By early 1967, the Bell UH1 Iroquois
was already the standard Army assault helicopter, and was used in nearly every
"in-country" mission. Better known by its nickname "Huey,"
the troop carriers were referred to as "slicks" and the gunships were
called "Hogs." It proved itself to be a sturdy, versatile aircraft
which was called on to carry out a wide variety of missions including search and
rescue, close air support, insertion and extraction, fire support, and resupply
to name a few. It usually carried a crew of four.
On 2 February 1967, Capt. Donald
Burnham, pilot; SP4 Kenneth Patton, crewchief; then SP4 Charles Adkins, door
gunner; comprised the crew of an UH1H helicopter (aircraft #66-16442) that
departed Camp Evans for Chu Lai, Thua Thien Province, South Vietnam. There is no
record of a co-pilot being assigned to this flight. Also aboard the Huey were
passengers SFC Joe Pringle and SSgt Joseph Puggi.
As the helicopter approached the major
US military base at DaNang from the northwest, it came under the base's ground
radar control center. The controller monitoring all air traffic in the area lost
both radio and radar contact with the Huey. The last known position of the
helicopter was when it was over dense jungle approximately 12 miles north of
DaNang and less than 1 mile east of the coastline on a small finger of land that
jutted out into the Gulf of Tonkin. This was also 62 miles north-northwest of
their destination.
After multiple attempts to contact
Capt. Burnham by radio failed, ramp checks of the nearby airfields were
conducted by another pilot from his unit in the hope that the Huey landed at one
of them. Search and rescue (SAR) efforts were immediately initiated to search
the area north of DaNang, but found no trace of the aircraft or its crew and
passengers. At the time the formal search was terminated, Donald Burnham, Joe
Pringle, Charles Adkins, Kenneth Patton and Joseph Puggi were listed Missing in
Action.
On 28 May 1968, nearly 4 months after
the Huey's disappearance, burned wreckage of the Huey was located in the general
vicinity of loss and identified by it's aircraft number. A search party was
inserted into the crash site where they recovered an ID tag belonging to SFC
Pringle, several weapons, and some bone fragments believed to be human. The ID
tag and weapons were given to an unidentified major; and all subsequent attempts
to trace their whereabouts proved unsuccessful.
The remains were delivered to the US
Army Mortuary at DaNang. Once examined, laboratory personnel determined they
were human, but unidentifiable due to their poor condition and the small amount
of fragments. All recovery efforts were terminated on 16 November 1972. Because
of the density of the jungle and underbrush in and around the crash site, a
thorough and complete recovery operation without specialized heavy equipment was
not possible. A recovery team returned to the crash site in July 1974 to
photograph it as a precursor to a full field excavation. At the time the team
learned that a local Vietnamese woodcutter had removed some of the wreckage from
the site. During this field survey no evidence of human remains were found in or
around the wreckage.
In early 1972 the Adkins family was
shown an 8-MM filmstrip by a US Army Casualty Officer that was approximately 20
minutes in length and showed American POWs in captivity during the war. Mr.
Adkins described seeing his son and other POWs as follows: "On this film
was a mess of them - hundreds of them - single file coming through a door that
appeared to be metal, but not a door to the outside. Each man came through the
door, and shook hands with a minister or priest, then walked down an open
stairway that looked to be made of marble or granite. Each POW had on a white
tag sewn on his right breast pocket with a name or a number - I could nor tell
which, except for the priest, who did not have a tag. Bud (SP4 Adkins) came
through the door, then shook hands with the priest and walked down the steps. I
knew then for certain that it was Bud, by his walk. After all the men came in
and had walked down the steps, the priest gave them communion. The Army said it
was a Christmas Service." Mr. Adkins requested, and received, a still
photograph made from this 8-MM showing his son and other POWs during this
service. He was not able to obtain a copy of the film itself.
Additionally, US intelligence
personnel interviewed a Vietnamese rallier who identified a photograph of Donald
Burnham as a Prisoner of War. The date of this interview is unknown. CIA
analysis of this report after the end of the war failed to determine why Capt.
Burnham's photo was selected based on that agency's belief that none of the
aircrew or passengers were seen in captivity by returned POWs.
If Donald Burnham, Joe Pringle,
Charles Adkins, Kenneth Patton and Joseph Puggi died in the loss of their
aircraft, each man has the right to have his remains returned to his family,
friends and country. However, if these men survived the Huey's crash, their fate
like that of other Americans who remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, could
be quite different.
Since the end of the Vietnam war well
over 21,000 reports of American prisoners, missing and otherwise unaccounted for
have been received by our government. Many of these reports document LIVE
American POWs remaining captive throughout Southeast Asia TODAY.
Pilots and aircrews in Vietnam were
called upon to fly and many dangerous circumstances, and they were prepared to
be wounded, killed or captured. It probably never occurred to them that they
could be abandoned by the country they so proudly served.
Incidental Information
