https://therepository.org/last-known-position/War dead missing for decades, found and named: read from the loss report, the excavation and the lab that closed the case.enhttps://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep10-chaplain-emil-kapaun-how-unknown-x-14550-got-his-name/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep10-chaplain-emil-kapaun-how-unknown-x-14550-got-his-name/Mon, 02 Nov 2026 18:39:25 +0000On 2 November 1950, near Unsan, Army chaplain Emil Kapaun volunteered to stay with the wounded and was captured. He died in a Chinese-run prison camp on 23 May 1951. In 1954 North Korea returned remains in Operation Glory; his were not identified, and in 1956 a set of them was buried at the Punchbowl in Hawaii as unknown X-14550. In 2019 the agency exhumed it. In 2021, the laboratory gave him back his name.https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep09-b-17-pilot-robert-barrat-a-grave-for-six-a-name-back/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep09-b-17-pilot-robert-barrat-a-grave-for-six-a-name-back/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 13:00:10 +0000On 9 February 1945, two B-17s of the 303rd Bomb Group collided in formation over Germany. Eight of the nine men aboard 2nd Lt. Robert Barrat's bomber were killed. In 1947, six of them were identified as one set of collective remains and buried under one marker in Missouri. In 2025, the laboratory gave the pilot back his own name.https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep08-oryoku-maru-286-missing-pows-and-the-2026-dive/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep08-oryoku-maru-286-missing-pows-and-the-2026-dive/Sat, 24 Oct 2026 13:00:18 +0000In December 1944, U.S. Navy carrier planes sank the Oryoku Maru in Subic Bay, in the Philippines, unaware that 1,619 Allied prisoners of war were packed into its holds. The agency that looks for the missing says 286 Americans are still unaccounted for from the ship. In February 2026 it sent divers back down to the wreck.https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep07-lima-site-85-how-8-of-11-airmen-left-behind-got-names/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep07-lima-site-85-how-8-of-11-airmen-left-behind-got-names/Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:00:12 +0000Lima Site 85 was a secret Air Force radar site on a 5,600-foot peak in Laos. In the early morning of 11 March 1968 it was overrun, and eleven of the nineteen Americans on the mountain were killed and could not be recovered. Between 2005 and June 2026, eight of those eleven were accounted for, most of them after a drone survey and two excavations on the cliff in 2025.https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep06-vietnam-s-unknown-soldier-how-6-bones-got-a-name/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep06-vietnam-s-unknown-soldier-how-6-bones-got-a-name/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:15:09 +0000On Memorial Day 1984, President Reagan placed the Medal of Honor on the casket of the Unknown Serviceman of the Vietnam Era and accepted the flag as his next of kin. The Unknown was six bones recovered near An Loc in 1972, first designated Believed To Be Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie and later reclassified as Unknown X-26. In May 1998 the Tomb of the Unknowns was opened, and mitochondrial DNA from his mother and sister gave him back his name.https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep05-uss-arizona-s-unknowns-how-12-dna-samples-became-643/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep05-uss-arizona-s-unknowns-how-12-dna-samples-became-643/Sun, 18 Oct 2026 14:00:30 +0000On 7 December 1941 a bomb reached the forward magazine of the battleship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, and 1,177 of the 1,512 men aboard died. More than 900 are still inside the hull, which stays shut as a memorial. But some of the dead were brought out, could not be named, and have been buried as Unknowns in the Punchbowl cemetery in Honolulu since the late 1940s. In 2021 the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency held family DNA samples for 12 of the 1,177 men. On 7 December 2026, it plans to begin https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep04-colony-glacier-c-124-how-all-52-men-got-their-names/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep04-colony-glacier-c-124-how-all-52-men-got-their-names/Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:00:14 +0000On 22 November 1952 an Air Force C-124 Globemaster flying from McChord Air Force Base to Elmendorf flew into Mount Gannett, in Alaska's Chugach Mountains, with 52 men aboard. A ground team reached the tail in a blizzard on 9 December, and within days new snow and avalanches had buried the site. In June 2012 a National Guard helicopter crew saw a yellow life raft on Colony Glacier, more than twelve miles from the impact. In January 2026 the Air Force announced that all 52 had been identified.https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep03-b-24-heaven-can-wait-how-4-of-11-airmen-got-names/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep03-b-24-heaven-can-wait-how-4-of-11-airmen-got-names/Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:00:14 +0000On 11 March 1944 the B-24 Heaven Can Wait went into the water off Awar Point, in Hansa Bay, New Guinea, with eleven men aboard, after observers saw flames erupt from her bomb bay. In 1950 the Army declared all eleven non-recoverable. In 2024, four of them were given their names back. We follow the case through the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's own releases: a family's archive search, a sonar survey, and a saturation dive to 213 feet.https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep02-north-korea-s-55-boxes-how-100-soldiers-got-names/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep02-north-korea-s-55-boxes-how-100-soldiers-got-names/Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:00:22 +0000On 27 July 2018 an American C-17 flew out of Wonsan, North Korea, with 55 boxes said to hold the remains of Americans missing since the Korean War. North Korea did not say whose. The laboratory would count 501 bones, from at least 250 people: about two bones per person, with one short paragraph of information per box and a single military ID tag. We follow the boxes from the runway at Osan to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency laboratory in Hawaii, through the agency's own briefings and case https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep01-uss-oklahoma-how-394-pearl-harbor-unknowns-got-names/https://therepository.org/last-known-position/ep01-uss-oklahoma-how-394-pearl-harbor-unknowns-got-names/Sat, 10 Oct 2026 20:30:35 +0000On 7 December 1941 the battleship USS Oklahoma capsized at Pearl Harbor, and 429 of her crew died. After the war, 394 of them still had no name: their bones had been sorted by type at Schofield Barracks, and in 1949 they were buried in 62 caskets, in 46 graves at the Punchbowl in Honolulu, under headstones that read Unknown. In 2015 the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency dug them all up. We read the file that closed the case: the ship's action report, the 1949 board, the project leader's forensic