USS Oklahoma (BB-37) was a Nevada-class battleship built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation for the United States Navy, notable for being the first American class of oil-burning dreadnoughts. Commissioned in 1916, the ship served in World War I as a part of Battleship Division Six, protecting Allied convoys on their way across the Atlantic. After the war, she served in both the United States Battle Fleet and Scouting Fleet. Oklahoma was modernized between 1927 and 1929. In 1936, she rescued American citizens and refugees from the Spanish Civil War. On returning to the West Coast in August of the same year, Oklahoma spent the rest of her service in the Pacific.
Killed in action (KIA) is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own personnel at the hands of enemy or hostile forces at the moment of action. The United States Department of Defense, for example, says that those declared KIA did not need to have fired their weapons, but only to have been killed due to hostile attack. KIAs include those killed by friendly fire in the midst of combat, but not from incidents such as accidental vehicle crashes, murder or other non-hostile events or terrorism. KIA can be applied both to front-line combat troops and to naval, air and support troops.
Missing in action (MIA) is a casualty classification assigned to combatants, military chaplains, combat medics, and prisoners of war who are reported missing during wartime or ceasefire. They may have been killed, wounded, captured, executed, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave have been positively identified. Becoming MIA has been an occupational risk for as long as there has been warfare.
The Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), as part of the United States Department of Defense, was an organization that reported to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy through the Assistant Secretary of Defense. DPMO provided centralized management of prisoner of war/missing personnel (POW/MP) affairs within the Department of Defense.
Project Recover is an organization dedicated to gathering information that can lead to the location, identification and repatriation of remains of U.S. service members who were killed in action in the Republic of Palau during WWII, and who are still listed as missing in action. The effort was begun in 1993 by Dr. Pat Scannon. Project Recover team members have backgrounds in SCUBA diving, aviation and the history of American World War II involvement in the Pacific.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command was a joint task force within the United States Department of Defense (DoD) whose mission was to account for Americans who are listed as Prisoners of War (POW), or Missing in Action (MIA), from all past wars and conflicts. It was especially visible in conjunction with the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. The mission of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command was to achieve the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of the nation's past conflicts. The motto of JPAC was "Until they are home".
Ensign John Charles England was an officer in the United States Navy. He died on USS Oklahoma after it was torpedoed and sank in the Japanese Empire's attack on Pearl Harbor. The circumstances of his death have been described as heroic, and he is the namesake of two U.S. Navy vessels. He was also awarded a Purple Heart. His remains were identified and returned home after seven decades and an intense inquiry.
The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, commonly known as the National League of POW/MIA Families or the League, is an American 501(c)(3) humanitarian organization that is concerned with the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. According to the group's web site, its sole purpose is "to obtain the release of all prisoners, the fullest possible accounting for the missing and repatriation of all recoverable remains of those who died serving our nation during the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia." The League's most prominent symbol is its flag.
The National League of Families POW/MIA flag, often referred to as the POW/MIA flag, was adopted in 1972 and consists of the official emblem of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia in white on a black background. In 2019, the National POW/MIA Flag Act was signed into law, requiring the POW/MIA flag to be flown on certain federal properties, including the U.S. Capitol Building, on all days the U.S. flag is flown.
The U.S.–Russia Joint Commission on POWs/MIAs (USRJC) was established in 1992 by the presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin. The USRJC was established to determine the fates of the United States's and the Soviet Union's unaccounted-for service personnel from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, Afghanistan and the Vietnam War, Laos and Cambodia.
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns the fate of United States servicemen who were reported as missing in action (MIA) during the Vietnam War and associated theaters of operation in Southeast Asia.
In the United States, National POW/MIA Recognition Day is observed on the third Friday in September. It honors those who were prisoners of war (POWs) and those who are still missing in action (MIA). It is most associated with those who were POWs during the Vietnam War. National Vietnam War Veterans Day is March 29, the date in 1973 when the last US combat troops departed the Republic of Vietnam.
United States Navy Ensign Robert Warren Langwell, of Columbus, Indiana was declared missing in action during the Korean War. His body was recovered in 2008 by the Republic of Korea's Ministry of National Defense Agency for Killed in Action Recovery and Identification (MAKRI) who which sent them to Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) for analysis. Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, JPAC scientists used dental comparisons in the identification of Langwell's remains which are to be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery on July 12, 2010.
Operation Glory was an American effort to repatriate the remains of United Nations Command casualties from North Korea at the end of the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement of July 1953 called for the repatriation of all casualties and prisoners of war, and through September and October 1954 the Graves Registration Service Command received the remains of approximately 4,000 casualties. Of the 1,868 American remains, 848 unidentified remains were buried as "unknowns" at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
The recovery of US human remains from the Korean War has continued since the end of the war.
Thomas James Eugene Crotty was a United States Coast Guard lieutenant. He was the first Coast Guardsman to become a prisoner of war since the War of 1812 and the only Coast Guardsman to be captured during World War II and since.
USS Arizona "Operation 85" is a civilian lead initiative aimed at identifying 85 or more unknown American servicemen from the battleship USS Arizona which were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, who are interred in commingled graves and marked as "unknown" at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, or Punchbowl Cemetery, located 10 miles (16 km) away from the location of the wreck of USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The Joint Casualty Resolution Center was a joint task force within the United States Department of Defense, whose mission was to account for United States personnel listed as Missing in Action (MIA) in the Vietnam War.
