For decades it has been the mission of a highly specialized government agency to recover and identify those who have been lost in war.
Now, a new mission is underway in the Philippines that revolves around a sunken Japanese ship that the U.S. attacked in 1944, not realizing it carried close to 300 American prisoners of war who perished that day.
Kelly McKeague is a retired Air Force major general and the director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Also a Damien Memorial School alum, he sat down with HPR to talk about this new undertaking.
The DPAA facility in Pearl Harbor is the largest skeletal laboratory in the world, and it focuses on the recovery and identification of service men and women. Their new mission in Subic Bay in the Philippines began in February.
This story aired on The Conversation on March 4, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
