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bigpigeon.us webpage WWII US > Casualties> Missing, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 18 Nov 2023.
Incomplete
War Department Dead Navy Department Dead Prisoners of War Burials Missing Iowa Casualties & Dead
bigpigeon.us webpage WWII US > Casualties> Missing, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 18 Nov 2023.
Incomplete
US military personnel who went missing in WWII were assigned a Missing in Action (MIA) casualty status. After one year they were usually declared dead unless evidence existed to support otherwise. Put differently, long-term missing were found dead and were assigned a code of FOD, Finding of Death. Thus, there are few, if any, remaining individuals from WWII with a MIA (Missing in Action) status.
Quite apart from the Missing in Action casualty status, WWII Missing refers to the over 70,000 WWII US military personnel whose bodies have not been recovered and identified. Some were killed in action (e.g., their ship was sunk and no body recovered), some were prisoners of war (e.g., died along the road during a forced march with the body abandoned); some died under unknown circumstances (e.g., their plane disappeared on a mission).
To reiterate, today's 70,136 WWII missing have little to do with the Missing in Action of WWII. This unfortunate reuse of the word missing, instead of an alternative such as unaccounted for, continues to cause sloppy writers of history to make mistakes and casual readers to then draw erroneous conclusions.
Lists of the WWII missing are available at https://www.dpaa.mil, the website of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. DPAA is charged with finding and identifying remains of US military members from all wars.
Burials at sea are accounted for. However, those lost at sea, for whom there was no burial ceremony, are viewed as unaccounted for even if it is known how, when, and where they died. Consequently there is no reasonable hope of ever finding the remains of a goodly number of the so-called WWII missing.
Quite apart from the Missing in Action casualty status, WWII Missing refers to the over 70,000 WWII US military personnel whose bodies have not been recovered and identified. Some were killed in action (e.g., their ship was sunk and no body recovered), some were prisoners of war (e.g., died along the road during a forced march with the body abandoned); some died under unknown circumstances (e.g., their plane disappeared on a mission).
To reiterate, today's 70,136 WWII missing have little to do with the Missing in Action of WWII. This unfortunate reuse of the word missing, instead of an alternative such as unaccounted for, continues to cause sloppy writers of history to make mistakes and casual readers to then draw erroneous conclusions.
Lists of the WWII missing are available at https://www.dpaa.mil, the website of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. DPAA is charged with finding and identifying remains of US military members from all wars.
Burials at sea are accounted for. However, those lost at sea, for whom there was no burial ceremony, are viewed as unaccounted for even if it is known how, when, and where they died. Consequently there is no reasonable hope of ever finding the remains of a goodly number of the so-called WWII missing.
Sources for Big Pigeon's WWII US > Casualties > Missing webpage:
- https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaFamWebWWII - search feature is at the bottom of the webpage.
- https://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/WWIIAccounting/philippines.html - list of 4,519 individuals, mostly Philippine Scout members of the US Army. Americans captured in the Philippines who died on Hell Ships are likely not included.