DPAA expands Pacific missions, cites Philippine support

The U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, said it is expanding recovery and identification efforts across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with the Philippines playing a central role in both land-based and underwater missions to account for American personnel still missing from past wars.

In an on-the-record virtual press briefing organized by the U.S. Department of State’s Asia Pacific Media Hub, DPAA Director Kelly McKeague described the mission as both humanitarian and diplomatic, saying the agency works with 54 host-nation partners, most of them in the Indo-Pacific region.

McKeague said the mission is rooted in what he called “a sacred promise” by the United States to search for, recover, and identify the remains of Americans missing from past wars so their families and the nation can finally get answers.

He said DPAA teams operate globally in archives, remote jungles, mountainous terrain, and underwater sites, using historical research, archaeology, and forensic science to pursue unresolved cases.

“It is more than a military mission,” McKeague said. “It is also, as I mentioned, a tool of diplomacy and a humanitarian one that binds allies, strengthens partners, and reconciles with former enemies, and in the end strengthens people-to-people ties between the United States and the respective country.”

Philippines operations

For the Philippines, McKeague said the most significant operation is now underway in Subic Bay, where DPAA began in February what he called its largest and most complex underwater mission since the effort’s current era began in 1985.

The mission centers on the Japanese transport ship Oryoku Maru, which McKeague said was mistakenly bombed by U.S. Navy aircraft in December 1944 while carrying more than 2,500 Allied prisoners of war from the Philippines to Japan.

He said the ship, though unmarked, limped back into Subic Bay before sinking there.

McKeague said DPAA began efforts three years ago to investigate the wreck and understand the ship’s structure.

He said the agency used cutting-edge underwater vehicles to create a three-dimensional image of the vessel, which then made excavation possible.

“We estimate there might be over 250 missing Americans in the hold of the ship,” McKeague said. “We think they might be limited to one of two holds, and that’s where the divers are currently operating on.”

He said the mission has benefited from support provided by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Responding to a question from Daily Guardian about possible future recovery missions in the Visayas or Mindanao and the level of Philippine support, McKeague said there are currently no missions in either area.

He said DPAA nonetheless works year-round in the Philippines and currently has teams in Leyte, Luzon, and Mindoro.

McKeague said the agency also works closely with the National Museum of the Philippines, whose assistance extends to both terrestrial recovery sites and the underwater operation in Subic Bay.

He said DPAA depends not only on national authorities but also on state and local governments because many loss areas are in remote locations.

“And so the support that we receive from the entire Philippine Government is truly – like, truly extraordinary,” McKeague said. “And I believe it helps strengthen the alliance that we have forged between the United States and the Philippines.”

McKeague said unexploded ordnance remains a major operational issue in the region and is treated as a top safety concern for DPAA teams.

He said that in areas with expected concentrations of unexploded ordnance, the agency contracts with local governments or militaries to clear sites before field teams arrive.

He added that DPAA field teams always include an explosive ordnance disposal expert who works with host-nation counterparts to remove any newly discovered hazards safely.

Regional operations

Beyond the Philippines, the DPAA chief outlined a wide regional footprint shaped by war-era losses spanning World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War.

He said China resumed cooperation with DPAA in January 2024 after a pause, following commitments made at the San Francisco summit between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden.

McKeague said China is the only one of the 54 partner countries where U.S. losses stem from four wars.

He said DPAA has since conducted four field activities in Hunan, Guangxi, and Liaoning provinces.

One of those missions, he said, led to the identification of a Flying Tiger located by a joint People’s Liberation Army-DPAA team in Hunan.

McKeague said the remains were excavated, confirmed by a laboratory in Beijing to be non-Chinese, and repatriated to the United States.

He said DPAA will host an archival exchange with China in May, bring Chinese researchers to its laboratory in Hawaii, and then join two additional field activities in Guangxi and Liaoning.

“We’re very thankful for the fact that despite the geopolitical tensions, despite, as you pointed out, the up-and-down relationship between the United States and China, this is something that we view to be a carveout,” McKeague said. “And we’re pleased that the Chinese Government and the PLA view it similarly.”

He said local residents in China, as in other countries, can play a decisive role in uncovering crash sites and burial locations.

McKeague said Chinese citizens who believe they have found an American crash or burial site should inform local PLA or local officials, who can relay leads to the PLA Archives Bureau in Beijing and then to the U.S. Embassy.

He said a recent mission in Hunan began after villagers maintained a monument for a P-40 pilot shot down in 1943.

From that monument, he said, historians found the grandson of the man who erected it, conducted two interviews, and then sent an excavation team to the site.

In the Solomon Islands, McKeague said DPAA has worked since 2012 and has three investigation missions scheduled this year alone.

He said those investigations are used when the agency has only general information and still needs teams on the ground to conduct interviews, canvass villages, and survey battlefield or crash sites before excavation can begin.

Because losses there are both terrestrial and underwater, he said surveys are also being conducted at an underwater site.

McKeague said DPAA has authority from Congress to form private partnerships with universities and nongovernmental organizations in the United States and abroad.

He said Ocean Exploration Trust, one such nongovernmental partner, surveyed a large underwater area in the Solomons for multiple losses over Guadalcanal.

He said the group specializes in deep-sea surveys involving geology, biology, and archaeology.

McKeague added that in March this year, Binghamton University of New York and the Solomon Islands-based company Kahuto Pacific conducted aerial and ground surveys on New Georgia.

In Micronesia, McKeague said Palau has been a particularly strong partner, especially through its historical office and other ministries.

He said DPAA has many underwater missions in Palau carried out by agency teams and private partners.

For the Federated States of Micronesia, he said 780 Americans remain missing.

He said current efforts focus mainly on Chuuk and Yap.

McKeague said DPAA investigated three underwater sites in Chuuk Lagoon in the past year and is now ready to begin excavation dives to recover what it hopes are the remains of missing pilots.

He also said that two years ago the agency identified three previously unknown service members recovered from Yap, specifically one Navy and two Army personnel who had earlier been buried in the United States as Unknowns.

On Myanmar, McKeague said 693 service members remain missing there, most of them in the north where aircraft were lost on wartime “Hump” missions between China and India across then-Burma.

He said DPAA is not currently conducting field activities in Myanmar but is prepared to resume work once conditions allow.

McKeague said the agency’s last joint activity in Myanmar took place in 2019 and resulted in the repatriation of remains recovered near Mandalay, with a ceremony held at Mandalay Airport involving Myanmar’s government, military, and the U.S. Embassy.

He also pointed to long-running cooperation elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia, saying last year marked 40 years of sustained collaboration with Vietnam and Laos, and 35 years with Cambodia.

McKeague said Vietnam first approached the United States unilaterally 10 years after the war and 10 years before normalization to help locate missing Americans.

He said the evolution of that work into what is now a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Washington and Hanoi shows how recovery missions can help reshape bilateral ties over time.

McKeague said South Korea is now one of DPAA’s strongest partners, not only in scientific exchanges but also in joint operations.

He said that next month a DPAA-South Korean navy team will dive an underwater Korean War site involving a B-25 loss, with the Republic of Korea navy supplying the ship and divers.

He added that in June there will be a major repatriation in Seoul in which the United States will return 11 South Korean remains recovered by its teams, while South Korea will return four Americans that it recovered.

McKeague said President Lee will officiate at that June repatriation.

Families and science

He also described the emotional toll on families of the missing, calling it “generational grieving.”

McKeague said families often know the date of death, the battle, and sometimes the circumstances, but the absence of human remains deepens uncertainty and prolongs grief across generations.

To address that, he said DPAA holds family meetings to provide case updates and support.

McKeague said the agency gathered 400 families in the San Diego area on Saturday and another 100 families in Honolulu on Monday.

He said those meetings also allow relatives to meet others linked to the same battle or even the same military unit, creating what he called solace and consolation “80 years later.”

On science and technology, McKeague said DPAA is increasingly using artificial intelligence to help review large volumes of aerial and wartime imagery.

He said advances in DNA analysis, particularly through the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Delaware, are also enabling the identification of ancient remains degraded by the environment.

McKeague said DPAA’s forensic skeletal laboratory is the most prominent of its kind and will host an annual scientific summit this summer involving representatives and scientists from 16 nations across the Indo-Pacific.

He said China will likely be invited to join the forum, which is intended to exchange best practices, advance forensic archaeological science, and build a stronger regional network.

He said past participants have included the National Museum of the Philippines, the National Museum of Papua New Guinea, and representatives from Solomon Islands, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Humanitarian diplomacy

For the Philippines, the briefing underscored how a longstanding alliance now extends beyond military exercises and diplomacy into highly technical humanitarian work that depends on local archives, museums, armed forces, and even remote communities to recover the war dead.

“People understand the humanity of this mission,” McKeague said. “They understand the fact that young men and women went off to war and never came home, and that their families deserve answers, long-sought answers, decades after.”

He said DPAA teams are often small, about 15 people, but can be reinforced by as many as 100 local villagers depending on the complexity of the site.

McKeague said that in places such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, teams have at times even been made honorary tribal chiefs because of the relationships forged with local communities.

Source: Virtual press briefing with Kelly McKeague, director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.