Sat, Dec 15, 2007
Were Among B-29 Crew Shot Down In April 1951
The Department of Defense
POW/Missing Personnel Office announced this week the remains of two
US servicemen, missing in action from the Korean War, have been
identified and are being returned to their families for burial with
full military honors.
They are Col. Douglas H. Hatfield, of Shenandoah, VA, and Capt.
Richard H. Simpson, of Fairhaven, MI, both US Air Force. Funeral
dates have not been set by the families.
On April 12, 1951, Hatfield and Simpson were two of eleven
crewmembers on a B-29 Superfortress that left Kadena Air Base,
Japan, to bomb targets in the area of Sinuiju, North Korea. Enemy
MiG-15 fighters attacked the B-29, but before it crashed, three
crewmembers were able to bail out. They were captured and two of
them were later released in 1954 to US military control during
Operation "Big Switch." The third crewmember died in captivity. He
and the eight remaining crewmembers were not recovered.
In 1993, the North Korean government turned over to the United
Nations Command 31 boxes containing the remains of US servicemen
listed as unaccounted-for from the Korean War. Four sets of remains
from this group were subsequently identified as crewmembers from
the B-29.
In 2000, a joint US/Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(D.P.R.K.) team, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC)
excavated an infantry fighting position in Kujang County where they
recovered remains which included those of Hatfield and
Simpson.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial
evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA
Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA and dental
comparisons in the identification of the remains recovered in
2000.
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