Welcome To DPMO

"Keeping the Promise", "Fulfill their Trust" and "No one left behind" are several of many mottos that refer to the efforts of the Department of Defense to recover those who became missing while serving our nation.

More than 83,000 Americans are missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War. Hundreds of Defense Department men and women -- both military and civilian -- work in organizations around the world as part of DoD's personnel recovery and personnel accounting communities. They are all dedicated to the single mission of finding and bringing our missing personnel home. The mission requires expertise in archival research, intelligence collection and analysis, field investigations and recoveries, and scientific analysis.

Recently Accounted-For

Starting in 2012, recently accounted for service members will be listed in the chronological order that they are accounted for, which means that the families have been notified. In previous years, they were listed by the date of identification. The highlighted names are linked to a more detailed news release on that serviceman's identification.

  • Pfc. Gerald W. Kight,U.S. Army, 82nd Division, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was lost on Sept. 28, 1944, near Groesbeek, Netherlands. He was accounted for on April 19, 2012.
  • Cpl. David L. Catlin,U.S. Army, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 31st Regimental Combat Team, was lost on Dec. 2, 1950, near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. He was accounted for on April 16, 2012.
  • Cpl. Clyde E. Anderson, U.S. Army, Medical Company, 31st Infantry Regiment, assigned to the 31st Regimental Combat Team, was lost on Nov. 28, 1950, near Kaljon-ri, North Korea. He was accounted for on April 13, 2012.
A complete listing of recently account-for servicemembers can be found on the Recently Accounted-For page.

News Releases



A complete listing of News Releases can be found on the News Releases page.

Briefly... May 2012

Interagency Personnel Recovery Working Group

DPMO hosted the Interagency Personnel Recovery Working Group on April 30th, 2012. This working group, comprised of 19 Executive Branch agencies, is a sub-working group of the National Security Staff's Hostage and Personnel Recovery Working Group. The major efforts center around implementing national personnel recovery via the Presidential Directive. The group focused on implementation updates, how to recover isolated personnel in a host nation-led environment, developing table top personnel recovery exercises, and discussed future participation in the Department's Angel Thunder personnel recovery exercise in 2013.

DPMO Moscow office

Researchers are reviewing materials at three Russian Archives: the Russian State Military Archives (RGVA), the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF), and the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO). The first two, RGVA and GARF, contain documents on the Soviet involvement in repatriating U.S. POWs liberated from German captivity at the end of WWII, as well as potential information on the handful of U.S. servicemen that were liberated by the Soviets and are still listed as missing. Additionally, we continue to work in TsAMO with documents related to the Soviet involvement in the Korean War.

Vietnamese Documents

During semi-annual U.S. - Vietnam technical talks in Hanoi, on May 4, officials from the Vietnam Office for Seeking Missing Persons provided several archival documents that the U.S. has been seeking for several years. Although analysis is pending translation, DPMO assesses that this is another positive step forward in the maturing U.S. - Vietnam relationship.

Investigations in Italy

A joint DPMO/JPAC team of four historians and analysts, supported by a translator from the Army's Military Intelligence Reserve Command, recently returned from a successful mission to Italy and Austria where they investigated seven loss incidents involving eleven MIAs from World War II. These investigations derived from historical research using archival records and contacts with local authorities and researchers in both countries. The team located several aircraft crash sites and conducted research in local archives and cemeteries in both countries. The team enjoyed assistance from municipal authorities in each of the cities visited. The team also met with the superintendent of the American Battle Monuments Commission Sicily-Rome Cemetery in Nettuno and collected data concerning the 490 unknown remains interred there.

A complete listing of the 2012 brieflies can be found on the Brieflys Page

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2011 POW/MIA Recognition Day Poster

Electronic images of the 2011 poster are still available on the DPMO web site at: http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/pow_day/. Additionally, a "high-res" version may be downloaded for large printing jobs.

Previous years' posters are also available for download on the DPMO web site at: http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/posters/

POW/MIA Bracelet Inquiries

Members of the public often contact DPMO requesting information on servicemen for whom they wore a Vietnam War POW/MIA bracelet. They usually wish to contact the person or his family so they can send them the bracelet that they wore. Since we cannot provide the public with private addresses we have on file, we recommend forwarding a postage-affixed letter to the respective serviceman's casualty office with a cover letter explaining the request.

If the service casualty office has a current address, they will forward the letter to the serviceman or his family. At that point, the serviceman or family member may choose to contact the concerned citizen and provide them with an address to send the bracelet. There is no guarantee that this process will work. Many of the former POWs are no longer in contact with their service casualty office and this also applies to the families.