DAHILL, DOUGLAS EDWARD
Name: Douglas Edward Dahill
Rank/Branch: E4/US Army Special Forces
Unit: Recon Team 5, Detachment B-52 DELTA, 5th Special Forces
Date of Birth: 06 March 1949
Home City of Record: Lima OH
Date of Loss: 17 April 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 160126N 1073546E (YC778732)
Status (In 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Refno: 1428
Other Personnel In Incident: Charles V. Newton; Charles F. Prevedel; three
South Vietnamese Special Forces personnel
Source: Compiled 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 in 1998.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: SSgt. Charles V. Newton, Sgt. Charles F. Prevedel, SP4 Douglas E.
Dahill and 3 unidentified Vietnamese were inserted into Quang Nam Province
in South Vietnam as part of Detachment B52 Delta's Reconnaissance Team 6 on
April 14, 1969.
On April 16, the team reported making contact with the enemy, but radioed
that it was continuing the patrol.
On April 17, the team made its scheduled morning radio contact and reported
the team's position. At 206 hours, the team reported to Control and Command
that they were in a stream bed and had been hit hard, and requested air
strikes. Their location was then in Thua Thien Province, 9 miles from Laos.
A Forward Air Controller (FAC) sent into the area was unable to make radio
contact with the team. At 1400 hours, thunderstorms in the area prevented
the insertion of a relief force.
The next day, a BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment) team was inserted to search for
Team 6. They encountered Viet Cong personnel wearing tiger striped fatigues
and bearing rifles and grenades of the type used by Team 6. A thorough
search of the stream bed and surrounding area yielded no trace of Team 6.
Numerous air and ground searches of Team 6 evasion route were conducted with
no positive result.
A Viet Cong reported that in mid-May, 1969, he had seen two U.S. POWs in
Quang Nam province, exact location unspecified. The report was correlated to
SSgt. Newton and Sgt. Prevedel on the basis of time, location and
compatability of the physical descriptions.
Four photos from a Christmas, 1969 film of POWs were correlated by CIA to
Charles Newton, and one to Charles Prevedel. There has been no further
information to surface about Dahill. The Vietnamese deny having any
knowledge of any of the members of Team 6.
By mid-1989, nearly 10,000 reports had been received by the U.S. Government
relating to Americans still missing in Southeast Asia. Many authorities
believe there are still several hundred Americans still alive in captivity.
Charles Prevedel's father died in 1988, never knowing if the faces in the
Christmas film were his son and his partner, or an uncanny coincidence. The
Vietnamese aren't talking, and unfortunately, neither is the U.S.
Government.
It's time we brought our men home.
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