Families seek answers as officials prepare for possible recovery work

South Korea and the United States signed the memorandum in Omaha as South Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs hosted families of prisoners of war and service members missing in action at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum. The event included large military aircraft, Korean War exhibits, signs pointing toward Seoul and Incheon, and a display about the World War II bombing of Tokyo. The Seocho Philharmoniker performed U.S. and South Korean military songs, Korean traditional music and classical works.

Among those attending were Rick Downes and Donna Knox, whose father, U.S. Air Force 2nd Lt. Harold W. Downes Jr., disappeared during a nighttime mission over North Korea. Rick was 3 when his father went missing. Donna was born about six weeks afterward.

Rick said his father lives more in his heart than in his memories. Donna described the uncertainty as “a wound that never really heals.”

Rick learned about his father through stories, photographs and letters preserved by his mother, while Donna learned about him through the stories her mother told. Rick said their mother kept him “alive in our memories.” Harold Downes was 26 when he disappeared, and his wife was 25.

Downes had briefly served during World War II before graduating from the University of Michigan and reporting for his first civilian job. On his first day, he received notice that he had been recalled to military service from the reserves. Rick recalled a family story that his father responded by saying he had not even had time to sharpen his pencil.

After additional training, Downes was sent to Korea. He was aboard a B-26C Invader bomber on a nighttime mission over North Korea when the aircraft was lost. Donna said the pilot and navigator survived and were taken prisoner, remaining in captivity until the end of the war.

Because Downes was classified as missing rather than killed in action, his family held onto the possibility that he might return. “We kept hoping and waiting, but as time went on, that hope faded,” Donna said. “We missed him and didn’t know what had happened.”

The family was initially told that the survivors had said Downes was dead. Years later, when Rick and Donna located and spoke directly with the survivors, the men said they had never made such a statement and did not know whether Downes had survived.

Kang Yun-jin, South Korea’s vice minister of patriots and veterans affairs, said the delegation traveled from Seoul to Omaha to convey the gratitude of the South Korean people to families of missing U.S. service members. Kang said the agreement reflects a commitment by both countries to search for their own service members and those of their ally and return them to their families.

Kang also recalled President Lee Jae Myung’s remarks at a June 5 ceremony for the reciprocal repatriation of Korean and U.S. war remains. Lee said returning heroes who had been unable to come home for decades to the embrace of their countries was “our historic responsibility as those who survived.”

The ministry announced the “7,359 Stars and Stripes That Must Be Brought Home” campaign. It expands an initiative launched in 2020 for missing South Korean troops. The ministry plans to produce 7,359 individually numbered badges and discuss with U.S. officials how they could be distributed to families and members of the American public.

The earlier campaign, “122609 Taegeukgi That Must Be Brought Home,” used a badge modeled after the South Korean flag draped over wooden boxes carrying recovered remains. The new campaign will use the Stars and Stripes. South Korea also plans to invite families of missing and captured service members to visit the country and tour former battlefields and other places linked to their loved ones.

Kang said 7,359 American service members who served in the Korean War remain unaccounted for. The South Korean ministry said about 1.789 million U.S. service members served in the war and 36,574 were killed. The ministry said it will continue a campaign built around the principle “No Hero Left Behind.”

U.S. officials described preparations for possible recovery work in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. Dawn Berry, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s Indo-Pacific chief of research for Korea, the Cold War and China, described the DMZ as a high-priority area during a panel discussion on DMZ strategy.

Berry said the agency had recently added 20 cases involving bodies not recovered from the DMZ to its master investigation list for the first time. She said working south of the Military Demarcation Line is currently easier, while researchers are also examining cases involving areas that cross the line or lie inside North Korea.

“We want to be as prepared as possible when we are able to get into North Korea,” Berry said. The agency is considering investigating within roughly the next two years the loss of a single-seat U.S. Marine Corps aircraft near White Horse Hill, where South Korean recovery teams are already working.

Gabe Zinni, the agency’s Indo-Pacific senior planner for Korea, the Cold War and China, described a recovery mission in the DMZ as one of the most complex operations the agency has planned in the past 25 years. Active and historic minefields and unexploded ordnance in the area would require cooperation with the South Korean military, South Korea’s remains-recovery agency, the United Nations Command and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, he said.

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Jeremy Smith, the agency’s Indo-Pacific deputy director, said agency personnel visited recovery sites in the DMZ in May and that another visit by officials involved in operations was being coordinated. The agency said the May mission included observation of South Korean recovery operations at White Horse Hill and a joint visit near Hill 111.

Rick and Donna have traveled to North Korea in search of a greater connection to their father’s final mission. “We’ve both been to North Korea,” Donna said. She said being close to the place where he disappeared gave her a sense of connection to him.

Rick said he hopes dialogue among the United States, South Korea and North Korea will eventually make it possible to resume searches for missing personnel inside North Korea. If investigators located the crash site, he said, they might find local residents with knowledge of what happened.

“Personally, like everybody here tonight, I’m still looking for answers,” Rick said. “Unfortunately, most of our answers are inside North Korea.” Donna said finding her father’s remains could provide clues about his final moments and answer questions the family has carried for generations.