Directorate of Coordination
RAAF HQ
Canberra, Australia
(No webpage - MIAs reported on ADF website)

The RAAF and Australian Army have worked to locate and recover Missing In Action (MIA) from the Pacific since the war.

Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) MIAs From WWII and Korea
There are approximatly 2,500 WWII RAAF airmen still listed as MIA from operations in the Pacific, South East Asia, North Africa and Europe and from training accidents in Australia and Canada. There are 17 RAAF MIAs from the Korean War and two from Vietnam.

RAAF Searcher Teams
The Australian Defense Force (ADF) does not have an organisation such as JPAC. The responsibilty for historic MIA cases are the individual services. For the RAAF, this responsiblity is under the Directorate of Coordination in Air Force HQ.

RAAF Searcher Team began at the end of the war, led by Squadron Leader Rundel. Others leaders include Edward Plenty and most recently Greg Williams.

The Air Force has most involvement with MIA cases. There is the occasional recovery of WWI Army personnel from the battlefields of Europe and some from WWII in PNG and other theaters.

In the past 10 years Air Force has recovered approx. 24 airmen and soldiers from 10 RAAF aircraft crash sites in PNG, Indonesia Holland and Germany. The Army are currently in the process of repatriating the remains of two soldiers who have been found in Vietnam.

The average time taken on site to recover the remains from an aircraft crash site confirmed as a missing RAAF aircraft is usually about 5-10 days in the field.

The burial is usually about 6-12 weeks after positive identification and notification to NOK. With few exceptions, most cases in PNG are finalised in a matter of months of the first advice to Air Force regarding a potential new site. The two recent cases in Germany and the C-47 in West Papua took much longer for a variety of reasons.

Dental records are the main tool used to identify individuals. The dental records of the 100,000+ enlisted into the RAAF during WW11 are retained in archives. In cases where individual ID is not possible but it is confirmed that the remains can be attributed to all on board, burial is in a common grave with individual headstones erected.

There is one person in the directorate with prime responsibility for MIA matters. This is usually one of many responsibilities of the position as recoveries or investigations of new reports are very infrequent. As you would be aware, the last recovery in PNG was the crew of Beaufighter A19-217, found south of Kokopo in 2000. In my view there may not be too many more as I believe that most are in the ocean.

References
The Searchers by Jim Eames