Two hundred fifty Americans missing from past wars were identified in fiscal 2026, a record for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The total tops the agency’s previous record of 231, set in fiscal 2025. Of the 250, 198 were lost in World War II, 51 in the Korean War and one in the Vietnam War.
The 250th identification was an Army captain from California who died as a prisoner of war in 1945 and had been buried as an Unknown since the years after the war.
The figures come from a release dated Oct. 7, 2026 and distributed through DVIDS, “Fulfilling Our Nation’s Promise: A Record 250 Identifications in Fiscal Year 2026.” It states: “This exceeds the previous record of 231 that the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) made in FY 2025.” It breaks the total down by conflict: “These 250 accounted-for Service members include 198 from World War II, 51 from the Korean War, and one from the Vietnam War.”
Who the 250 were
The release also counts the identifications by service. The Army accounts for 136, the Army Air Forces for 76, the Navy for 20 and the Marine Corps for 15, with one from the Air Force and two federal civilians. The heavy World War II share reflects where most of the missing are: Stars and Stripes, reporting the record on Oct. 7, 2026, said roughly 75% of losses are in the Indo-Pacific region and more than 41,000 of the missing are presumed lost at sea.
The mix shifted from the year before. DPAA’s Nov. 13, 2025 report on its fiscal 2025 results said that record year’s 231 identifications included “165 from World War II, 58 from the Korean War, and eight from the Vietnam War.” Fiscal 2026 added 33 more World War II identifications while Korean War and Vietnam War totals fell.
Capt. Albert P. Wilcox, the 250th
The identification that reached 250 was U.S. Army Capt. Albert P. Wilcox, 39, of California. According to the Oct. 7 release, he was a prisoner of war in the Philippines during World War II and was killed in 1945 when the Japanese transport ship Enoura Maru was mistakenly sunk. His remains were recovered after the war but could not be identified, and he was buried as an Unknown.
His identification came through DPAA’s Enoura Maru Project. The release says DPAA began the project to disinter “the Enoura Maru Unknowns” from the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu and moved the remains to its laboratory in Hawaii for identification. A DPAA Public Affairs article dated May 31, 2023 described the Enoura Maru as “a cargo ship used by the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II to transport prisoners of war,” said the project would disinter 431 Unknowns associated with the ship, and noted that “nearly 1000 service members are unaccounted for from this incident.” The same article said DNA testing and analysis would take several years because of the project’s size and complexity.
Wilcox’s remains will be returned to his family, who will decide on his final resting place, the release says.
The work still ahead
DPAA’s military and civilian staff work worldwide; the release says the agency is “operating in 54 countries around the world.” The accounting mission itself is older than the agency. Stars and Stripes reported that the military began more deliberate personnel accounting in 1973, which led to DPAA’s establishment in 2015.
Even a record year is a small fraction of the total. 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 the Stars and Stripes report on the fiscal 2026 record. Against that number, the 250 identifications of fiscal 2026 are the largest single-year total in DPAA’s record.
Top image: A Jan. 30, 2015, ceremony at which JPAC, DPMO and the Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory merged to form the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Chris Hubenthal — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.