By mid-December 1950, key officers with previous Graves Registration experience were being assembled in the Tokyo Area to form a nucleus for the Zone Headquarters and other units necessary to accomplish the mission. Preliminary plans called for the location of such an installation in Korea; however, reconnaissance failed to reveal any buildings or facilities which were considered suitable. Construction of adequate facilities was estimated to require a period of 60 to 90 days. At the same time the entrance into the war of the Chinese Communist Forces on the side of the enemy had already caused our forces to withdraw from areas in North Korea where they had established small temporary United Nations cemeteries. The enemy forces were pressing steadily southward, and it was difficult to estimate where their advance would be checked. hurried reconnaissance revealed that adequate facilities could be developed in buildings immediately available at Camp Kokura on the northern tip of Kyushu, the southern-most of the four major islands of Japan.
Evacuation operations were started immediately on the premise that these remains could be held in temporary mausoleums at Kokura pending the acquisition of personnel and facilities to begin actual processing operations.
On January 2, 1951, Zone Headquarters was activated at Kokura, together with a Field Operating Section to which eventually would be assigned the necessary embalmers to perform the mission. That first day a nucleus of 10 officers, 51 enlisted men, and 1 civilian was available for duty. On the same date the ship carrying the remains from the Inchon Cemetery docked at Kokura, and this small group labored side-by-side for two 16-hour days in reverently unloading, transporting, and placing all remains in assigned locations in the mausoleums. At the same time our Graves Registration units in Korea proceeded to disinter other temporary cemeteries in South Korea including those at Taejon, Taegu No. 1 and No. 2, and Masan. The remains from these cemeteries were all transferred to Kokura and placed in suitable mausoleums in less than four weeks.
By late January, remains from the cemetery at Miryang were also disinterred and transferred to Pusan, Korea, for trans-shipment to Kokura. At this time, the advance of the enemy had been checked, and it was apparently at we were not going to be forced to withdraw from the entire Korean peninsula. During this same mouth a new United Nations Military Cemetery had been established at Tanggok on the outskirts of the City of Pusan, to which all United Nations casualties were then evacuated for interment. It was determined that the remains from the Miryang Cemetery should be temporarily reinterred in the Tanggok Cemetery until such time as the large numbers already transferred to Kokura could be processed.
At this time a decision was made in the Far East Command and approved by the Department of Defense to return all American casualties to their homeland on the premise that it would be inadvisable to establish any permanent cemeteries in Korea. On the 22nd of January, The Central Identification Unit arrived from Fort Lee; initial supplies had already been received; laboratory and office facilities had been readied; and the actual processing of remains for identification commenced on 29 January 1951.
During the next four months the majority of remains being held at Kokura were processed for identification, embalmed, casketed and prepared for shipment to the United States. In the Central Identification Laboratory, teams of military and civilian technicians examined the remains in detail for the purpose of recording all information concerning physical characteristics, together with any other information, which would assist in the identification of that individual. Fingerprints were taken wherever it was physically possible; tooth charts were prepared by dental technicians; hair color, skin pigmentation, height, shoe size, and numerous other items were recorded. Personal effects found upon the remains, together with various items of clothing, were examined in detail in an adjoining chemical laboratory. Where chemical means failed, infrared photography was used to bring our faded writing, serial numbers, laundry marks, and similar information from the items examined. In the main laboratory skilled photographers recorded on film all tattoos, scars, physical abnormalities, and fingertip dermi in cases that could not be fingerprinted. Bone malformations and peculiar tooth and cranial formations were also photographed as well as dentures, upon which the man's name or serial number was frequently inscribed. A fluoroscope was used to check all clothing removed from remains for additional bone fragments and to inspect the remains to determine the extent of injuries arid type of missile causing death. X-rays were also taken of portions of the body when there was reason to believe that the deceased had suffered serious bone injury prior to death. By this means. X-ray evidence of an old fracture could be compared with the man's medical records as an additional means of confirming his identification.