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## News Release

# Marine MIA From Vietnam War Is Identified (Widener)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have beenidentified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Pfc. James E. Widener, U.S. Marine Corps, of Churchville, N.Y. He will be buriedon Friday at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

On June 11, 1967, Widener was one of 11 passengers on board a CH-46A Sea Knighthelicopter that was inserting ground forces into Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, when theaircraft crashed. Pilots from two nearby helicopters saw the crash and reported that none of themen on board could have survived. Aircraft flew over the site for several hours, but aircrewdidn’t observe and survivors. A patrol was sent the next day to confirm the status of the 11crewmembers, but the site could not be accessed due to enemy forces in the area. Later thatmonth, enemy activity prevented a second attempt to patrol the site.

Between 1993 and 1994, U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by theJoint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted two surveys of an area that wasbelieved to be Widener’s crash site. The teams also interviewed several Vietnamese citizens whorecalled the crash. Two of the citizens claimed to have seen bone fragments while scavenging thesite years earlier. When the teams visited the purported crash site, they found small pieces ofwreckage, but found no human remains.

In May 2005, Vietnamese officials notified U.S. specialists that possible human remainswere present at a district security compound in Quang Tri province. The Vietnamese claimed tohave confiscated the remains and other items, including Widener’s identification tag, from aVietnamese local in 1996. The remains were then buried in the security compound, but the ID tagand other material evidence had supposedly been lost over the years. Later that month, aU.S./S.R.V. team excavated the burial site in the security compound and recovered a boxcontaining human remains.

Among dental records and other forensic tools and circumstantial evidence, scientistsfrom JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNAfrom two known maternal relatives to confirm the identification of the remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, visit the DPMO web site at or call (703) 699-1169.

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