Ex-POWs on Hospital Ship; 3 Report Abuse : Freedom: The 15 Americans are reported in good spirits. But some had eardrums perforated in beatings.

Fifteen freed American prisoners of war arrived at a U.S. hospital ship here Wednesday--thin, hungry and tired but generally in high spirits, military officials said.

Some complained of mistreatment at the hands of their Iraqi captors, and three had been “cuffed around” so harshly they had suffered damage to their eardrums, an attending military physician said. But most of their injuries appeared to have been sustained in combat, officials said.

The second wave of ex-POWs--including a woman flight surgeon--arrived by bus and ambulance Wednesday night at the U.S. Navy hospital ship Mercy, in port in Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf off Saudi Arabia’s eastern shore. They joined six other American former prisoners and an Italian who had arrived a day earlier.

“Every one of ‘em’s a hero,” said U.S. commander Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who greeted the returning troops at an air base in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, before their transfer to the hospital ship.

“They looked happy to be home, happy to be in freedom,” he said. “It’s almost over.”

One released pilot whooped and gave an effusive high-five to a fellow airman who greeted him at the base. Many returning ex-prisoners embraced their waiting comrades, and one freed pilot seemed to be crying as his colleagues comforted and welcomed him.

Iraqi authorities said the 45 men and women released Monday and Wednesday represent all the allied POWs that Baghdad held. American officials appear willing to accept that, saying the Iraqis have acted expeditiously.

In other developments as the quest for peace continued in the Middle East:

* The bodies of 14 of the 28 Americans who had been listed as missing were found in the wreckage of a U.S. Air Force AC-130H gunship in the Persian Gulf, about half a mile from the Kuwaiti-Saudi Arabian border, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

* The United Nations agreed to send a high-level commission to Kuwait to investigate Iraqi treatment of Kuwaiti civilians during the occupation and to assess damage to Kuwait’s infrastructure.

* British Prime Minister John Major visited Kuwait, spending a day with his country’s troops in the desert kingdom although military officials had told him that they could not guarantee his safety.

* Japan’s upper house of Parliament gave final approval Wednesday to that country’s pledge of an additional $9 billion in assistance to the U.S.-led multinational forces in the Middle East.

Returning Prisoners

An emotional welcome awaited the released prisoners as they stepped off a Red Cross jet at the Riyadh air base.

Wearing bright-yellow pantsuits with “PW” sewn on the pocket, some of the former allied prisoners practically bounded off the plane, pausing to salute before shaking hands with Schwarzkopf and others who applauded.

They had been flown from Baghdad with 20 other allied prisoners, and 294 of the tens of thousands of POWs held by allied forces were airlifted back to the Iraqi capital.

Army Maj. Rhonda Cornum, both arms in casts and slings, smiled broadly as she was escorted away, appearing spunky despite her injuries. Cornum, 36, of East Aurora, N.Y., is the second American female POW released. Army Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy was freed Monday with nine other allied prisoners.

Cornum, a flight surgeon in the 101st Airborne Division, was taken captive last week after her Chinook helicopter crashed while searching for an F-16 pilot who had been shot down near Basra in Iraq. Five people were killed in the crash. Cornum and two other soldiers--Army Specialist Troy L. Dunlap, 20, of Massac, Ill., and Army Staff Sgt. Daniel J. Stamaris Jr., 31, of Boise, Ida.--were injured and were seized by Iraqis.

The two soldiers were among those released with Cornum on Wednesday. One used crutches, his leg in a cast. Another freed POW, whom Schwarzkopf identified as an F-16 pilot, was removed from the Red Cross plane on a stretcher.

Brig. Gen. Richard I. Neal, chief spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said initial reports indicated that the injuries suffered by all POWs who have been released came from plane crashes or ejections from aircraft.

Also freed with the Americans were nine Britons, nine Saudis, a Kuwaiti and an Italian. The Saudis flew to Riyadh with the Americans. In the Arab tradition, they hugged and kissed Saudi military officials who greeted them.

Iraqi authorities said they have released all allied prisoners they had held, and Neal said allied officials “are very comfortable that Iraq has been very forthright.” He added that “until we have the remains returned (of those still listed as missing in action), I don’t think we can actually close the book on this. But I would really say I am very buoyed by the attitude of the Iraqi government.”

POW Treatment

The first informal medical reports on the released POWs found that most of their injuries--particularly those Americans saw in early television pictures from Baghdad--appeared to be related to combat. The extent of any abuse they suffered was kept largely private Wednesday.

Overall, those arriving Wednesday were in good spirits, shouting, “Great!” to reporters when asked how they were doing. As they walked--or were carried on stretchers, as two airmen were--up the Mercy’s gangway, some gave the thumbs up sign and waved to the hospital ship’s crew who cheered their arrival.

Col. Richard Williams, a physician who accompanied Wednesday’s group of released prisoners from Riyadh to Bahrain, said three had been slapped around so severely by their captors that they suffered eardrum perforation. He added that the injuries were healing or had healed.

He did not identify which three former captives had been slapped, adding that other prisoners “complained about the way they were treated by the Iraqis.”

He did not elaborate.

Williams said the Iraqis provided only adequate medical care to the coalition prisoners. At lower echelons, he said, some suffered a “general lack of medical care,” but the treatment apparently improved as the prisoners were passed up the line. One, he said, was treated by the chief of orthopedics at a Baghdad hospital.

During their captivity, he continued, some of the Americans suffered injuries as the result of coalition air bombardment. But he said he had no reason to believe that the prisoners had been moved to likely U.S. bombing targets as human shields, something that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had threatened to do.

Naval officers said they expected the former prisoners to be sent back to the United States quite soon.

Cmdr. Deborah Wear, chief psychiatrist aboard the Mercy, said the six Americans and the Italian released Monday were suffering from a lack of sleep and are still “getting adjusted to walking free. They were in better condition than we expected. They are great people.”

U.N. Investigation

The United Nations will send a high-level mission to Kuwait to investigate Iraqi practices against the civilian population, to assess the loss of life during the occupation and to determine the scope of damage to Kuwait’s infrastructure, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said Wednesday.

Headed by former Undersecretary General Abdulrahim A. Farah, the mission was authorized in response to a request from Kuwait’s government. Security Council members asked Perez de Cuellar to grant Kuwait’s request, which could set the basis for possible war crimes trials and reparations.

Also at the United Nations on Wednesday, the observer from the Palestine Liberation Organization charged in a letter to the president of the Security Council that Palestinians living in Kuwait are being subjected to “violent and hostile actions” from armed vigilantes and “some elements from the Kuwaiti army (acting) in an illegal manner.”

Nasser Kidwa, the PLO’s U.N. observer, said the Kuwaiti government and foreign forces in that nation are responsible for the safety of the Palestinians.

Balzar reported from Bahrain and Wilkinson from Riyadh. Times staff writers Michael Parks in Moscow and John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.