Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office

The Research Participation Program for the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) provides opportunities to participate in on-going historical research and analysis projects that facilitate accounting for missing American military personnel.  The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office provides policy, control, and oversight for the mission to recover and account for Department of Defense personnel who become isolated, captured, or otherwise missing while serving our nation during hostilities.  One of DPMO’s primary missions is to account for—to locate, recover, and identify—military personnel whose remains were not recovered from past conflicts, including World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the 1991 Gulf War.  To accomplish this humanitarian mission, DPMO works with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, responsible for remains recovery and identification, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Armed Forces DNA Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory and the Department of State. 

There are approximately 78,000 Americans still missing from World War II, many of whom were lost at sea or buried with full military honors as unknowns in national cemeteries.  Since 2004, DPMO has expanded its WWII personnel accounting efforts, including developing the first ever by-name list of WWII service personnel whose remains were not recovered or identified after that war in the Personnel Missing World War II database (PMWWII) and responding to family inquiries regarding loved ones missing from that war.