Mon, Jan 12, 2004
Two servicemen missing
in action from the Vietnam War have been identified and returned to
their families for burial.
They are Navy Lt. (jg) Robert A. Clark of North Hollywood (CA),
and another officer whose name will not be released at the request
of his family.
On Jan. 10, 1973, the two took off in an A-6A aircraft from USS
Midway on a mission to suppress surface-to-air missiles in North
Vietnam. Near the target area in Nghe An Province in North Vietnam,
aircrew reported an estimated 15 surface-to-air missiles fired, as
well as numerous antiaircraft rounds. Clark’s A-6A was not
seen again. Attempts to contact the crew for four days through
radio and visual searches were unsuccessful.
In July 1991, US researchers discovered in a Vietnamese military
museum a data plate which correlated to the downed aircraft. Later,
in another museum, they discovered photos of a crash site which
also correlated to the missing aircraft. US researchers examined
Vietnamese wartime records which confirmed the downing of that
aircraft in Nghe An Province in January 1973.
Between 1993 and 2002, US researchers and joint US-Vietnam teams
conducted four field investigations and one excavation. During one
of their field visits, a witness to the 1973 crash turned over
remains he claimed to have recovered at the site. During the
excavation in 2002, additional remains were recovered.
The remains were identified in 2003 by the Central
Identification Laboratory through skeletal analysis and
mitochondrial DNA. Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from
all conflicts, 1,871 are from the Vietnam War.
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