Missing soldier searches expand to WWII

BAULER, Germany, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- An unheralded U.S. military unit says it is trying to account for more than 84,000 Americans still listed as missing from the nation's previous wars.

The 400-member Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, based at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, had for the most part concentrated on finding the remains of U.S. soldiers unaccounted for in the Vietnam War.

But now, under pressure from military families, its mission has been expanded to determining the fate of 74,000 soldiers listed as missing in World War II, such as the search for a pilot killed in Bauler, Germany, during the Battle of the Bulge, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Johnie Webb, deputy commander of the unit, told the newspaper the military is motivated to "bring everyone home," no matter how much time has passed, adding, "We maximize the resources we have, both personnel and money. That's the best we can do until somebody says, 'We're going to give you the resources to do more.'"

"Vietnam had advocates," Lisa Phillips, the president of the World War II Families for the Return of the Missing, told the Times. "This was an older generation, and they didn't know who to turn to."