Vietnam War MIAs

Deep Web Diver · Jul 29, 2004

Air Force Link: U.S. POW/MIA official cites breakthrough in Vietnam

7/29/2004 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- A U.S. official announced July 28 that accounting operations will soon resume in the Central Highlands of Vietnam to account for missing Americans lost during the Vietnam War.

Technical experts from the United States and Vietnam will meet in September in Pleiku, Vietnam, to review cases and interview witnesses as an initial step.

Jerry D. Jennings, deputy assistant secretary of defense for prisoner of war and missing personnel affairs, met with Gia Lai Province officials in Pleiku on July 27 to discuss the return of American POW/MIA investigators, whose access had been denied for three years because of local unrest. Senior province officials agreed operations will resume and that they should be conducted in the same manner as in the rest of the country.

"I am very pleased that Vietnamese officials both at the provincial and central government levels are again willing to allow us access to this sensitive region," Mr. Jennings said. "This is a very positive step."

Mr. Jennings has notified U.S. investigators to resume contacts with officials in Vietnam's central highlands in order to schedule operations. Of the 1,855 Americans missing from the Vietnam War, some 110 are thought to be in the central highlands area.

Achieving the fullest possible accounting of missing Americans is of the highest national priority, said officials. Of the 88,000 missing from all conflicts, more than 125 are from the Cold War, 8,100 are from the Korean War, and 78,000 are unaccounted-for from World War II.
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[ 19. March 2005, 05:59 AM: Message edited by: Deep Web Diver ]

mott5ranch · Jul 31, 2004

Does anyone know of a site that lists all the missing in action?

Stevin · Aug 1, 2004

Try http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pow/powhome.html

and http://www.abmc.gov/abmc47.htm . This last one is the American Battlefield Monument Commission site. No database with names, but they are able to help if you want a picture of a name on the Honolulu memorial were the 2000+ MIA's are mentioned by name.

mott5ranch · Aug 1, 2004

Thanks Stevin! That's the info I needed!

Deep Web Diver · Nov 3, 2004

U.S. Department of Defense: MIAs Identified from The Vietnam War, November 2, 2004

Six servicemen missing in action from the Vietnam War have been identified and are being buried as a group at Arlington National Cemetery Friday with full military honors.

They are Air Force Col. Theodore E. Kryszak of Buffalo, NY; Air Force Col. Harding E. Smith of Los Gatos, Calif.; Air Force Lt. Col. Russell D. Martin of Bloomfield, Iowa; Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Harold E. Mullins; Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Luther L. Rose of Howe, Texas, and Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Ervin Warren, of Philadelphia.

On June 3, 1966, the crew was aboard an AC-47 "Spooky" gunship flying a nighttime armed reconnaissance mission over southern Laos. At about 9:25 p.m., the aircraft radioed, "we have a hot fire," and another radio transmission was heard to order "bail out." Witnesses reported the aircraft was on fire, then crashed into a heavily wooded area 30 miles northeast of Tchepone, in Khannouan Province, Laos. No parachutes from the crew were observed and no emergency beepers were heard. An aerial search of the site found no evidence of survivors.

In cooperation with the Lao government, a joint team of U.S. and Lao specialists traveled to a suspected crash site in Khammouan Province in October 1994 where a villager took them to an area where personal effects, aircraft wreckage, crew-related materials and a crew member's identification tag were found.

In May-June 1995, a joint U.S.-Lao team excavated the site where they recovered human remains as well as identification media of other aircrew members. The U.S. recovery team members were from the Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI). CILHI scientists applied a wide array of forensic techniques to the recovered remains, including comparisons of dental charts and x-rays, as well as the use of mitochondrial DNA sequencing.

The DNA sequencing was done by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, whose results aided the CILHI scientists in identifying the remains. More than 88,000 Americans are missing in action from all conflicts. Of these, 1,849 are from the Vietnam War. The CILHI is now part of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.
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Sinclair · Nov 4, 2004

I read something about this in the New Yorker. Apparently the acidity of the Vietnamese soil means that stuff decays really quickly, making the job even harder.

It's also sort of creepy to think that in a lot of modern wars, "Missing in Action" just means "couldn't find the various body parts". Think of all the men in WWI who were MIA after getting blown to bits by a shell or drowning in a crater full of mud.

Deep Web Diver · Mar 19, 2005

U.S. Department of Defense: Missing in Action Serviceman Identified, March 18, 2005

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. Navy pilot, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Navy Commander Thomas E. Dunlop of Neptune Beach, Fla., will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on March 21.

On April 6, 1972, Dunlop took off in his A-7E Corsair II from the USS Coral Sea on a bombing mission of enemy targets in Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam. While over the target area, his aircraft was struck by an enemy surface-to-air missile and as his wingman watched, Dunlop’s aircraft exploded in a fireball and crashed. No emergency beeper signals were received from the area of his crash.

In April 1993, joint U.S. and Vietnamese teams interviewed five residents of Quang Binh Province about the crash, but the information did not further the investigation. In 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1998, U.S. and Vietnamese investigators interviewed at least 13 other people in the province without results. Meanwhile, U.S. survey teams visited potential crash sites in 1995, 1998 and twice in 2002. Again, no useful information was obtained.

Then in 2003 and again in 2004, specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated a crash site where they found aircraft debris, personal effects and human remains later identified by JPAC scientists as those of Dunlop.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,836 are from the Vietnam War with 1,399 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another 747 Americans have been accounted for since the end of the Vietnam War.
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Ali Morshead · Mar 19, 2005

Expect this role to take forever, they are still finding lost aircraft in Papua-New Guinea 60 years down the road. Many of these are found relativly close to points of civilization, it doesnt take long for the jungle to reclaim its territory.

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