WASHINGTON—The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) says Friday that the remains of a serviceman, missing from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
U.S. Army Cpl. Robert E. Meyers of Greencastle, Pennsylvania, will be buried Oct. 26, in Arlington National Cemetery. Meyers, assigned to Company A, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division, was declared missing in action, Dec. 1, 1950, after his unit was involved in combat operations in the vicinity of Sonchu, North Korea. The U.S. Army declared Meyers deceased March 2, 1954.
In 1954, United Nations and communist forces exchanged the remains of war dead in what came to be called “Operation Glory.” All remains recovered in Operation Glory were turned over to the Army’s Central Identification Unit for analysis. The remains they were unable to identify were interred as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, known as the “Punchbowl.”
In 2012, due to advances in technology, the Department of Defense began to re-examine records and concluded that the possibility of identification for some of these unknowns now existed.
To identify Meyers’ remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used circumstantial evidence, dental analysis, and chest radiographs, which matched Meyers’ records.
Today, more than 7,800 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War. Using advances in technology, identifications continue to be made from remains that were previously returned by North Korean officials or recovered by American teams.
