The American Graves Registration Service (AGRS ), a section of the
Office of the Quartermaster General,
had the responsibility to locate, recover, and identify POWs.
At some point the Legal Section, Investigation Division,
within the Supreme Commander Allied Powers ( SCAP ), became involved.
For those 25 POWs who were identified,
the process was fairly straight forward.
For the remaining 37 Unknowns, efforts to identify these men
continued until early 1950.
Their remains were considered Non-Recoverable.
Documents in this section offer insights of what took place
from the Recovery of Remains in February 1946 until early 1950.
Below is a diagram of the Tokyo Military Prison.
The American POWs were confined in Block 4 and
their attempts to escape the fire were blocked by Japanese guards.
All of the ~350 Japanese prisoners were allowed to escape.
At the bottom are two sketches.
The first shows the location of the mass grave in relation to the
buildings
and the second where the remains of the POWs were recovered.
