Re: One Last Mission; Ex-POW Flies MIA Remains Home

Date: May 22, 2004

"POW pilot: There and back again

Vietnam captive flies 'Hanoi Taxi' to carry MIA remains
By Timothy R. Gaffney Dayton Daily News

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — More than 31 years ago, Edward J. Mechenbier flew out of North Vietnamese captivity on a C-141 transport plane later dubbed the "Hanoi taxi."

Today Mechenbier, 61, an Air Force Reserve major general and the last Vietnam-era prisoner of war still flying in the Air Force, will begin a return flight to Hanoi in the same airplane — this time at the controls, on a mission to retrieve the remains of fallen comrades.

It's to be the last operational mission for the Beavercreek resident, now mobilization assistant to the commander, Air Force Materiel Command, and a still-active pilot who flies with the 445th Airlift Wing.

Both the command and the wing are based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

As final flights go, this one will be a whopper — halfway around the world with stops in Hawaii, Guam and Thailand. Far more than the "flight around the flagpole" that Mechenbier says he expected to make to wrap up 40 years of military flying.

But in an interview Friday, Mechenbier downplayed his role in the mission, which was scheduled to begin this morning with a flight to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

"The primary purpose of the mission is not my fini tour," he said, using a phrase that refers to a pilot's final flight.

He called the mission "a chance for the 445th to prove once again how valuable it is."

The wing's two squadrons fly all over the globe to support missions ranging from Antarctic supply flights to aeromedical evacuations of sick or wounded personnel from Iraq. But the repatriation of Vietnam war dead, overseen by the Pentagon's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam, is usually handled by newer C-17 transport jets.

This flight will bring a strong dose of deja vu, not just to Mechenbier but to any Vietnamese old enough to have seen the giant American jet glide out of the sky and land at Gia Lam Airport on Feb. 12, 1973.

C-141s today are painted dull gray. But the Hanoi Taxi — tail number 66-0177 — looks as it did then, thanks to an Air Force decision to restore its historic colors during its last overhaul two years ago.

Mechenbier was an Air Force major flying F-4C Phantom fighter jets when he was shot down over North Vietnam on his 80th mission in June 1967. He was captured and held prisoner in Hanoi for nearly six years.

In 1973, 0177 was the first of three Starlifters to land in Hanoi under Operation Homecoming, the repatriation of American POWs held by North Vietnam. Mechenbier was among 40 who boarded 0177 for a flight to the Philippines. The Starlifters carried 112 POWs to freedom that day, the first of 591.

The plane is scheduled to land in Hanoi on Thursday. A ceremony to receive the remains at Hickam is scheduled for June 2.

As of Friday morning, Mechenbier said he didn't know whether the remains have been identified.

He said the idea to make this his final mission was proposed by two other pilots, Lt. Col. Brian Dominguez and Maj. Rick Webster of the wing's 356th Airlift Squadron. Webster is the mission commander, Mechenbier said.

"They got the brilliant idea that it sure would be nice if they could fly a repatriation mission in the Hanoi Taxi with me at the controls," he said.

Mechenbier said he feels no special need to revisit the country that once held him captive.

"I don't have any psychological need for closure. If I did I'd have gone back a long time ago," he said.

Contact Timothy R. Gaffney at 225-2390.
© Cox Ohio Publishing, Dayton, Ohio, USA"

AND

"U.S. Ex-Vietnam Prisoner to Fly Home MIA Remains 

HANOI (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force pilot shot down during the Vietnam War and held for nearly six years in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" is due next week to fly home with remains believed to be those of fellow servicemen missing in action.

Major General Edward Mechenbier is to pilot the C-141 transport that will carry at least one and possibly two sets of remains discovered during a search for American MIAs (Missing in Action), a statement from the U.S. MIA office in Hanoi said.

Mechenbier, stationed at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, will retire following the May 27 repatriation flight, the statement on Friday said. The C-141, dubbed the "Hanoi Taxi," is the same aircraft that carried Menchenbier back to freedom in 1973.

The MIA remains are to be flown to Hawaii for forensic identification before families are notified. Two sets of remains will be reviewed before the flight, the statement on Friday said.

Based on forensic analysis, "one or both of the sets of remains may be selected for repatriation," the MIA office said.

More than 1,800 American servicemen remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War. Since 1973, over 700 sets of U.S. remains have been recovered and identified.

About 300,000 Vietnamese are missing from the conflict.

Washington and Hanoi have pledged to step up cooperation to find MIAs on both sides.

Many of the remains have been painstakingly excavated from deep jungles or paddy fields in missions that yield tiny bits of evidence such as bone and metal fragments.

© 2003 Reuters Limited"

AND

"People pass the former prison named the "Hanoi Hilton" by American POWs

Former US POW to retire after flying MIA remains home from Vietnam

HANOI : A US pilot who was incarcerated for nearly six years in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" prison during the Vietnam War will make his final flight to bring home the bodies of two former American servicemen.

After a formal handover ceremony at Hanoi's Noi Bai international airport, US Air Force Reserve Major General Edward J. Mechenbier will fly the two sets of remains to Hawaii.

There they will be examined at the US Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command's Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu in a bid to identify and return them to their families.

The US government says the full accounting of its missing in action (MIA) from its ill-fated intervention in Indochina remains one of its main priorities in Vietnam.

More than 700 Americans missing in the region have been recovered and identified since 1973, but over 1,800 people still remain unaccounted for.

Mechenbier, 61, was assigned to Danang Air Base in South Vietnam during the war and was on his 80th mission over North Vietnam when his F-4C Phantom II fighter jet was shot down on June 14, 1967. He was aged 24.

He spent five years, eight months and four days in captivity, most of them in appalling conditions at the Hoa Lo prison, which was nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton" by its inmates.

The general, who has accumulated more than 3,500 flight hours during his 40-year career, will pilot the same US Air Force C-141 Starlifter plane that brought him home to the United States on February 12, 1973.

"Mechenbier will retire after this final flight to bring home the remains of his comrades," the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command said in a statement.

In total 591 prisoners of war (POW) from both North and South Vietnam, Laos and China were returned as part of Operation Homecoming, which ran until April 1, 1973 and was a direct result of the Paris Peace Accord signed a few months earlier formalising the withdrawal of US forces from the region.

The C-141 aircraft that Mechenbier will fly on Thursday was nicknamed the "Hanoi Taxi" and still bears the comments etched by the freed POWs on the flight engineer's panel.

The plane, which is based at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, has been in continuous service ever since.

"I remember when we were being driven out to Gia Lam Airport and looking up and seeing this plane," Mechenbier told US military media in 2002.

"As fighter pilots we didnt have a lot of respect for the trash haulers, but believe me it was the most beautiful, vivid, whitest, cleanest thing I had seen in six years."

His and other POWs' experiences were captured in the 1999 documentary film "Return With Honor" in which Mechenbier described his "fantasy wine tastings" and the "mental golf" he played to survive the ordeal.

"Wow, am I lucky. How many guys will never have this opportunity. How many guys did we leave behind, never got a chance to be a prisoner of war. What a great job -- beats the heck out of being killed in action," he said in the film.

"And I think that's one thing that all of us came away with. Not that we're heroes, we're nothing special. We're just lucky guys who happened to have the opportunity to serve in a very different circumstance.

"But we had that opportunity and others didn't, both in the South in the country and in the North in the air ... That's what this is all about. The people who never had a chance to come home."

Some 3.14 million Americans served in Vietnam during the war which spanned most of the 1960s and continued until the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Over 58,000 of them were killed and as many as 300,000 of Vietnam's estimated three million war dead are listed as missing.

- AFP"