Korean War chaplain’s remains identified after 70 years in US military cemetery

A long-missing U.S. Army chaplain’s remains have been identified after nearly seven decades, the Pentagon announced.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Friday it has accounted for the remains of Capt. Emil Joseph Kapaun, a recipient of the Medal of Honor. Kapaun died as a prisoner of war in 1951 during the Korean War.

North Korea turned over Kapaun’s remains to the United Nations Command in 1953 but they had been among 867 sets of remains that were not identified before transportation to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, according to ABC News.

“After 70 years Chaplain (Capt.) Kapaun has been accounted for. His heroism and resilient spirit epitomized our Army values of personal courage and selfless service,” acting Secretary of the Army John E. Whitley said in a statement.

Kapaun’s fellow prisoners of war had for years told stories of both serving alongside him ad his ministry in the POW camp, Kapaun’s nephew Ray told ABC News in 2013.

“All of the stories that came out — that my grandmother would even tell us — all of that came from the POWs,” he said. “You talk to these guys and a lot times, when they first met him, they didn’t even realize he was a priest or a chaplain. He was just one of the guys.”

“At night, he slipped into huts to lead prisoners in prayer, saying the Rosary, administering the sacraments, offering three simple words: ‘God bless you.’ One of them later said that with his very presence he could just for a moment turn a mud hut into a cathedral,” then-President Obama said in 2013 at Kapaun’s posthumous Medal of Honor ceremony.

In addition to the medal, Pope John Paul II named Kapaun a Servant of God in 1993, the first step toward sainthood.

The Diocese of Wichita, Kan., is still in the process of determining the details of the transport of the remains and final interment, according to ABC.