
the highlights of the commission's progress report: World War II Korean War Cold War Vietnam War "If you are able, save for them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no
longer go. Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have
always. Take what they have left and what they have taught you with
their dying and keep it with your own. And in that time when men decide and feel
safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you
left behind."
A team positively identified a U.S. PV-1 patrol bomber missing in action
since March 25, 1944. Plans for a full-scale excavation of the site are tentatively
scheduled for summer 2001.
Research efforts leading to the recovery of U.S. aircraft and crews will be
expanded. The Korean War working group will now proceed to examine holdings at military museums and other
facilities that may retain any records, artifacts or personal effects of U.S.
service personnel from the Korean War. he U.S. side raised once again the issue of
U.S. military personnel who, based on a number of reports from a variety of
sources, were sighted in the Soviet camp system (GULAG). The Russian side agreed
to accept the reports, which have been incorporated into a single document,
called the GULAG Study, for further examination.
A. Denis Clift, the U.S.
co-chairman, reported that painstaking research conducted by the Russian and
U.S. sides has led to new information related to incidents of U.S. aircraft lost
near the borders of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
The Russian side agreed to continue its
research in various archives seeking documentation that might clarify the fate
of missing in action American servicemen from the Vietnam conflict. Both sides
agreed to cooperate further on evidence that Soviet soldiers also might be
missing from the war in Southeast Asia.
Major Michael O'Donnell, Jan. 1, 1970, Dak To, Vietnam. Killed in action March 24, 1970
