For decades, Mr. Wakum and others have combed the Biak battlefields and nearby islands, recovering weapons, munitions and bones of soldiers.
Mr. Wakum says he has found the dog tags of 30 Americans and wears some around his neck. He sold others years ago to help pay for his brother's education and now regrets doing so.
There is a photo accompanying the article of the dog tag of Fred W. O'Connor, who survived the war, but lost it on the island.
Last year, the U.S. and Indonesian governments agreed to establish a joint operation to find and repatriate the remains of American soldiers lost in action across the vast archipelago which is Indonesia. Biak is a heavily forested island about he size of Maui that lies off the northwest coast of New Guinea.
He and a cousin recently explored an area of coral outcroppings where American soldiers had camped during the battle and that is where they found the dog tag of Fred W. O'Connor of Schenectady, New York. Soldiers losing their dog tags was fairly common.
The O'Connor family was notified and quite astounded by the news. Mr. O'Connor served in the infantry in Papua, New Guinea and the Southern Philippines campaigns and participated in major assaults without ever being wounded.
He died in California in 2004 at age 83.
--GreGen
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