Name:James Howard Ackley
Rank/Branch: Civilian/Air America
Date of Birth: 04 January 1920
Home City of Record:
Date of Loss: 07 March 1973
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 195145N 1010900E (QB230980)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: C123K
Other Personnel In Incident: Clarence N. Driver (missing)
Source:
Compiled by Homecoming II Project
15 October 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S.
Government agency sources,correspondence
with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: During the Vietnam war, Air America contracted
with CIA to fly in Laos transporting a variety of
supplies. Because the United States "was not at war"
in Laos, some AA activities were secret. CIA
considered its work important enough to deceive the
U.S. Congress, and obtained a large portion of its
funding through AID dollars that Congress believed
were for civilian help. Although Air America openly
spoke of its humanitarian drops of rice, blankets
and medicine, they also conducted many "hard rice" drops -
ammunition, grenades, bombs and weapons to the secret
CIA directed indigenous army.
Many Air America pilots were
crack pilots from World War II and Korea who just were not ready to quit
flying
in the challenging arena of
war. Some took the job because they believed that in doing so, they could
help
fight communism. Laos
was a tough assignment. Not only were maps antiquated, forcing the pilots
to
"eyeball" their way through
the countryside, but the weather and terrain could also be quite unpredictable.
Refugees created by the war depended on Air America,
whose planes could alter weeks of starvation, when
the wounded suffered without medical supplies, in
a single drop. Enough food and supplies could be
dropped in a single morning to supply and feed five
thousand people for a month. The secret army
depended on the AA materiel drops to such an extent
that they sometimes resorted to trickery to make sure
they occurred. On one occasion, a pilot observed the
windsock at a village strip hanging straight down, but
when he landed found the wind dangerously strong.
An amiable native explained, "We know plane not land
when sock flies, so we put rocks in sock."
At the foot of any runway, an
AA pilot could encounter armed communist troops intent on preventing him
from
ever flying again. Many planes
returned to base peppered with bullet holes, and some were destroyed.
Others were downed and their
crews captured.
On March 7, 1973, a C123K flown by Clarence Driver
on which James Ackley was a crewmember was sent on
a mission over Laos. The C123K differed from other
C123 models in that it had the addition of auxiliary
turbojet engines mounted in underwing pods. While
this addition did little to increase the speed of
the "Provider," it added greater power for quicker
climbing on takeoff and power for maintaining altitude.
Driver's aircraft crashed in Louangphrabang Province,
Laos, about 25 miles north of the Laos/Thailand
border near the city of Pak Beng. Ackley and Driver
were classified Missing In Action.
As late as 1984, reports were
being received that at least Driver was alive, in good health, and being
held in
a group of 8 American prisoners.
Four of the original 12 prisoners had died of dysentary, and two who were
still resisting had rings
in their noses and were treated like beasts of burden. A private,
unauthorized
rescue plan was formulated to
attempt to free him in 1984. The attempt was unsuccessful.
Over 10,000 reports relating to Americans missing in
Southeast Asia have been received by the U.S.
Government since 1975. A Pentagon panel concluded
in 1986 that there were at least 100 men still alive.
Ackley and Driver are two of nearly 600 Americans
lost in Laos. Although the Pathet Lao publicly stated that
they held "tens of tens" of Americans, NOT ONE MAN
returned that had been held in Laos. The U.S. has yet
to negotiate their release.
Clarence Driver's daughter Sharon
describes the agony of their uncertainty, "Imagine yourself on a
telephone and ther person says
'hold on, I'll be right back,' and they never come back...you just keep
holding
on." How much longer
must these men wait for their country to bring them home?