News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Hanoi on the Web

Date: November 09, 1999

Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update
November 9, 1999

MISSING IN ACTION SERVICEMEN IDENTIFIED

The remains of seven American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial in the United States.

They are identified as Major Thomas H. Amos, USAF, of Springfield, Mo.; Captain Mason I. Burnham, USAF, of Portland, Ore; Sergeant First Class William S. Stinson, US Army, of Georgiana, Ala.; and four other servicemen. Their names are not being released at the request of their families.

On April 20, 1972, Amos and Burnham were flying escort to an AC-130 on a night mission over Quang Nam Province near the Vietnam-Laos border. As another aircrew marked a target, Amos radioed that he was lining up his F-4D Phantom aircraft for the ordnance run. Shortly thereafter, the crew of the AC-130 reported seeing a large fireball on the ground. Subsequent attempts to contact Amos and Burnham were unsuccessful. Search efforts were continued for three days but proved unsuccessful.

In May 1993, a joint US/Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) team traveled to Quang Nam-Da Nang Province and interviewed two local villagers who claimed to have possession of remains collected from the crash site of a jet aircraft. At that time, the men also produced material evidence, including identification tags for both Amos and Burnham.

Two months later, a second team reinterviewed the two villagers who added that the remains in their possession had been turned over to the Vietnamese government the previous May. In January 1994, a third joint team took possession of those remains.

Other teams traveled to the supposed aircraft crash site in 1994, 1995, and 1998 to obtain additional evidence to support identification. Additional remains were recovered as were numerous crew-related items and aircraft wreckage. On June 1998, the site was closed to further excavation because of the presence of large amounts of unexploded ordnance.

On January 8, 1973, Stinson and other crew members were on board a UH-1H Huey helicopter over Quang Tri City, South Vietnam which was believed to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile. Aerial searches of the area following the incident failed to locate the aircraft's crew or wreckage.

In August 1993, a joint team interviewed witnesses to a 1972 helicopter crash in a river near their village. Two of the witnesses provided information on the burial of several bodies near the crash site, but indicated several had been exhumed in subsequent years. In 1994, a second team interviewed other witnesses who led them to a cemetery in which some claimed to have buried remains, which the team recovered. Returning to the crash site in 1996, a team excavated a burial site and recovered human remains and personal effects from three separate graves.

Analysis of the remains and other evidence by CILHI confirmed the identification of each of these seven servicemen. With the accounting of these servicemen, 536 Americans have been identified from the war in Vietnam and returned to their families. There are currently 2,047 Americans still unaccounted-for from that war.

VIETNAMESE ESTABLISH SENIOR CELL

Last month, Vietnam's Office for Seeking Missing Persons (VNOSMP) inaugurated a special cell of senior investigators, known as the Special Research Cell, to conduct research in support of unilateral activities. Vietnamese officials describe the cell as having five functions: first, to support unilateral activities; second, to follow up on the backlog of questions and recommendations regarding unilateral investigations; third, to receive new requests from the U.S. requiring unilateral attention; fourth, to work long term plans and projects; and last, to receive visitors such as Congressional delegations, as well as to provide information to other high level dignitaries.

NEW OUTREACH EFFORT THROUGH MAINE FAMILY UPDATE

A small team of DPMO and Armed Forces DNA Laboratory specialists met last weekend in Bangor, Me. with family members of missing in action servicemen. DPMO recently developed a program to reach out into communities with smaller population bases, beyond those cities visited monthly under the family update program. Fourteen family members met with officials in Bangor.

The presentations included information on the worldwide accounting effort, as well as the role that DNA identifications can play in accounting for missing in action servicemen. Several towns in sparsely populated areas have been identified as potentials for these periodic meetings, to include cities in Idaho, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska and Maine. In preparation for meetings in these towns, the military service casualty offices provide names of known family members in those areas. These individuals are invited to attend the sessions. Family members of MIA servicemen should contact their respective service casualty offices for more information on this program.

JCSD EXPANDS CONTACTS IN BULGARIA

The pro-democratic newspaper Anti published an appeal recently for information regarding unaccounted-for American servicemen, shortly after two DPMO staff members visited Bulgaria in September and October. No responses have been received to date, but the appeal may be published later in one of Bulgaria's larger newspapers. A Bulgarian television reporter who visited North Vietnam during the war has expressed an interest in meeting with DPMO staff members during their next visit. DPMO has received information that some former Bulgarian military attaches to North Korea and North Vietnam may be willing to meet to discuss the POW/MIA issue in the near future. Leads are also being explored to arrange for the team to meet with former ambassadors to the regions of interest before determining the dates of the next trip to Sofia.

NORTH KOREAN OPERATIONS CONCLUDE FOR 1999

The final joint recovery operation for this year has concluded in North Korea. The operation began following the late October repatriation at the Pyongyang Sunan Airport of four sets of remains believed to be those of U.S. servicemen lost during the Battle of the Chongchon River. This operation continued the search of the Chongchon River area (as did those earlier this year and 1998). It is about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, and was the site of heavy fighting between the U.S. Eighth Army (2nd and 25th Infantry Divisions) and the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army in November and December of 1950. The remains found by the team are expected to be repatriated on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

PLENUM UNDERWAY IN MOSCOW

U.S. members of the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs are in Moscow for the commission's sixteenth plenum. It is scheduled to continue through Nov. 11.

Agenda topics were prepared for each of the four working groups that represent the core issues facing the commission: World War II; the Korean War; Cold War, and Vietnam War.

This session will be the first one at which Maj. Gen. Roland Lajoie will serve as U.S. Co-chairman, a position he has held since replacing Ambassador Malcolm Toon last December. It is also Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs Bob Jones' first opportunity to participate in the commission's formal proceedings and have a close look DPMO's field office operations at our embassy in Moscow.

Specific points to be addressed at the plenum are defined by the individual working group. The general theme is to seek ways to further cooperation on POW/MIA issues. Stalwart topics such as intensifying and expanding archival research and probing numerous reports about American servicemen on Soviet territory immediately following World War II and through much of the Cold War period, are expected to be underscored throughout the plenary session.

LATVIAN REMAINS SEARCH

Remains discovered in a Latvian cemetery thought to be associated with a 1950 loss of a U.S. Navy PB4Y2 Catalina were disinterred last month in hopes they might represent missing in action American servicemen. Anthropologists and odontologists from the U. S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory determined through the use of dental records, however, that these remains could not be associated with the loss of the Navy aircraft. Interviews with other sources in Latvia will continue, however, in the search for information on that crew. This case is also being examined in the ongoing meeting in Moscow of the U. S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs.

Published by the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office
2400 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-2400 (703) 602-2102
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