DANIELSON, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Name: Benjamin Franklin Danielson
Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 31 March 1943
Home City of Record: Kenyon MN
Date of Loss: 05 December 1969
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 173100N 1054300E (WE770370)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C
Refno: 1535
Other Personnel In Incident: Navigator (rescued)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 April 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 1998.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: Captain Benjamin F. Danielson was the pilot of the number two
aircraft in a flight of two F4Cs on an operational mission over Laos.
Captain Danielson and his navigator departed Cam Ranh Bay Air Base, South
Vietnam at 10:00 a.m. on December 5, 1969. At about 11:30 a.m., while
pulling up from a dive, the aircraft was hit by hostile ground fire.

Two ejection seats and two parachutes were observed leaving the plane, and
two emergency radio beeper signals were received. The two landed 100 feet
apart on each side of a river. Voice contact was established with both men
on the ground, who reported that they were in good shape. Six separate
rescue attempts were made on that day, but each was aborted when it came
under heavy ground fire. Search and rescue attempts contniued for 12 hours.
The navigator saw Danielson twice that day and talked with him on the radio
all day and night. Danielson and the navigator had worked out a signal
system that if one man beeped the other, it meant not to call on the radio
because the enemy was close enough to hear radio chatter.

Fourty-five minutes after first light on December 6, Danielson beeped the
navigator oned. It is believed that the enemy found Danielson's position at
this time. There was no further beeper or radio contact from Ben for about
an hour, then the beeper went off and stayed active until the batteries
would have run down. Heavy ground fire prevented the navigator from being
rescued until noon on December 7. Danielson, at that time, was not found.
Danielson was last seen about 1 mile southwest of Ban Phanop, Laos.

Like nearly 600 others lost in Laos, Danielson simply vanished without a
trace. No agreement was reached regarding the prisoner held by the Lao. No
prisoners were released by the Lao. Many of the thousands of reports of
Americans alive in captivity today come from Laos. Perhaps one of those who
remain is Danielson; that is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that
someone knows the fate of Benjamin F. Danielson.

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