Bodies of 5 Korea War Victims Returned to U.S.

PANMUNJOM, Korea — The bodies of five American servicemen killed nearly 40 years ago in the Korean War were returned to their countrymen Monday in an emotional Memorial Day ceremony marking them as heroes.

It was the first return of U.S. Korean War dead from Communist North Korea since 1954. More than 8,000 Americans from the 1950-53 conflict are still unaccounted for.

Five brown caskets and five small boxes containing buttons, dog tags, boots and pieces of uniforms were turned over to eight U.S. congressmen by North Korea, the enemy in the war.

U.S. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.) peered down at one of the caskets as it was opened ceremoniously to be checked and saw a skeleton beneath a white silk cloth.

“All I could think was that one or two of these unidentified might have been one or two of my friends,” said Campbell, who served 13 months in Korea in the Air Force.

The return of the remains is widely seen as a North Korean gesture to improve relations with the United States. The countries do not have diplomatic relations.

U.S. military officials said the remains will be flown to Hickam Air Base in Hawaii today for a hero’s welcome and the painstaking process of identification, which could take several months.

Pallbearers in suits and ties, wearing white gloves and lapel pins of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, handed the caskets over to the congressional delegation in the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.

The caskets were draped with blue flags of the United Nations, the flag under which American forces fought in Korea.

The transfer came after Rep. G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, signed a document with North Korea confirming that he had received the remains.

Americans discounted speculation that there might be American prisoners still alive in North Korea, saying both Soviet and North Korean diplomats have assured them that is not the case.

“I feel happiness, sadness, bitterness,” said Lt. Col. Don Byers, the only active duty serviceman now stationed in Korea who fought in the war. “I want to know where the rest are. Why five? Why not 500?”

The remains of the five returned Monday were unearthed in 1987. and are those of two U.S. All five were believed to have been prisoners of war and died in Hwanghae Pukto province south of North Korea’s capital of Pyongyang.

The U.S. Defense Department tentatively has identified two of the dead as Army 1st Lt. Jack J. Saunders, 27, of Ogden, Utah, and Army Cpl. Arthur Leo Seaton, 20, of Chester, Pa.

BACKGROUND

The Pentagon lists 33,629 Americans killed during the Korean War. There are 8,172 others missing in action and 389 prisoners of war unaccounted for. The two sides exchanged remains through Panmunjom until 1954, with the north returning the remains of 1,869 Americans, 607 South Koreans and 1,636 others unidentifiable. By way of comparison: 58,156 Americans lost their lives in the Vietnam War, with over 2,300 missing.