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WASHINGTON, Aug. 10, 1998 – The remains of five Vietnam casualties were confirmed recently and will be returned to their families for burial.
The remains are those of Air Force Maj. William H. Condit Jr., Worthington, Ohio; Air Force 1st Lt. Terry M. Reed, Randolph Air Base, Texas; Navy Cmdr. Danforth E. White, State College, Pa.; Navy Lt. Ramey L. Carpenter, Norman, Okla.; and a civilian missionary who died in captivity in South Vietnam in 1968 and whose name has been withheld at the request of his family. Condit and Reed were crew members aboard a C-130B Hercules aircraft hit by enemy fire while on a resupply mission to Tay Ninh and Katum, South Vietnam on June 23, 1969. One wing burst into flames, and the aircraft went into a flat spin and crashed. In November 1993, a U.S.-Vietnamese search team confirmed the crash site, but found no remains. In October 1994, another team excavated the site and recovered remains, aircraft wreckage, equipment and personal effects. The Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii identified the remains as those of Condit and Reed. Remains of the four other aircraft crew members were identified in 1969. White and Carpenter were crew members of a RA-5C Vigilante reconnaissance aircraft that exploded in midair and crashed on March 31, 1969, while on a mission over Laos. Search and rescue efforts at the time failed. A joint U.S.-Lao team interviewed villagers in the area near the suspected crash site in 1994 and found some wreckage. Another team excavated the site in 1997 and recovered remains and artifacts. With the identification of these five men, 502 Americans have been identified since the end of the war in Southeast Asia, and 2,081 remain unaccounted for. (From a DoD release)
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