Embassy News
U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Visits JPAC Excavation Site at Lake Balaton
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Colonel McGrath and Ambassador Foley watching the water screening of the remains
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On July 25, 2007, U.S.Ambassador to Hungary April H. Foley and Defense Attaché Colonel Kevin McGrath traveled to Nemesvita near Lake Balaton to visit a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavation site for a B-24H "Liberator" that crashed in a bombing mission to Austria during World War II near Lake Balaton on June 30, 1944. There was one unaccounted-for American, Ssgt Martin Troy, who went down with the plane.
Ambassador Foley met with the team of 8 Americans, led by USMC Capt. George Murphy and JPAC archeologist Dr.Bradley Sturm, as well as with their team from the Hungarian Defense Ministry and the local municipality. In her remarks to the team, in the presence of a select group of Hungarian journalists, Ambassador Foley emphasized the importance of JPAC's mission to account for all missing American service members from the nation's past wars. She said, " every soldier is entitled to one certainty, that he will not be forgotten; and the mission of men and women of JPAC deployed to some of the most remote and rugged areas on earth is to keep that promise alive."
The JPAC team has been working in Hungary since the end of June and is due to conclude work approximately on July 31. Dr. Sturm told journalists that only following a thorough investigation at the Central Identification Laboratory at JPAC's headquarters in Hawaii will it be possible to state that remains that were found in Hungary were those of Ssgt Martin Troy.
JPAC has 16 Recovery Teams whose members travel throughout the world to recover missing from the Vietnam War, the Korean War, World War II and the Gulf War. JPAC teams are currently searching for 8100 U.S. military lost during the Korean War and 1800 lost in the Vietnam War.
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