On the afternoon of July 9, the Steering Committee for the Search, Recovery and Identification of Martyrs' Remains in Ho Chi Minh City held a ceremony to receive wartime records and memorabilia from the research team behind the Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive's initiative to locate Vietnamese missing in action at Texas Tech University in the United States.

The handover forms part of the city's intensive 500-day campaign to search for, recover and identify the remains of martyrs whose identities or burial locations remain unknown.

At the ceremony, the research team presented the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee with three categories of documents: personal records relating to three martyrs - Huynh Van Tai, Vo Hong Linh and Nguyen Minh Tien, all from Ho Chi Minh City; records identifying the burial locations of 21 martyrs at K76A Hospital; and decoded military designation files for Unit 962 and several other military units.

Among the materials were 10 wartime military photographs and a structural map of an airfield taken during the Lunar New Year (Tet) Offensive in 1968. The images show numerous soldiers' bodies gathered in one location. The team also handed over four documentary films recorded by the US military at the site.

New evidence for search efforts

Ta Thu Phong, a representative of the research team, said the photographs and documentary footage constitute valuable sources of information for the search for missing martyrs' remains.

"In the coming period, our research team will focus on surveying the area around Tan Son Nhat Airport," Phong said.

The materials were compiled and analyzed from more than 2.7 million pages of wartime documents created by the US military and now preserved at Texas Tech University. The archive is intended to help Vietnamese authorities supplement existing data, verify witness accounts, conduct field surveys and gradually determine the burial locations of martyrs whose resting places remain unknown.

Associate Professor Alex Thai, head of the research team, said the group has been working closely with Vietnamese authorities to support the search for and identification of martyrs' remains in Ho Chi Minh City.

He noted that martyrs' remains recently discovered at Le Thi Rieng Park were linked to the designation of a military unit. Within just two hours, the research team retrieved more than 200 related files and narrowed them down to the core records concerning the unit that had fought in the Chu Y Bridge area.

According to Alex Thai, identifying a martyr involves several stages: historical research, information-based tracing, recovery of remains and DNA analysis for identity verification. He said his team is able to support both the initial research stage and the final identification process.

Strengthening the search for missing martyrs

Speaking at the ceremony, Nguyen Manh Cuong, vice chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, said he was deeply moved to take part in the city's efforts to search for and recover the remains of war martyrs.

He thanked the research team for its continued cooperation and valuable support, particularly for providing documents related to K76A Hospital and three martyrs from Unit 962 (Long An Battalion 1), including martyr Huynh Van Quen. The information has strengthened the evidence available for locating and identifying the remains of missing martyrs.

Cuong said that historical records within Vietnam documenting wartime burial locations are extremely limited, making every page of the archive provided by the research team especially valuable. The materials will provide the city with additional evidence as it searches for collective burial sites in the future.

Following the handover, the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Committee 515 will review, classify, archive and utilize the documents in accordance with regulations. It will also work with relevant agencies to cross-check information, conduct field verification and integrate data from war veterans, historical witnesses, martyrs' relatives and local authorities.

Verification of family members and the return of personal artifacts will be carried out once all necessary conditions have been met.

Phuoc Sang