New Delhi — The U.S. Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) conducted field activities in Arunachal Pradesh, India from November 1 – December 14, 2016, in search of U.S. World War II unaccounted for personnel. The DPAA team recovered evidence that was subsequently examined by a Joint Forensic Review Committee comprising both DPAA and Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) members. On December 07, 2016, the committee determined that the evidence was possibly correlated to U.S. WWII service members unaccounted for from that region, and recommended the remains and material evidence be transported to a DPAA laboratory for further analysis. In June 2017, DPAA personnel will escort the evidence from Kolkata to the U.S. laboratory in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A. for analysis.
As a result of the DPAA recovery operation in 2015, U.S. Army Air Forces 1Lt Robert E. Oxford, unaccounted for since World War II, was identified and returned to his family. The Government of India has extended its full support to all these humanitarian missions.
