ARMSTRONG, FRANK ALTON III

Name: Frank Alton Armstrong III
Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force
Unit: 1st Air Commando Squadron
Date of Birth: 07 March 1930
Home City of Record: Shreveport LA
Date of Loss: 06 October 1967
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 143757N 1072758E
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: A1E
Refno: 0852

Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 March 1991 from one or more of the
following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: The Douglas A1 Skyraider ("Spad") is a highly maneuverable,
propeller driven aircraft designed as a multipurpose attack bomber or
utility aircraft. The E model generally carried two crewmen. The A1 was
first used by the Air Force in its Tactical Air Command to equip the first
Air Commando Group engaged in counterinsurgency operations in South Vietnam,
and later used in a variety of roles, ranging from multi-seat electronic
intelligence gathering to Navy antisubmarine warfare and rescue missions.
The venerable fighter aircraft was retired in the spring of 1968 and had
flown in more than twenty model variations, probably more than any other
U.S. combat aircraft.

Maj. Frank A. Armstrong III was the pilot of an A1E which was on an ordnance
delivery mission on October 6, 1967. Armstrong's was the lead aircraft in a
flight of two A1Es from the 1st Air Commando Squadron based at Pleiku, South
Vietnam.

Armstrong's aircraft was struck by hostile ground fire as the flight was in
Attopeu Province, Laos, near the tri-border area of Laos, Cambodia and
Vietnam. According to other flight members, Maj. Armstrong did not have time
to parachute out of the aircraft as it crashed to the ground in an inverted
position.

Frank A. Armstrong is listed among the missing because his remains were
never found to send home to the country he served. He died a tragically
ironic death in the midst of war. But, for his family, the case seems clear
that he died on that day. The fact that they have no body to bury with honor
is not of great significance.

For other who are missing, however, the evidence leads not to death, but to
survival. Since the war ended, over 10,000 reports received relating to
Americans still unaccounted for in Indochina have convinced experts that
hundreds of men are still alive, waiting for their country to rescue them.
The notion that Americans are dying without hope in the hands of a long-ago
enemy belies the idea that we left Vietnam with honor. It also signals that
tens of thousands of lost lives were a frivolous waste of our best men.

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