Hello ADBC'ers and Friends,
We have a request and some news.

First, the request.
We're in the last stages of our research for our book on Bataan, Corregidor, the Death March, prison camps, hell ships, labor camps and liberation.   We just returned from Japan where we interviewed 22 former Japanese soldiers who fought on Bataan (Joe Vater asked us to write a report on the trip for the next QUAN) and now we are going through archives on the East Coast, checking and double-checking the material we collected in over 300 interviews with American, Filipinos and Japanese.   And we could use help with three items:

1. We would very much like to speak with anyone who worked in FUKUOKA #2 and anyone that knew Dan Emery of Idaho.

2. We would like to speak with anyone who fought at QUINAUAN Point.

3. We would like to speak with anyone who had any contact with JAPANESE POW'S CAPTURED ON BATAAN.

4. We would like to interview men who fought at the water tower on Corregidor, literally on it or at its base.

Now the news.
Michael has been quietly and, until now, anonymously working with the Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.   The CIL is the unit that locates, exhumes, identifies and repatriates the remains of American service men missing from WWII, Korea and Vietnam.   (Use your browser to find their WEB site.)   From our work with a few Bataan vets, we believe that there may be many POW's still buried at the Basaid River in Camarines Norte, the site of the infamous Tayabas Road detail (306 men went out from O'Donnell on May 22, 1942; 118 came back on July 28).

Michael discovered the original site in July 1999 after 11 hours of searching.   We returned there in January, waded down river and located the exact spot of the bivouac and what we believe was the POW grave site.

Paul Reuter gave us a list of 64 names, men originally buried at the site, names officers collected at Cabanatuan (In fact Paul estimates there are some 80 men buried there).   The army checked the files of those men on the list and found that more than half are still missing.   Their bodies were not recovered.   The army is double checking their research even as we write this, and if their initial findings prove correct, they plan to send an investigative team to the site to make some tests, perhaps later this year or early next.

The head of the CIL is Rick Huston, a Vietnam veteran.   He is very conscientious and an easy man to work with.   The lab has been under-funded for years, so their list of sites is a long one.

Recently, Rick got an e-mail from an officer on active duty in Korea who reported some additional bodies that might be in the Philippines.
Here is part of an e-mail Rick sent to us:

We have also had another reporting of graves in PI, not associated with
Tayabas.   A 2nd LT in Korea has a young troop who is married to a local.
While they were in PI on leave they were shown graves of what is reported
to be American MIA from the Bataan death march. We have ran the names, but
nothing so far. I will include them here just to see if you have had any
kind of reporting on the names.   We're still working to confirm the area
they are located in. Apparently the young soldier is back in Korea at his
unit and his wife remained with her parents in the PI.

Francis or Francois Dawson
Michael Grunier
Michael or Mario Vitale
Frederick Pasquelli
Vito Deleon
Henry Sampson


There are others interred also, however we don't have their names currently.

I know the ADBC has a lot of projects, a lot of irons in the fire, and I know how busy many of your members are with the law suits.   But if the organization or its members could write to the army and urge them to give Rick Huston more resources so he can put into the field more search teams (or call your political contacts and have them urge the army to make these decisions), then maybe we can finally bring home all the men who fought on Bataan and Corregidor.   Also if anyone knows any of the names above, please e-mail or write to Rick Huston.

Rick Huston
Casualty Data Officer
Army Central Identification Lab
94-720 Lanikuhana Ave.
Mililani, HI 96789
HustonR@hickam-cilhi.army.mil

For more information on the men missing from Tayabas Road or some of the lobbying people have done with the POW/MIA agency, please call or write to former POW Paul Reuter (301) 839-7735 who is keeping a file on the case.

Thank you,
Michael and Beth Norman



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Michael Norman
Associate Professor
Department of Journalism and Mass Communication
New York University
10 Washington Place
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212-998-7864
mn2@is2.nyu.edu
michael.norman@nyu.edu

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