Pentagon investigates location of military chaplain’s remains

As the country gets ready to celebrate Veterans Day, a senior Department of Defense analyst responsible for locating the remains of Korean War troops missing in action said there is a “better than even chance” that the body of Medal of Honor recipient Father Emil Kapaun will be found buried in a national cemetery in Hawaii, Roy Wenzl said.

Wenzl is coauthor of “The Miracle of Father Kapaun,” published by Ignatius Press.

In a recent story for The Wichita Eagle, Wenzl wrote that friends of Father Kapaun’s who were prisoners of war say Chinese Army guards buried the priest in a shallow unmarked grave after he died of starvation and disease in a North Korean prison camp in May 1951. The Army’s assumption has always been that Father Kapaun’s remains are still in North Korea.

But Pentagon analyst Philip O’Brien, an authority on Korean War soldiers missing in action, said he thinks Father Kapaun’s remains may have been resting—since 1954—in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the cemetery in Hawaii better known as the “Punchbowl.” Hundreds of unknown soldiers and other veterans from several wars lie there.

“My best belief, a presumptive belief, is that we have a good chance—better than even—of having Father Kapaun in possession right now,” O’Brien said.

Father Kapaun posthumously received the Medal of Honor from President Obama in April, nearly 60 years after he heroically gave his life as a POW in the Korean War. The Vatican is also considering him a possible candidate for sainthood. Vatican officials made a visit to the United States in September to gather additional information.

Father John Hotze, the Wichita Diocese priest in charge of the Father Kapaun sainthood investigation for the Vatican, said finding Father Kapaun’s remains would be significant news. The church would step in immediately and coordinate with the family to protect the remains from theft, relic hunters or any other harm, he said.