US Dept joins NFSU to look for 400 personnel missing since WWII
AHMEDABAD: The Department of Defense of the USA has intensified efforts to find and recover the remains of its over 400 personnel who had gone missing in India during World War II by joining hands with Gandhinagar-based National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU).
Scientific experts at the NFSU will help the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency (DPAA), a part of the Department of Defense (DoD) of the USA, to recover and identify these missing personnel to bring closure to their families.
“The mission of DoD agencyDefense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting
Agency (DPAA) is to provide the fullest possible accounting for the missing personnel to their families and their nation,” DPAA mission project manager at NFSU, Dr Gargi Jani, has said.
She said the Agency’s teams locate, identify, and repatriate the remains of the unaccounted-for service members from America’s past conflicts including World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and Iraq and Persian Gulf Wars.
“There are over 81,800 Department of Defense personnel of the US who are still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Cold War, and the World War II, and over 400 are missing in India,” she said in a statement.
Jani said the NFSU will scientifically and logistically assist the DPAA in their mission.
“Partnering with DPAA in their noble mission is an honour, NFSU-DPAA will leverage the joint efforts in India to provide with fullest possible accounting to families of the missing personals,” Jani stated.
The DAPP recently facilitated the last rites of US citizen Justin G Mills (25) who had died in World War II in 1943.
“Marine Corps Reserve 1st Lt. Justin G.Mills of Galveston, Texas, killed during World War II, was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery May 26, 2021. In November 1943, Mills was killed on the small island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll of the Gilbert Islands, in an attempt to secure the island in the fight with Japanese forces.