Missing in Action Serviceman Identified

Missing in Action Serviceman Identified
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/...0318-2248.html

{EXCERPT} NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

No. 270-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE Mar 18, 2005 Media Contact: (703)697-5131
Public/Industry Contact: (703)428-0711

Missing in Action Serviceman Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO)
announced today that the remains of a U.S. Navy pilot, missing in
action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned
to his family for burial with full military honors.

Navy Commander Thomas E. Dunlop of Neptune Beach, Fla., will be buried
in Arlington National Cemetery on March 21.

On April 6, 1972, Dunlop took off in his A-7E Corsair II from the USS
Coral Sea on a bombing mission of enemy targets in Quang Binh
Province, North Vietnam. While over the target area, his aircraft was
struck by an enemy surface-to-air missile and as his wingman watched,
Dunlop’s aircraft exploded in a fireball and crashed. No emergency
beeper signals were received from the area of his crash.

In April 1993, joint U.S. and Vietnamese teams interviewed five
residents of Quang Binh Province about the crash, but the information
did not further the investigation. In 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1998, U.S.
and Vietnamese investigators interviewed at least 13 other people in
the province without results. Meanwhile, U.S. survey teams visited
potential crash sites in 1995, 1998 and twice in 2002. Again, no
useful information was obtained.

Then in 2003 and again in 2004, specialists from the Joint POW/MIA
Accounting Command (JPAC) excavated a crash site where they found
aircraft debris, personal effects and human remains later identified
by JPAC scientists as those of Dunlop.

Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,836
are from the Vietnam War with 1,399 of those within the country of
Vietnam. Another 747 Americans have been accounted for since the end
of the Vietnam War.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to
account for missing Americans from all conflicts, visit the DPMO Web
site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/...0318-2248.html


-- Otis Willie (Ret.)
Military News and Information Editor
The American War Library, Est. 1988
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