The New Zealand Defence Force has begun repatriating two service personnel buried in South Korea.
A blessing ceremony was held yesterday at the United Nations Military Cemetery in Tanggok, Busan, ahead of the exhumation of Royal New Zealand Navy telegraphist Peter James Mollison and New Zealand Army driver Herbert Lester Humm.
Mr Mollison, a 19-year-old from Whakatane, died in 1957 of an illness at the US Army’s 121st Evacuation Hospital in Incheon.
Mr Humm, a 24-year-old from Christchurch, died from injuries sustained when a vehicle in which he was a passenger crashed while he was posted to 10 Transport Company, Royal New Zealand Army Service Corps.
Kaumātua and an NZDF chaplain led the ceremony at the grave sites, which included waiata and prayers.
The remains will be returned to their families at an arrival ceremony at RNZAF Base Auckland on 7 October.
This is the fourth tranche of project Te Auraki (The Return), under which the NZDF is bringing home personnel and dependents buried overseas after January 1955, following a change in Government policy.
A team led by an NZDF doctor includes bioarchaeologists, forensic anthropologists and NZDF odontologists (dentists) assisting with the identification of the remains,
Once identified, NZDF personnel conduct a continuous vigil around the caskets until the remains are handed over to their families in New Zealand.
This follows the repatriation of three NZDF personnel from Fiji and American Samoa in May, 27 personnel and one dependant from Malaysia and Singapore in August, and two personnel from the United Kingdom this month.
SHARE ME