The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)
announced today that the remains of three servicemen, missing from the Vietnam
War, have been identified and will be buried with full military honors.
Army Chief Warrant Officers 3 James L. Phipps of Mattoon,
Illinios, and Rainer S. Ramos of Wiesbaden, Germany, were the pilots of a UH-1C
Iroquois (Huey) helicopter gunship that was shot down in Quang Tin Province,
South Vietnam. Also aboard the aircraft were door gunners Staff Sgt. Warren
Newton of Eugene, Oregon, and Spc. Fred J. Secrist of Eugene, Oregon. The crew
was assigned to Troop C, 7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 14th Aviation
Group, 1st Aviation Brigade. The crew will be buried, as a group, on June 17 at
Arlington National Cemetery.
On Jan. 9, 1968, the crew was on a mission over Quang Tin
Province (now part of Quang Nam Province), South Vietnam, when the Huey was
struck by ground fire, causing it to crash and explode in a North Vietnamese
bunker and trench system. The crew was declared missing in action. On Jan. 20,
1968, a U.S. led team recovered the body of Secrist and he was returned to his
family for burial.
Between August 1993 and August 2011, U.S.-Socialist Republic
of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams surveyed and/or excavated the site three times. From
Aug. 6-21, 2011, a joint U.S.-S.R.V. team recovered human remains and personal
effects.
In the identification of the recovered remains, scientists
from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) analyzed
circumstantial evidence and used forensic identification tools, to include
mitochondrial DNA, which matched Secrist’s sister and brother. Remains not
individually identified represent the entire crew and will be buried as a
group.
Today, 1,627 Americans remain unaccounted for from the
Vietnam War. The U.S. government continues to work closely with the governments
of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to recover Americans lost during the Vietnam
War.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment