DYE, MELVIN CARNILS

Name: Melvin Carnils Dye
Rank/Branch: E5/US Army
Unit: 57th Assault Helicopter Co., 52nd Aviation Battalion
Date of Birth: 22 May 1947
Home City of Record: Carleton MI
Date of Loss: 19 February 1968
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 145430N 1072800E (YB665498)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 4
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1H
Refno: 1054

Other Personnel In Incident: Douglas J. Glover; Robert S. Griffith (still
missing)

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: Melvin Dye was the engineer and Robert Griffith the door gunner
aboard a UH1H helicopter performing an emergency extraction mission in Laos.
They were extracting a reconnaissance patrol team consisting of three U.S.
Army Special Forces personnel and 3 indigenous personnel. The aircraft
carried a crew of four. Douglas Glover was one of the Special Forces
personnel aboard.

As the helicopter picked up the team 4 miles inside Laos west of Dak Sut, it
received a heavy volume of small arms fire. It is not known whether the
aircraft was hit by hostile fire or hit a tree, but it nosed over, impacted
the ground and exploded, bursting into flames.

The pilot, co-pilot and one passenger managed to leave the aircraft. Because
of the fire and exploding small arms ammunition, rescue attempts for the
others were futile.

There were six U.S. and 3 indigenous personnel aboard the helicopter. When
search teams reached the site the same day, they could not account for the
other U.S. personnel. Five were accounted for, but could not be recovered
because of intense heat.

Dye, Glover and Griffith were classified as Missing In Action. They did not
return when the general prisoner release occurred in 1973. Since the war
ended, evidence mounts that Americans were left behind in enemy prison camps
and that hundreds of them could be alive today. They deserve better than the
abandonment they received from the country they proudly served.

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