News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci
(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: DPMO Update

Date: June 03, 1998

Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update

MARINE PILOT ACCOUNTED FOR

The remains of an American serviceman previously unaccounted-for from Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial in the United States.

He is identified as U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Harold J. Hellbach of New Orleans.

On May 19, 1967, Hellbach was flying a close air support mission over Quang Binh province, North Vietnam, when he radioed to his wingman that his F-8E Crusader had been hit by enemy fire. Hellbach said he was losing hydraulic power and was attempting to head for the coast. As the wingman watched, however, the aircraft rolled, inverted, and crashed. No parachute was sighted, and no emergency beeper signals were monitored. The follow-on search and rescue effort met with negative results.

During two archival team visits in 1993 by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, researchers found photographs in two military museums of aircraft wreckage that seemed to correspond to the date of Hellbach's loss.

In January 1997, a joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam team visited the area depicted in the photographs and interviewed local villagers. The villagers led the team to a cultivated field where they indicated an aircraft had crashed. The team recovered fragments of cockpit glass and pieces of an aircraft engine.

Another joint team returned in August 1997 to excavate the crash site. They recovered numerous pieces of aircraft wreckage, pilot-related and life-support items and human remains.

Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii confirmed the identification of Hellbach. With his identification, 2,089 Americans remain unaccounted-for from the Vietnam war.

PRESIDENT CLINTON HIGHLIGHTS COMMITMENT TO MIAs

In the annual ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery, President Clinton highlighted the debt this nation owes to its veterans. Just hours before the ceremony, North Korea released remains which had been recovered in a joint recovery operation which began on April 21.

As he spoke, the President noted that the nation stands in silence each Memorial Day to remember and to honor "the known and the unknown who gave their all for our nation."

"As spring turns to summer, Americans around the nation take this day to enjoy friends and family. But we come again to Arlington to remember how much was given so that we could enjoy this day and every day in freedom. We come to this sacred ground out of gratitude and profound respect for those who are not here but who gave all so that we might be here."

Speaking of a historic event which occurred earlier at that site, he said "Eleven days ago a Vietnam veteran was removed from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was the right course of action, because science has given us a chance to restore his name and bring comfort to his family, and we had to seize it. But whatever happens, we must always remember that the stone represents the many unknown soldiers still in Vietnam and Korea, in other theaters where Americans lie far away from home, missing in action, still with us in spirit. They may be unaccounted for, but we must all be accountable for their memories as well.

"We take comfort in something Chaplain Leo Joseph OÍKeeffe reminded us of at the ceremony on May 14th, that if some names are unknown to us on earth, all names are known to God in heaven.

"And, ladies and gentlemen, ƒwe can give special thanks on this Memorial Day. Last December we negotiated an agreement with North Korea that entitled us to send five teams to their country to search for Americans. Early this morning at 2:00 a.m., the remains of two soldiers believed to be Americans were repatriated to the UN Command Honor Guard at Panmunjom on the DMZ. They are coming home this Memorial Day."