Rescue 16 WWII MIAs from Saipan
Donation protected
My name is Yukari Akatsuka. I am Secretary General of, KUENTAI-USA which I established in April 2014 in the State of North Carolina. Our mission is to find and return the remains of US servicemen missing in the Pacific since WWII. This mission parallels that of our sister organization, Kuuentai-Japan (http://kuuentai.jp/) which focuses on the 1.2 million Japanese soldiers still unaccounted for.
I begin by thanking you for giving me this opportunity to reach out to you, and share our quest to return home the remains of WWII soldiers, sailors, and marines 'As many and as quickly as possible'.
Interest in our mission is expanding and this is a perfect time to bring this important matter to your attention. There are 43,000 WWII US servicemen still missing in action in the Pacific, and KUENTAI-USA wants to bring them home. I am here to request your support.
Backhoe making a trench to locate the unmarked grave on Saipan (September 2014).
You may question how I, a Japanese citizen became involved in this noble mission to repatriate the remains of American servicemen, especially since Japan and the United States were mortal enemies at the time. Let me explain.
It was in July 2013 working with Kuuentai-Japan when I first participated in field work on Saipan to repatriate the remains of Japanese soldiers, but some of the remains I discovered were actually American.
This was obvious due to the artifacts accompanying the remains as well as certain physical characteristics. Although outside of our mission to search for Japanese remains, I felt strongly that these fallen Americans deserved the very same consideration and that real peace and justice will never be achieved if we ignore those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. This experience motivated me to establish KUENTAI-USA.
Establishing KUENTAI-USA, I had no intention of bypassing the cognizant US agencies and made every effort to reveal my findings to them and offered to coordinate these finds. Unfortunately this did not go well initially, as we found ourselves hindered by bureaucratic guidelines and procedures. As a non-profit group on a very tight budget and schedule, we had no choice but stop our ongoing field work and rebury remains we would find. In fact, in September 2014, while operating 'in the red', we had to place a soldier's remains back into the ground as directed by a US agency. We had no other choice.
Human remains uncovered.
The human remains are put back to the soil.
It was painful for us to put this soldier's back into the ground. The physical and emotional effort was draining. Prior to applying the last shovelful of earth, volunteers from both countries gathered around his remains and prayed in their own private way. Since then, I have led a strong effort to resolve all issues with the US agencies and get the necessary approvals to go back to the field and continue our search. I am pleased to say that we are making progress. However, both the US and Japanese governments have directed that it is KUENTAI-USA must bear all costs of excavation, retrieval, and identification of the remains we uncover. Until now, we have only relied on ourselves and several volunteers to cover all expenses.
There is also a time-critical urgency overarching our mission. The site on Saipan where we have verified American remains has been on a sale with a development plan to a foreign business. This business has definite plans to excavate the site with heavy equipment and build a condominium complex. It is remotely possible that the construction workers or archaeological surveyor may accidentally find remains of fallen Americans, but the probability of this happening is very small. That is why we are trying to complete a thorough search of this site, and now we are back to Saipan to start the field research from Oct 26th 2015 before it's too late. This is because I have a fear that unless we move quickly, many remains of American servicemen will be lost forever. We cannot allow this to happen.
Thank you very much for your attention. I sincerely hope you respond favorably to my request for financial assistance.
To give you the ”image” of the total cost for this project, here is the estimate:
Estimate for 14-days field work from Oct 26th 2015:
Backhoe (machines and operators): $22,400
- $800/day * 2 machines
Pre-Investigation (Including information gathering at the archives and museums in all over the States in the past years):
$20,000
Airfare, Accomodation, Transportation, Meals, and Drinks:
- $1,200/ day *5 person $84,000
Archaeologists/ Anthropologists (Including field work, reports, per diem, etc):
$30,000
TOTAL (as of Oct 25th 2015): $156,400
It is time to bring our heroes back home.
For more information, please visit www.kuentai-usa.com
Thank you.
Yukari Akatsuka
Secretary General
KUENTAI-USA (501(c)3 non-profit organization)
I begin by thanking you for giving me this opportunity to reach out to you, and share our quest to return home the remains of WWII soldiers, sailors, and marines 'As many and as quickly as possible'.
Interest in our mission is expanding and this is a perfect time to bring this important matter to your attention. There are 43,000 WWII US servicemen still missing in action in the Pacific, and KUENTAI-USA wants to bring them home. I am here to request your support.
Backhoe making a trench to locate the unmarked grave on Saipan (September 2014).You may question how I, a Japanese citizen became involved in this noble mission to repatriate the remains of American servicemen, especially since Japan and the United States were mortal enemies at the time. Let me explain.
It was in July 2013 working with Kuuentai-Japan when I first participated in field work on Saipan to repatriate the remains of Japanese soldiers, but some of the remains I discovered were actually American.
This was obvious due to the artifacts accompanying the remains as well as certain physical characteristics. Although outside of our mission to search for Japanese remains, I felt strongly that these fallen Americans deserved the very same consideration and that real peace and justice will never be achieved if we ignore those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. This experience motivated me to establish KUENTAI-USA.
Establishing KUENTAI-USA, I had no intention of bypassing the cognizant US agencies and made every effort to reveal my findings to them and offered to coordinate these finds. Unfortunately this did not go well initially, as we found ourselves hindered by bureaucratic guidelines and procedures. As a non-profit group on a very tight budget and schedule, we had no choice but stop our ongoing field work and rebury remains we would find. In fact, in September 2014, while operating 'in the red', we had to place a soldier's remains back into the ground as directed by a US agency. We had no other choice.
Human remains uncovered.The human remains are put back to the soil.It was painful for us to put this soldier's back into the ground. The physical and emotional effort was draining. Prior to applying the last shovelful of earth, volunteers from both countries gathered around his remains and prayed in their own private way. Since then, I have led a strong effort to resolve all issues with the US agencies and get the necessary approvals to go back to the field and continue our search. I am pleased to say that we are making progress. However, both the US and Japanese governments have directed that it is KUENTAI-USA must bear all costs of excavation, retrieval, and identification of the remains we uncover. Until now, we have only relied on ourselves and several volunteers to cover all expenses.
There is also a time-critical urgency overarching our mission. The site on Saipan where we have verified American remains has been on a sale with a development plan to a foreign business. This business has definite plans to excavate the site with heavy equipment and build a condominium complex. It is remotely possible that the construction workers or archaeological surveyor may accidentally find remains of fallen Americans, but the probability of this happening is very small. That is why we are trying to complete a thorough search of this site, and now we are back to Saipan to start the field research from Oct 26th 2015 before it's too late. This is because I have a fear that unless we move quickly, many remains of American servicemen will be lost forever. We cannot allow this to happen.
Thank you very much for your attention. I sincerely hope you respond favorably to my request for financial assistance.
To give you the ”image” of the total cost for this project, here is the estimate:
Estimate for 14-days field work from Oct 26th 2015:
Backhoe (machines and operators): $22,400
- $800/day * 2 machines
Pre-Investigation (Including information gathering at the archives and museums in all over the States in the past years):
$20,000
Airfare, Accomodation, Transportation, Meals, and Drinks:
- $1,200/ day *5 person $84,000
Archaeologists/ Anthropologists (Including field work, reports, per diem, etc):
$30,000
TOTAL (as of Oct 25th 2015): $156,400
It is time to bring our heroes back home.
For more information, please visit www.kuentai-usa.com
Thank you.
Yukari Akatsuka
Secretary General
KUENTAI-USA (501(c)3 non-profit organization)
Organizer
Yukari Akatsuka
Organizer
New Bern, NC
