Virtual Press Briefing with Kelly McKeague, Director, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), on U.S. efforts to repatriate missing military personnel in Southeast Asia and[...]

MODERATOR: Good morning, good evening, and greetings from the U.S. Department of State's Asia Pacific Media Hub. It's my pleasure to welcome journalists to today's on-the-record briefing by Kelly McKeague, Director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA.

Without further ado, Director McKeague, I'll turn it over to you for your opening remarks.

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Thank you, Jakob. Ladies and gentlemen, warm greetings from Washington, D.C. On behalf of the civilian and military professionals of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, I'm very privileged to be with you this evening, Washington time, to share with you a unique tool of diplomacy, which is DPAA's worldwide humanitarian efforts which we conduct with 54 host-nation partners, most of whom are here in the Indo-Pacific region.

This mission is rooted in a sacred promise that the United States will search for, recover, and identify the remains of Americans missing from past wars. And simply, we do this to provide answers to their families and the nation. Every day, DPAA teams operate across the globe in archives, remote jungles, mountainous terrains, and underwater. Our professionals apply painstaking historical research, archaeological tenacity, and cutting-edge forensic science.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is more than a military mission. 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.

I look forward to answering your questions, and with that, I will turn it back over to Jakob.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Director McKeague. We're going to start with a pre-submitted question which comes from Aricel Saludo-Garcia of Fuji TV in the Philippines: "Are there any existing or ongoing underwater excavation projects with the United States and the Philippines? If not, will China participate in a mini-lateral collaboration?"

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Thank you for that question. (Laughter.) It's a prescient question from the standpoint that in February, we began our largest, most complex underwater mission ever in the history of this mission, which dates back to 1985. And it involves the Japanese transport ship Oryoku Maru, which in December 1944 was mistakenly bombed by U.S. Navy aircraft. The ship was unmarked, but it held over 2,500 Allied prisoners of war as the ship was taking them from the Philippines back to Japan.

When the ship was sunk, it limped back into Subic Bay and it sank there. And we began this effort three years ago to underwater investigate the site and the wreckage from the standpoint of trying to understand what it was, what the ship looked like. So using these cutting-edge underwater vehicles, we had a - we created a three-dimensional image of the ship that then allowed us to begin excavation, which, as I mentioned, began in February of this past year.

We estimate there might be over 250 missing Americans in the hold of the ship. We think they might be limited to one of two holds, and that's where the divers are currently operating on. And we have benefited from the relationship with the Philippine Armed Forces in helping us, again, excavate this wreckage.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Moving on to another pre-submitted question from Francis Allan Angelo of the Daily Guardian, also in the Philippines: "Beyond the current underwater excavation, are there specific sites in the Visayas or Mindanao in the Philippines currently being surveyed for future recovery missions? And what level of support is the DPAA receiving from the Armed Forces of the Philippines?"

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: We currently don't have any missions in either Visayas or Mindanao. However, we do work often - in fact, year-round - in the Philippines. Currently, we have teams in Leyte, Luzon, and Mindoro. And again, this benefits greatly from the relationship that we've established with the Philippine Armed Forces.

But we also work closely with the National Museum of the Philippines. They, along with the armed forces, are helping us not only with these terrestrial sites, but as I mentioned earlier, with that complex underwater recovery in Subic Bay. And for these, our Philippine Government friends - we depend greatly upon not just the help from the federal government, but also from state and local governments. As I mentioned, many of these sites and loss areas are in remote areas. As I mentioned, right now we have teams in Leyte, Luzon, and Mindoro. And so the support that we receive from the entire Philippine Government is truly - like, truly extraordinary. And I believe it helps strengthen the alliance that we have forged between the United States and the Philippines.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. And one more pre-submitted question from Christopher Woody of the United States: "How much does the success of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's work with countries in East Asia and the Pacific depend on those countries continuing to make progress on the removal of unexploded ordnance?"

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Well, as you can imagine, unexploded ordnance is something that we take very seriously. Safety is the top priority for our teams. In areas where we expect a heavy concentration of unexploded ordnance, we contract services with either the local government or its military to clear the sites that we - our teams will be operating prior to the arrival of the field teams. In addition, our field teams normally include - in fact, not normally - always include an explosive ordnance disposal expert. He or she will work with the host nation, their host-nation counterparts when unexploded ordnance is discovered at one of our sites to safely remove it.

Now, why this matters is, as you all know, many areas of the region suffer from unexploded ordnance. And we, the United States, have particularly been - used this war - this legacy of war issue of clearing unexploded ordnance. We've done so with Vietnam. We've done so in Laos, Cambodia. And it's important that the United States fulfill its commitment - not just, again, where our team, DPAA teams, are operating, but also where there are unexploded ordnances that we have a responsibility to clear. And so it's very important that we do so together with the host nation as we do throughout the region.

MODERATOR: Wonderful. We have another question submitted from Ken Moritsugu, who I see is on the line, from the Associated Press. Ken, would you like to unmute and read your question?

QUESTION: Hello. Hello, can you hear me?

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: I can, Ken.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you for doing this. I wanted to - let me - I'm based in China, and maybe make my question a little two-part. One is: Can you give us any kind of overall update on what is happening in China or what may be planned upcoming this year kind of thing in terms of searches or whatever work, if there is any?

And then secondly my question was: Has this area of work that you do been affected at all by U.S.-China relations, which have gone up and down over the last few years, or is it pretty immune from it? Is it an area that you're able to continue cooperation for whatever reason, despite how bad tensions get?

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Ken, it's a great question. It's one that we believe the humanitarian nature of the mission itself - earlier I mentioned it being a tool of diplomacy. And I think it bears telling from the standpoint that the work that we do in China, in January of 2024, China resumed cooperation with DPAA. China's the only country among the 54 we work with that there are losses in China from four wars: World War II, the Korean War, Cold War, and the Vietnam War. And it actually emanated from the San Francisco summit between President Xi and President Biden, when it was President Xi that committed to helping the United States by resuming cooperation.

And so since then, we've had four field activities in Hunan, Guangxi, and Liaoning provinces. And one of these resulted in the identification of a Flying Tiger who was found by a joint PLA-DPAA team in Hunan. We excavated it. We found remains. Those remains were confirmed by a laboratory to be non-Chinese, to be - from a laboratory in Beijing - repatriated to the United States.

And so, again, 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. And we're pleased that the Chinese Government and the PLA view it similarly.

This month - actually next month, May - DPAA will host an archival exchange with China. We'll bring Chinese researchers to our laboratory in Hawaii, and then we will also participate in two additional field activities in Guangxi and Liaoning.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. We have a related question in the chat from Melinda Liu of Newsweek, also based in Beijing, China. Melinda, would you like to unmute and ask your question?

QUESTION: Yes, thank you very much. My question has to do with - it's a procedural question. What happens if there are local residents, meaning not governmental, who believe they've located World War II airplane crash sites which might not have been adequately investigated, meaning possibly related to MIA cases, American MIA cases, but not having been identified as KIA? Obviously, World War II was a long time ago, but there are still families in America hoping to have some news on this sort of thing. And as quixotic as it might sound, there are Chinese who are interested to look for these crash sites. They just don't know that much about how to proceed once they think they've found something.

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Sure. Melinda, I will say it's no different than any other country. Oftentimes, local citizens are where either we will canvass and conduct interviews, conduct oral histories, or we will pursue a lead that a local citizen - a farmer, a villager - came upon a crash site, believed it to be American, and then notified authorities.

We have procedures in various countries. They're different. I would offer to you that any Chinese citizen that believes they have found what they believe to be an American crash site or American burial site should contact the local PLA or the local officials in their village, town, or city, and they in turn will contact - our interlocutor in China is the PLA Archives Bureau, out of Beijing.

They are mainly researchers, historians that are obviously looking to conduct historical research of the Chinese military, but also they have been helpful to us in connecting villagers or citizens that find and think they know have leads to pass on to us. And the PLA then will turn to our embassy in Beijing and then they in turn will contact us, and then we - and that's how the mission in Hunan proceeded, is that we had a tip from villagers of a monument that they had set up for a pilot, a P-40 pilot that was shot down in 1943. And from that monument, our team went there, our historians conducted two interviews. They found the grandson whose grandfather had set up the monument, memorial, and the stories had been passed down. And from that, we were able to then send an excavation team to dig. It's oftentimes no different than any other country, same in China, is that villagers will contact local officials who will then pass it up to, in this case, the PLA Archives Bureau, and then we will send teams to correlate the site.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. We have another pre-submitted question from Simon Tavake of the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation. He asks: "Director McKeague, the Solomon Islands, particularly here in Guadalcanal, was a major World War II battleground. Can you tell us what ongoing work your agency is doing here and whether more recovery missions are planned?"

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: It is extensive. As you pointed out, there are significant losses, particularly in Guadalcanal. Let's see, we have been working in the Solomons since 2012. This year alone, we have three investigation missions. An investigation is we send teams because we don't quite know specifically where the site is. We have some general information, we have some leads, but we need teams on the ground to, again, conduct interviews, to canvas villages, to survey possible battlefield and crash sites. And then if we are able to correlate it, then we will send an excavation team.

So this year alone, we have three investigations in the Solomons. And what's - because the losses are both terrestrial and underwater, we also have surveys that we're conducting, too, in fact, of an underwater site. And DPAA - I didn't mention this earlier, but DPAA has unique authority vested in it by our Congress to establish private partnerships. We do these with universities and nongovernmental organizations, both U.S. and international. And one of these partners, an NGO called Ocean Exploration Trust, they conducted an underwater survey of a large area of the Solomons. And this survey looked at multiple losses that occurred over Guadalcanal. And what they do is they specialize in deep-sea surveying that looks at geology, biology, and archaeology. And we also had, again, in March of this year, we had Binghamton University of New York and a Solomons island-based company, Kahuto Pacific - they're conducting aerial and ground surveys of the island of New Georgia.

And so again, we're very excited about the work that we're doing in the Solomons. Again, we couldn't be more pleased with the work and the success and outcomes that come from the Solomon Islands.

MODERATOR: Wonderful. Next, we have a pre-submitted question from Christopher Cottrell, who I see is on the line, with Micronesia Sun Media, Limited. Christopher, would you like to unmute and ask your question?

QUESTION: Yeah, thank you for your time. Can you hear me?

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Yes, Christopher.

QUESTION: Yeah. So I'm specifically looking at the Federated States of Micronesia, but the broader Pacific, I guess you could say Palau as well as Marshall Islands. Within that area of Micronesia, can you talk a little bit about what's underway right now?

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Well, let's start with Palau. Palau has been a tremendous partner of ours. We work with both their - several ministries within Palau, but primarily their historical office, and they have been helpful to us. Again, many of the leads that come to DPAA result from leads that come from citizens and local - the local populace.

So in Palau we have many underwater missions that are conducted both by DPAA teams along with some of these private partners. In Micronesia, particularly in FSM, we have 780 that are missing from Micronesia, and these losses, again, primarily we are working in Chuuk, we are working in Yap, and just this past year alone we have three underwater sites that we investigated in Chuuk Lagoon, and we are ready to excavate - in other words, to actually send divers to recover what we hope to be remains of pilots that are missing in Chuuk Lagoon.

It's interesting that the chaos of World War II oftentimes, as the army, which was - the U.S. Army was charged with collecting remains shortly after hostilities ended. They did the best they could in finding remains, trying to identify them onsite. Back then DNA did not exist, and so oftentimes remains that were unidentifiable were brought home to the United States or in the American cemetery in Manila and buried as Unknowns. Well, three of these Unknowns came from losses, remains that were recovered from Yap, and two years ago we identified three Navy - actually, one Navy and two Army service members that were recovered from Yap, unidentifiable, and then buried as an Unknown here. And again, no different than any other country, we benefit greatly from strong relations and cooperation from the governments throughout the Micronesia area.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. We have another pre-submitted journalist - or pre-submitted question from a journalist that I don't see on the line, so I will go ahead and ask it for Grant Peck of the Associated Press here in Bangkok, Thailand: "Are there any current operations in Myanmar, aka Burma, or are any planned, and could you provide details? When and what was the last joint operation in Myanmar, and how many MIAs are still listed as being there?"

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Sure, Grant. There are 693 missing service members that are located in Myanmar, mostly in the north because this was the area of aircraft losses. This was the famous Hump. This was the missions they were ferrying cargo and service and soldiers from China to India across then Burma, and so many of these crashes are located in the northern part of Myanmar.

Currently we are not conducting field activities in Myanmar, but we are prepared to resume work as soon as the opportunity allows. We still conduct research of the unresolved cases, and our last joint activity in Myanmar was in 2019 that resulted in the repatriation of remains that were recovered near Mandalay. And there was a repatriation ceremony that we conducted with the Myanmar Government with its military and our embassy. And in 2019 those remains were repatriated to the United States at the Mandalay Airport.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Next, we have a submitted question from Cindy Octavia of ANTARA in the - Indonesia. Cindy, would you like to unmute and ask your question from the chat?

QUESTION: Hello. Can you hear my voice?

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Hi, Cindy. Yes.

QUESTION: Hi. I would like to ask what programs or services are available to support the well-being of families of missing military personnel, and how does the service assist families in the long term? Thank you.

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Cindy, I missed the first part of your question, if you could repeat it, please.

QUESTION: I would like to ask about what kind of programs or services that are available to support the well-being of families of missing military personnel.

MR MCKEAGUE: So this is an interesting dynamic, Cindy. We call it generational grieving. These families, particularly if you think back to World War II, they know everything about their loved one's loss. They know the day they died, the battle, maybe the circumstances of the loss, and they carry those - that information and those memories through decades. It's generational from the standpoint that they pass on those stories, those memories to the next generation. And so where these families - again, they grieve like any family would when they lose a loved one in combat or any - through any circumstances.

But what makes it difficult and what exacerbates the grieving is the fact that there's an uncertainty to the loss, because again, not having human remains - not knowing that their loved one is home - creates that exacerbated grieving. So what we try to do is we conduct meetings where we bring together these families to provide them information about their cases. In fact, just this past Saturday, we gathered 400 families in the San Diego area, and then on Monday we gathered a hundred of these families in Honolulu to, again, provide them updates on their cases and, more importantly, provide support.

An interesting dynamic out of these gatherings is that they share common - a common - a common grief with other family members. And so just the fact that they're gathered together - they may meet somebody from the same unit. They may meet someone that, again, lost - they lost their loved one in the same battle. And so there's an opportunity to connect not only with us and them but also amongst themselves, which, again, is an interesting dynamic and one that provides solace and consolation 80 years later.

MODERATOR: And we have time for about one more question, which will go to Mike Cherney of The Wall Street Journal. Mike, if you'd like to unmute and ask your question.

QUESTION: Yeah, hi. Can you guys hear me?

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Yeah, Mike.

QUESTION: Yeah. Thanks for doing the briefing. I was just wondering if, firstly, is there any other recovery or identification efforts going on in the Asia Pacific that you think are pretty interesting that you haven't talked about?

And then more broadly, has there been any interesting, like, scientific advances in recent years that have really helped you guys either ID or recover any remains?

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Yeah, so, Mike, I think what's interesting is the fact that last year marked the 40th anniversary of sustained collaboration, cooperation with Vietnam and Laos, and then 35 years with Cambodia. And really what began in the aftermath of conflict, it evolved into humanitarian partnership, and you see how U.S.-Vietnam, U.S.-Lao, U.S.-Cambodian relations have grown over the years. And these countries took a chance. They took a chance on the United States. In fact, Vietnam approached the United States unilaterally ten years after the war, ten years before normalization, and said, hey, let us help you with finding your missing. And so for us, as we see the relationship evolve into now a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the United States and Vietnam, we're very excited about that.

One of our strongest partners is South Korea. Interestingly, countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, they don't look for their missing from past wars. Where they fell in battle is where they will lie. However, for South Korea and Japan, they have very active, very proactive, robust remains recovery programs. And so we work closely with the South Korean Government not just in scientific exchanges, but we work closely with them on joint operations. In fact, next month, a DPAA-South Korean navy team will be diving an underwater site of a Korean War loss. It was a air - a B-25, and the ROK navy will be supplying the ship, the divers to assist the United States in finding its missing.

In June, which I think is very exciting, there will be a major repatriation in Seoul. We will - we will repatriate 11 South Korean remains that we, our teams, have recovered. They in turn will repatriate four Americans that they recovered, and President Lee will be officiating at that repatriation in June - very exciting.

In terms of science, it continues to advance. We are leveraging artificial intelligence particularly to help us with research to getting through reams and reams of aerial imagery, wartime imagery. We also are advancing our DNA - in fact, DNA is just something that has just advanced with the - probably the most preeminent DNA laboratory, the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Delaware, one of our partners. They are doing some incredible work with DNA and which allows us to be - to be able to identify ancient remains that had been degraded by the environment.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. And Director McKeague, if you have any closing remarks, I'll turn it back to you. We're approaching time.

DIRECTOR MCKEAGUE: Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for the opportunity to connect with you, and more importantly to share what, as I mentioned at the top, is a unique tool of diplomacy. It's one that garners, again, as I mentioned, strong people-to-people ties between the nations that we work with.

I think people understand the humanity of this mission. 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.

And so we are thankful very much for what these nations do, not just their governments, but more importantly their peoples. Oftentimes as our teams are deployed in remote areas, they're small teams, about 15 people, but they are augmented by in some cases citizens from the local area that in some cases, depending upon the complexity of the site, could be a hundred local villagers that will come and assist. And in Papua New Guinea, in Solomon Islands, in these remote areas, our teams are often made honorary tribal chiefs because of the relationship they've forged with the villagers.

I will end by saying that we conduct annual scientific summits. We will do so again. Ours is the most preeminent forensic skeletal laboratory in the world, and this summer we will bring together representatives, scientists from 16 nations across the Indo-Pacific region. We'll likely extend an invitation to China to join in this forum where best practices are exchanged, forensic archaeological sciences advance, and we develop a regional network of countries. And so in the past the National Museum of the Philippines, the National Museum of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Malaysia, Indonesia - all of these countries come together, and we're very excited about the summit. And so more information will be coming out from that.

And again, it's just an honor to be able to share this important humanitarian work with you, and I thank you for your interest, your questions, and I wish you great success in the coming months.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Director McKeague. Thank you, everybody online, for joining us. We will provide a transcript of this briefing to participating journalists as soon as it's available. If you have any feedback or further questions, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. Thanks again for your participation and we hope you can join us for another briefing soon.

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