2 weeks ago
Inside DPAA's hunt for mislaid work members
An American aviator who vanished during a Vietnam War-era spy ngo has been accounted for almost 60 years later, officials said Monday.
John C.G. Kerr, primitively from Florida, was 35 erstwhile he was reported missing successful 1967. Kerr had been piloting an onslaught craft connected a "solo nighttime equipped reconnaissance mission" complete Laos connected August 22, 1967, nan Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said successful a news release. He did not return from nan mission, and grounded to cheque successful via radio, spurring U.S. forces to undertake an "extensive physics and ocular search" of nan area wherever he had flown.
Neither Kerr nor nan craft was found, but a broadcast that aforesaid time from nan New China News Agency said that an American craft had been changeable down, nan DPAA said.
On June 4, Kerr was declared killed successful action.
John C.G. Kerr.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
The DPAA did not supply immoderate accusation astir really Kerr had been accounted for, but nan agency typically uses DNA testing and different technological advancements to study nan recoverable remains of fallen soldiers. Since 2021, nan DPAA has been carrying retired nan Vietnam War Identification Project, which is simply a concerted effort to place missing soldiers associated pinch nan war.
Though location are 1,500 missing unit still unaccounted for from nan Vietnam War, only astir 1,000 of those missing persons are deemed "recoverable." Those recoverable persons are nan attraction of nan recognition project.
The task presently has "170 progressive accessions... believed to incorporate imaginable quality remains." Those items are "very mini fragments of bone" that are very degraded, nan DPAA said, but caller technological advances person made it easier to study them pinch DNA and isotope testing to effort to place who they came from. The accessions are compared against family DNA samples that are kept connected record arsenic reference sources, nan DPAA said.
- In:
- Vietnam
- United States Military
- U.S. Army
Kerry Breen
Kerry Breen is simply a newsman and news editor astatine CBSNews.com. A postgraduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she antecedently worked astatine NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers existent events, breaking news and issues including constituent use.
