The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has been described as an organization that keeps one inviolable promise – that the fallen will never be forgotten. After more than 75 years, this promise was kept for another service member and his family.

In December 2024, U.S. Navy Seaman 2nd Class John C. Auld, a Sailor who perished aboard the USS Oklahoma (BB 37) during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor was honored and buried in Albuquerque, New Mexico, fulfilling DPAA’s mission to provide the fullest possible accounting for service members’ families and the nation.

Three DPAA subject matter experts who contribute to the mission of the largest forensic identification lab in the world on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam outline the key steps of recovery and identification that make successes like this possible.

“It’s not just about making I.D.s. It is about honoring service, and it is about keeping the promise that we’ve made that no one will be forgotten,” said Dr. Nicolette Parr, a forensic anthropologist at the DPAA facility on JBPHH. “To work for DPAA, it really means that I am given the privilege and the responsibility to provide answers to families that have been waiting often decades for any sort of information about a loved one.”

Auld’s Recovery and Identification

Auld was one of the 429 Sailors who perished aboard the USS Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The crew’s remains were interred at cemeteries in Halawa and Nuuanu on Oahu.

In 1947, members of the American Graves Registration Service disinterred the remains of U.S. casualties from two cemeteries and transferred them to the Central Identification Laboratory at Schofield Barracks. They were able to identify 35 men and bury them at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, known locally as Punchbowl.

In 1949, a military board classified Auld and crewmates who could not be identified as non-recoverable.

More than six decades later, in 2015, DPAA personnel exhumed the USS Oklahoma Unknowns from Punchbowl for analysis.

Using anthropological analysis, circumstantial and material evidence, Y-chromosome DNA analysis, and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, a forensic investigative service that provides services like forensic pathology, DNA forensics, and toxicology, Auld was accounted for on Oct. 15, 2018.

On Dec. 6. 2024, a bronze rosette was placed next to Auld’s name at the Courts of the Missing at Punchbowl indicating that that he had been identified. The Courts of the Missing hold the names of 18,096 American World War II missing from the Pacific and 8,200 American missing from the Korean War.

Case Initiation and Recovery

Last fiscal year, DPAA conducted about 98 recovery missions across 47 countries.

The recovery and identification process starts when a case is created for a missing service member. Military records, historical archives, and family-provided information are compiled and then researchers analyze this information to see if there is a viable opportunity for deeper investigation and analysis. If researchers determine deeper analysis is warranted, they develop detailed plans for investigative strategies, resource allocation, and logistics.

The next phase of recovery is field operations, which begin with expert teams, including archaeologists, medics, and historians who conduct recovery and investigative efforts.

Parr, who holds a doctorate in forensic anthropology from the University of Florida, has worked at the DPAA for 12 years. She is involved in aspects of both the recovery and identification phases including working with historians and the planning process leading up to the actual recovery. She has conducted recovery operations all over the world including in Europe and throughout the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Parr, who is the lead for the Vietnam War Identification Project, explained that a typical recovery in Vietnam takes about six weeks. The recovery team works closely with Vietnamese officials who help with permitting and land access.

“Excavation is going to be led by a member of the scientific staff, someone like myself, a scientific recovery expert, who’s either an anthropologist or an archeologist. And we work with, a team of usually 12 to 15 people who aid in the recovery process,” she said. The DPAA team is comprised of leaders, team sergeants, explosive ordinance disposal technicians, linguists and anyone who helps work with the local Vietnamese. All team members help with the recovery process. They may live in a base camp or hotel near the recovery site during the recovery process.

Since many recovery sites in Vietnam are the locations of past aircraft crashes, the team often recovers only tiny bone fragments.

Managing Logistics During Recovery

U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Eleanor Franc in the Expeditionary Support Directorate of DPAA is an experienced recovery team leader who has been on five different recovery teams and has worked in Vietnam and the Solomon Islands over the course of her year and a half with DPAA.

Franc’s responsibilities include researching the recovery site and studying the case background. She and a team sergeant are responsible for the day-to-day operations at the recovery site.

In a country like Vietnam, 50 to 120 local workers are hired to support the recovery team. They help move buckets of dirt and to help screen for remains from the material gathered from the recovery site.

Franc works to ensure all team members understand their roles and are prepared to fulfill the mission.

“We get short term individual augments from other units to come support us, along with a group of organic DPAA personnel, so I help bring the team together: make sure everybody’s prepared for the site and what to expect, go over packing lists, and then once we’re on site, we help make sure that the scientific recovery experts’ intentions are met on the site,” she explained.

The team leader is also serves as the liaison between the DPAA and foreign officials.

“We’ll meet with landowners in a country like the Solomon Islands. For example, we’ll have certain permitting processes we’ll have to go through in advance of getting there to make sure that we’re able to excavate, whether it’s underwater or on land. Sometimes we have to liaise with embassy officials and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism,” she explained.

When a team brings back material from possible human remains, Franc says they are “over the moon” with excitement at the chance for a future identification.

Franc is currently planning team logistics for missions in France and Fiji.

The Danger of Unexploded Ordnance

On a recovery mission, two EOD technicians deploy with about 10 to 15 personnel and can clear tens of square meters of dirt each day looking for unexploded ordnance, explained U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Alexander Greenspan, DPAA explosive ordnance technician in the Expeditionary Support Directorate who has deployed to Vietnam, Korea, Poland, and Malaysia. He has worked at the DPAA facility on JBPHH for the past five years.

Greenspan’s work is dangerous, and the degree of danger varies from country to country.

“Everywhere we go, there’s a different flavor of risk associated with it because of the different type of ordnance used in those countries,” he explained. “It’s a grave risk. A bad day could be the end of someone’s life.”

Greenspan also described a common type of hazard he has faced in countries like Vietnam and Laos.

“Our biggest hazard typically comes from smaller munitions, such as cluster bombs that were used extensively in Vietnam and Laos,” he said.

Greenspan has about 18 months left with in his current position at DPAA. He said “it’s very moving” to contribute to the mission of DPAA and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to work with incredible contractors and partners from around the world to ensure recovery sites are safe.

Medical Operations During Recovery

On a recovery mission, five independent medical providers and four medics provide preventive health and medical screening before the recovery mission and emergency and routine medical services while deployed.

Hospital Corpsman Senior Chief Paul Ryan Fischer has worked as a DPAA independent duty corpsman on JBPHH for over a year with a medical scope of practice approaching that of a physician’s assistant.

Fischer supported a mission in South Korea and was amazed by the scope and teamwork between military branches while forward deployed on a recovery mission:

“As for DPAA as a whole, it’s pretty amazing what we do and the amount of time that it takes to do it. Just seeing them put the teams together, you know, they come from Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps. They come from basically all over the world.”

Fischer also described one of the most serious medical emergencies he has seen while deployed — a linguist who came down with acute pancreatitis, a sudden onset of inflammation in the pancreas, who thankfully, recovered and was able to rejoin the team after a couple days.

Fischer will provide medical support to a mission in Vietnam this month.

Evidence Analysis for Identification

The process of identifying remains can take anywhere from a couple months to several years depending on the amount of remains collected, which also determines the type of analysis that can be conducted. New methods and technologies for analysis are constantly being developed, Parr explained, such as the increased ability to extract DNA from smaller and more degraded bones.

Recovered evidence is returned to DPAA’s forensic labs and identification is confirmed using anthropological, dental, and genetic methods. During the entire process, team members integrate data to ensure seamless collaboration, safe field activities, and precise scientific analysis.

Evidence is analyzed by what Parr described as “working in the blind,” a process that keeps analysis more objective.

“If I’m the individual who’s worked for two months in the field, I’m going to be vested in identifying this individual. I mean, obviously we’re vested in identifying anyone but the individual who’s going to do the analysis is going to be different from the individual who did the recovery,” she explained.

The type of analysis required varies according to the details of the case and the professional doing the analysis, Parr said, but usually the first step is analyzing remains under a microscope.

“We’ll start by doing a thin section and looking at it under the microscope,” said Parr. “That can tell us whether it’s human or non-human. We almost always do DNA analysis if the fragment is large enough for us to do so, and then also do any kind of skeletal analysis. Ideally, what we try to do is get what we call a biological profile.” The biological profile consists of characteristics such as age, sex, ancestry, and perimortem trauma (injuries at or near the time of death) that allow investigators to link the recovered remains to an individual identity with a high degree of confidence.

To further validate findings, investigators also analyze multiple types of evidence to determine if they point to the same identification and apply the latest forensic technologies to gain further insights for the identification.

“The newest item in technique in our toolkit is isotopic analysis, which looks at the chemical composition of the remains to get an idea of basically what the individual is, what type of diet the individual had during their lifetime,” said Parr. “We can use isotopic analysis to help us differentiate between someone who has more of a corn-based diet, who grew up in the U.S., versus someone with a more rice-based diet who grew up in Southeast Asia.”

Ongoing Commitment

On Jan. 15, 2025, the DPAA celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its establishment after a merger of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, and parts of the United States Air Force’s Life Sciences Lab.

This ongoing commitment is symbolized by the POW/DPAA flag which is on display at the JBPHH building. The flag depicts a person’s silhouette who may be a prisoner of war or a deceased person who is missing in action along with the words, “You are not forgotten.”