Phnom Penh: The United States, through the U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh, held a ceremony March 27 to mark the repatriation of osseous material recovered from the crash site of a U.S. aircraft lost over Ratanakiri Province 55 years ago during the Vietnam War. U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh Charge d’Affaires, a.i.Bridgette Walker and the Vice Chairman of Kingdom of Cambodia’s POW/MIA Committee, H.E. Sieng Lapresse presided over the ceremony.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), assisted in the excavation by DPAA support teams from Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc. and Golden West, hopes the recovered material will lead to the positive identification of two missing service members and ultimately provide answers to their families.
This was the first repatriation ceremony in the Kingdom of Cambodia since 2015 and marks a milestone in the research and investigation into the circumstances of the lost aircraft and whereabouts of the service members. If a positive identification is made based on the evidence recovered, the service members’ families will be notified. The recovered material will be transported back to the DPAA Laboratory in Honolulu for further analysis at DPAA’s state-of-the-art facility.
This year, the U.S. Government celebrates the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Cambodia. With the strong support of the Cambodian POW/MIA Committee, DPAA has been conducting activities with the goal of accounting for the 48 U.S. personnel still unaccounted for in Cambodia.
DPAA routinely conducts investigations and recovery efforts around the world, supporting efforts to account for more than 82,000 U.S. service members who are still missing from conflicts dating back to World War II.
DPAA’s mission is to provide the fullest possible accounting of U.S. personnel from past conflicts to their families and the nation. The DPAA Laboratory system is the largest and most diverse forensic skeletal identification laboratory in the world and is staffed by more than 30 anthropologists, archaeologists, and forensic odontologists.
For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil, find us on social media at www.facebook.com/dodpaa, https://www.linkedin.com/company/dodpaa, https://www.instagram.com/dodpaa/, or https://x.com/dodpaa.
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