A soldier from Massachusetts who went missing during the Korean War and was later reported to have died in a prisoner of war camp has been accounted for using modern scientific techniques, military officials said.
Four former POWs reported in 1953 that Puopolo had died at a POW camp in February 1951.
After the war, the sides exchanged remains, but not all could be identified and those were buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, the agency said. A set of previously unidentified remains were disinterred in December 2019, and identified as being those of Puopolo through dental and anthropological analysis, mitochondrial DNA analysis and circumstantial evidence, the agency said.
The family hopes to hold a burial service for Puopolo in another month or so either in a family plot in Malden or the veterans' cemetery in Bourne, Graham said. Puopolo was one of six children, all of whom had large families of their own, and as many as 60 or 70 relatives might show.