The Department of National Defence’s Casualty Identification Program needs help. They have found living DNA donors for 10 of the 16 Canadian Army soldiers missing in Korea, but they are having trouble finding the families for six of the soldiers.
If you are related to Private Donald Frederick Bradshaw (Bracebridge, ON), Private Robert Gendron (Donnaconna, QC), Corporal Donald Perkins Hastings (North Vancouver, BC), Private John Paul Keating (Toronto, ON), Private Joseph Edward Kilpatrick (Montreal, QC), or Sergeant Gordon William Morrison Walker (Montreal, QC), who went missing more than 70 years ago, you are encouraged to register.
Family members of these missing soldiers can provide DNA information that can be key to identification.
The request for family members was issued yesterday on Korean War Veterans Day, which marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the war. From 1950 to 1953, more than 26,000 Canadians left their homes and loved ones to travel across the world to help protect the people of South Korea against North Korea’s invasion.
The Casualty Identification Program works to identify newly found skeletal remains and pre-existing unknown graves of Canadian service members from the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War.
When skeletal remains are discovered, the program attempts to identify the Canadian service members and provide them with a proper military burial. When historical research suggests a Canadian occupant of an unidentified war grave, the program attempts to confirm the identification and, if successful, requests a new headstone with the service member’s name.