A joint U.S.-Japan investigation team was dispatched for the first time in 2024 to Iwoto Island, formerly known as Iwojima, to recover the remains of U.S. soldiers who perished at the fierce battle site in the Pacific between the two countries, a senior U.S. defense official said in a recent interview.
Kelly McKeague, director of the U.S. government's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, told Kyodo News that the team made progress in cross-referencing archival records and exchanging information as part of efforts to recover around 100 U.S. military personnel, out of the 6,821 who died in the Battle of Iwojima, who remain unaccounted for.
The joint effort to recover war dead "speaks again to an opportunity to achieve reconciliation," McKeague said, adding that the two countries' shared values "bring us together as allies."
Regarding the possibility of the United States cooperating in the recovery of Japanese soldier remains in the future, McKeague said, "we see great value in a strong partnership, primarily with scientific exchanges."
He expressed hopes that Japan would allow the use of its advanced technology in isotope analysis, which helps determine the nation of origin of remains, to more places in the world. Its use is currently limited to Okinawa and some island nations in the Pacific.
According to McKeague, the bodies of most of the American soldiers who died were recovered following the battle. Their remains were returned to their families after their identities were confirmed using ID tags, uniforms and dental records, while the 49 who were unidentifiable were buried in cemeteries in Manila, the Philippines, and Honolulu, Hawaii.
The Battle of Iwojima lasted about a month from when U.S. forces landed in February 1945, with an estimated 21,900 Japanese and 7,000 U.S. soldiers killed. The island was returned to Japanese sovereignty in 1968 and officially renamed in 2007.
According to Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, around 11,190 of the Japanese soldiers who died in the battle remained unrecovered as of January.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, based at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, is a specialized U.S. agency that works to locate missing personnel from past conflicts and recover the remains of the war dead. In 2019, the agency signed a Memorandum of Arrangement with Japan's health ministry to collaborate in recovery of remains from World War II.
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