Excerpt from H. R. 4000 Restoration of Missing Persons Act: Hearing Before the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the Committee on National Security, House of Representatives One Hundred Fourth Congress, Second Session; Hearing Held September 10, 1996

To be very honest with you, my dad was the beginning - or his group was the beginning - the Seabees. There were no Seabees at the time. It was contractors and civilians that did the work of building the bases and providing the infrastructure for our uni formed men and women to do their job during any war. The civil ians are a part of that effort as much I think as anyone, even though the Seabees is now an official uniformed body. They were not at that time. My dad was the beginning or the precursor or the preface to the Seabees. They were not an official group. That came later, of course. But they did what the Seabees did, and that is went in with their carpenters and heavy equipment and made the runways and barracks and built the facilities that made the war effort effective. It would be impossible for the government not to be involved in that, and I don't know who the families could turn to otherwise.

Mr. Dornan. At 15, when did you find out that some of the younger prisoners had been left behind were executed in late 1944?

Mr. Packard. We didn't know that until after the war. We had no idea that some of the prisoners - it was by chance that my dad wasn't one of those 200 that was left behind that was executed a year or two later in a vicious way, in a very brutal way. It was really fortunate that my dad was able to spend his time in the pris on camp there even though he was beaten and mistreated, but he survived, and he wouldn't have survived had he been left on Wake Island to service the needs of the Japanese occupiers.

Mr. Dornan. I had a discussion on this point with a very thoughtful Defense Department lawyer this morning. He seemed very reasonable. He made the point that civilians can walk away anytime they want, they can quit their contract and jump on a plane for home, I guess, was the example he was making.

But there are examples, and it didn't occur to me this morning, it was very difficult to leave Wake Island between December 8 and December 24, and the one pby Catalina that left was a very lucky young officer carrying an intelligence package. He was ordered to go, and I think a nurse or two, and that was it. So that was a case I did not think of where there are Situations in war where even the civilians just can't walk off the battlefield and disappear.

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