Lab Tries to Take ‘Missing’ Out of MIA : Army Experts in Honolulu Seek to Identify Returning Remains

For the remains of U.S. servicemen recovered in Southeast Asia, the journey home leads through a pair of two-story buildings on Honolulu’s waterfront.

With the patience of detectives and the precision of scientists, members of the U.S. Army’s Central Identification Laboratory work to assure families that their next of kin has finally come home.

“They’ve lived with uncertainty all these years. They’ve wondered: Is he alive? Is he wandering through the jungle,” said Maj. Johnie E. Webb Jr. who heads the laboratory. “They feel it’s great to know what’s happened.”

Since the end of the Vietnam War, the laboratory has identified 166 sets of remains from Indochina, and 58 others from the Korean War and World War II.

Laboratory staff often accompany members of the Hawaii-based Joint Casualty Resolution Center to Hanoi for periodic meetings with Vietnamese officials. The center negotiates with the Vietnamese, presenting cases for discussion; the laboratory’s primary mission is to recover and identify remains. When remains are turned over to or recovered by U.S. teams, they are flown here for analysis.

At the laboratory, two sets of specialists work independently to establish tentative identities. One group focuses on analyzing the remains, while the other checks records such as identification tags, mission records and clothing.

The two groups’ conclusions are compared before a final identification is made and forwarded to the Armed Services Graves Registration office in Alexandria, Va., Webb said. The Graves Registration office has never rejected an identification, “although they have argued with us about some,” Webb added.

Skull, Photo Compared

Dr. Tadao Furue, a physical anthropologist on the laboratory staff, invented one of the main techniques used in narrowing the search. Furue compares the shape of the skull with a photograph of the individual’s face. Obvious differences between the two can eliminate many identifications.

Furue said that his technique, which checks more than two dozen features and is called cranial-facial superimposition, relies on military photos, as well as family pictures of servicemen.

“Smiling is the best, all the muscles are relaxed,” said Furue. “That is your own face.”

A similar technique was used for identifying the remains of Nazi fugitive Josef Mengele, although Webb said that none of the lab’s personnel participated in that.

The second group of specialists, called data analysts, searches files for cases that could bear similarities to a particular MIA incident.

“We are unique here because we do not try to establish an identity right away,” said Sgt. 1st Class Richard Huston. “Rather, we set out to eliminate possibilities.”

Huston said that members of the team he supervises may spend months working on a single case.

Advances in identification techniques have made it possible to determine the identification of an individual from as little evidence as one bone, said Webb.

“War is not a pretty subject,” Webb said. “You don’t always get a whole body back.”

Changes in military policy have also made identification easier--for instance, dental records are now required of all military personnel stationed overseas.

The laboratory grew out of operations handled by military mortuaries established in Vietnam during the war. Once in Hawaii, the lab also assumed responsibility for identifying remains recovered from the Korean War and World War II.