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By Rose L. Thayer
Stars and Stripes
Published 7 October 2026
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency had a record year in fiscal 2026 — identifying the remains of 250 service members lost in past conflicts.
The effort embodied the U.S. military’s principle to “never leave a fallen comrade,” the agency said Tuesday. Among the 250, 198 fought in World War II, 51 in the Korean War and one service member fought in Vietnam.
“The United States of America is resolved to never forget the warriors who answered the call to duty, made the supreme sacrifice, and never came home,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. “Through DPAA’s determined efforts, all 250 of these heroes will finally be home.”
The military began in 1973 the more deliberate tracking of its personnel accounting mission to recover and identify Americans missing from past conflicts, which paved the way for DPAA’s establishment in 2015. Nearly 81,000 Americans remain missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf Wars and other conflicts, according to DPAA. Roughly 75% of the losses are located in the Indo-Pacific region, and more than 41,000 of the missing are presumed lost at sea.
Fiscal year 2025 held the previous record for the agency with 231 service members identified.
Of the 250 identified in 2026, 136 served in the Army, 76 in the Army Air Forces, 20 in the Navy, 15 in the Marine Corps, one served in the Air Force, and two were federal civilian employees, according to DPAA.
The 250th service member to be identified was Army Capt. Albert P. Wilcox, a 39-year-old from California. He was a prisoner of war in the Philippines during World War II before being killed when the Japanese transport ship Enoura Maru was mistakenly sunk in 1945, according to DPAA.
Wilcox’s remains were recovered after the war but were unidentifiable. He was buried as an unknown. DPAA began the Enoura Maru Project in 2022 to disinter unidentified remains from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punchbowl, in Honolulu for identification.
Wilcox will be returned to his family, who will decide on his final resting place.
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