The remains of Cpl. Robert Witt are being returned to his family 64 years after he went missing during the Korean War. Vikki Vargas reports for the NBC4 News at 5 and 6 p.m. on Oct. 28, 2015.
Corporal Robert Witt disappeared during a battle that some thought would end the Korean War.
General Douglas MacArthur pushed his troops through the Chosin Reservoir. Thousands were killed. The corporal from Bellflower became a prisoner of war.
"I had received a letter from him saying 'don't worry about me. I'm not in the front lines," says Laverne Minnick, Witt's sister.
Witt had joined the Army as a teenager. His family says he quickly grew into a man, a lover of photography, with a Japanese girlfriend. He was a mail clerk when he was captured.
The letter reporting him missing in action arrived in 1951.
Valerie Davis never knew her uncle. But she watched her mother suffer for decades, unsure what had become of her older brother.
"For many years we really didn't talk about it and we didn't think about it too much," says Davis, his niece. "My parents lived for many years not knowing ... no letters, nothing."
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Then in 2008 Minnick was asked for her DNA. Eight years earlier the U.S. and North Korea had excavated bones yet to be identified.
Minnick says her brother's femur bones were in two separate locations. He died in captivity.
It cleared up a lot of questions that no one could answer, Minnick says.
Last week Witt's remains arrived at LAX. His sister is the only person alive who knew him.
"All these years I have wanted him to be home with us," she says.
Friday he will be buried with full military honors.
