News-Info-Alerts

Re: Recovery In Laos

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: February 19, 2003

"Coast Guard pilot's body recovered from Laos

Molly Kavanaugh Plain Dealer Reporter

In the months following the June 9, 1968, helicopter crash in the jungles of Laos, Carol Rittichier held onto hope her husband was still alive.

The two met at Kent State University and within two months became engaged. After 11 years of marriage, they told people they were still on their honeymoon.
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Lt. Jack Rittichier, a pilot with the Coast Guard, had arrived in Vietnam just two months before the crash. "I just want to save lives as much as I can," the 34-year-old Barberton native wrote his wife.

And that is what he was trying to do that summer morning. As he swung the "Jolly Green Giant" helicopter near the downed attack pilot, enemy fire came at him until finally his HH-3E chopper tumbled to the ground and exploded.

Rittichier's body and those of his three crew members were never found.

His wife, now remarried and living in California, said she had assumed that people had quit looking for him and that he would never be found.

Yesterday she was overjoyed to find out she was wrong. "I can't believe he was not forgotten," the 65-year-old woman said.

On Friday remains recovered from the crash site will be brought to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu. Positive identification cannot be made for several months, but forensic testing is expected to confirm the remains belong to Rittichier and the three Air Force men, said Petty Officer Lauren Smith, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.

The crew were Capt. Richard C. Yeend, 29, of Mobile, Ala.; Sgt. James D. Locker, 21, of Sidney, Ohio; and Staff Sgt. Elmer L. Holden, 24, of Oklahoma City, Okla.

"They are almost 100 percent sure this is indeed the site," said Smith, who visited the remote area last month to photograph the excavation for the Coast Guard.

The crash site, a six-hour drive plus a 90-minute helicopter ride from Vientiane, the capital of Lao People's Democratic Republic, was discovered in November.

In addition to remains and helicopter pieces, search and recovery teams have found some personal effects. They include a pocketknife, part of a watch, a boot sole and a bar ensign which probably belonged to either Capt. Yeend or Lt. Rittichier.

The 23-year-old Smith said people work ing at the site, some of them locals, know this mission was important. "These are re mains that have been waiting for a long time to come home," Smith said.

Rittichier's widow, now Carol Wypick, said his death was hard to accept. "When it happened, I just wanted to die," she said. "I couldn't believe someone so cool, so wonderful, was taken."

The oldest of three boys, Rittichier had many talents, she said. He majored in art, loved to write, was captain of the football team and was a great dancer.

The two did not plan to have children because their lives felt so complete together, she said. After graduating from Kent, Rittichier joined the Air Force but eventually decided that being a bomber pilot was not for him.

He wanted to be a helicopter traffic reporter, but those jobs were scarce. So he joined the Coast Guard to fly search and rescue missions. The couple moved near the Coast Guard station at Selfridge Air Force Base in Mount Clemens, Mich., where a hangar now bears his name.

When he got the chance to go to Vietnam for a year as an exchange pilot, Rittichier signed up, then told his wife. He wanted to write a book about the war and figured he'd better see action firsthand.

His letters and the tapes he sent home spoke of uncertainty over the war and concern for the Vietnamese. He was the first Coast Guard combat casualty and the only Coast Guard member missing in action from the Vietnam War.

"His mother and I used to say, he's not dead, he's running around in the jungle," Wypick said.

Rittichier's parents are now deceased.

But over time, as the years multiplied, all of them knew in their heart he was gone, Wypick said. And so they prayed for this day, the day his remains would be found.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: mkavanaugh@plaind.com, 800-767-2821

© 2003 The Plain Dealer"