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thedrifter
09-14-07, 02:54 PM
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 1116-07
September 14, 2007


Marine Missing From Korean War Is Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Pfc. Carl A. West, U.S. Marine Corps, of Amanda Park, Washington. He will be buried Oct. 4 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

West was a member of Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, of the 1st Marine Division deployed near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. On Nov. 27, 1950, three Communist Chinese divisions launched an attack on the Marine positions. Over the next several days, U.S. forces staged a fighting withdrawal to the south, first to Hagaru-ri, then Koto-ri, and eventually to defensive positions at Hungnam. West died on Dec. 8, 1950, as a result of enemy action near Koto-ri. He was buried by fellow Marines in a temporary U.N. military cemetery in Hungnam, which fell to the North Koreans in December 1950. His identity was later verified by the FBI from a fingerprint taken at the time of the burial.

During “Operation Glory” in 1954, the North Korean government repatriated the remains of 2,944 U.S. soldiers and Marines. Included in this repatriation were remains associated with West’s burial. The staff at the U.S. Army mortuary in Kokura, Japan, however, cited suspected discrepancies between the dental remains and West’s dental file as well as discrepancies between the biological profile derived from the remains and West’s physical characteristics. The remains were among 416 subsequently buried as “unknowns” in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl) in Hawaii.

In May 2006, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command exhumed remains from The Punchbowl believed to be those of West. Although the remains did not yield usable DNA data, a reevaluation of the skeletal and dental remains led to West’s identification.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

RIP

Ellie

yanacek
09-14-07, 03:13 PM
Thanks for passing word on this Marine. Below is a photo of Pfc Carl West.

http://www.obxmarines.com/images/west.jpg

yellowwing
09-14-07, 03:15 PM
Semper Fi PFC West! :usmc:

thedrifter
09-15-07, 05:46 AM
Marine's body identified after half a century

September 14, 2007 11:10 p.m. PT
By VANESSA HO
SEATTLE P-I REPORTER

When he enlisted in the Marines, Carl Amos West was a ruddy-faced teenager from a small logging town on the Olympic Peninsula. He went to Hawaii during the waning days of World War II, and to Korea, where he fought in the savage Battle of Chosin Reservoir.

He never came home.

But on Friday, more than 50 years later, the U.S. Department of Defense announced it had identified remains of an unknown soldier buried in Hawaii as West's.

"It was unbelievable," said Valerie Bale, West's niece and primary next of kin. "It was one of those things that we held a hope that one day they would find his remains and identify him."

West, a private first class who was 23 when he died, will be buried next month at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C., with full military honors.

West grew up with two brothers and a sister in the town of Amanda Park in Grays Harbor County, where his father was a logger. After attending Lake Quinault School, he enlisted with the Marines in Seattle.

While in Korea, he often wrote his younger sister -- Bale's mother -- with whom he had been especially close. He once wrote "Sis" that he and his fellow Marines were going on a long boat ride.

It was his last letter.

A few days later, on Dec. 8, 1950, West was killed near the Chosin Reservoir, where Chinese troops greatly outnumbered West's division. The battle, fought in raw, freezing conditions, is considered one of the most savage fights in U.S. military history.

Fellow Marines took West's fingerprints and buried him with his dog tags in a makeshift cemetery near the battlefield with other fallen servicemen, where his body remained for four years.

In 1954, the North Korean government repatriated West's remains as part of "Operation Glory," an exchange of war dead that brought home nearly 3,000 soldiers and Marines.

But at the time, American mortuary staffers could not reconcile discrepancies between West's medical charts and dental remains. The skeletal remains also appeared to belong to an older, shorter man than West, who was 5 feet 10 inches tall.

He became one of the 800 unknown Korean War veterans buried at the National Memorial Cemetery in Hawaii.

A few years ago, the government began writing Bale's parents of their mission to identify West's remains, which were exhumed last year. In March of this year, military researchers positively identified them as West's.

"This is the keeping of a promise to those service members who went away and, in this case, made the ultimate sacrifice, and to their families," said Larry Greer, spokesman for the Pentagon's POW/MIA office. "To bring 'em home."

He was unable to describe exactly how researchers were able to identify the remains but said new technology is helping researchers do what they couldn't do in the 1950s.

Greer also said the laboratory in Hawaii that identified West identifies about 100 remains a year -- a drop in the bucket against the roughly 88,000 veterans missing in action.

The identification has come too late for West's siblings, leaving his niece, 56-year-old Bale, as his primary living relative. But Bale is grateful for the chance to honor her uncle by traveling to Arlington with her husband and father at the government's expense in October.

"We are very appreciative of what the Marine Corps and the U.S. government are doing to honor someone who defended his country and passed away 57 years ago," said Bale, who was born after her uncle died and lives in Eagle River, Alaska.

"There's no greater honor than to be buried in Arlington, in our estimation. I just wish my mom was here to share it with us."

Ellie

ggyoung
09-15-07, 11:31 AM
:iwo: :flag: RIP brother.