KANSAS — A senior Pentagon analyst says he thinks there’s a chance that missing Kansas native Emil Kapaun’s body is buried with other Korean War soldiers in Hawaii. The Wichita Eagle reports Philip O’Brien, who is an expert on Korean War soldiers missing in action, says he thinks Kapaun’s body is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the “Punchbowl.” Kapaun, who was from Marion County, was a Catholic Army Chaplain who died of starvation and disease in a North Korean prison camp in 1951. He was awarded the medal of honor in April and the Catholic Church is deciding whether he will be a saint. O’Brien says after the truce ending the Korean War, the Chinese Army dug up about 560 American bodies in and around the area Kapaun was buried and sent them back to the US. He says the US Army didn’t preserve DNA samples nor try to identify the bodies. Since then, he says scientists have tried to identify them and have been narrowing the list. He says there’s a good chance that Kapaun could be found among the remaining 55 unidentified soldiers. He says the army kept Kapaun’s dental records and chest x-rays, and that Kapaun was noticeably taller and older than the average Korean War soldier.
Updated 8/23/13 @ 10:00 am
