FRANSEN, ALBERT MARK JR.

Name: Albert Mark Fransen, Jr.
Rank/Branch: E4/US Navy
Unit: Commander Coastal Division 15
Date of Birth: 09 November 1944 (Clinton OK)
Home City of Record: Las Vegas NV
Date of Loss: 02 July 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam/Over Water
Loss Coordinates: 125029N 1092706E (CQ320200)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 5
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Boat (PCF 87)
Refno: 2028
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 April 1990 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: Engineman Petty Officer Third Class Albert M. Fransen, Jr. was
assigned to Commander Coastal Division 15. On July 2, 1969, he was onboard a
swift boat (PCF-87) which was conducting harrassment and interdiction fire
about 50 miles south of Qui Nhon, South Vietnam, when the boat was hit by an
81mm mortar round.

Petty Officer Fransen was killed by wounds inflicted by the mortar. Navy
information provides no further details of the boat or the rest of the crew.
It is only states that Fransen could not be found. He was listed Killed in
Action, Body Not Recovered (KIA/BNR).

Petty Officer Fransen is listed among the missing because his body was never
located to return home for burial. There is no doubt that he is dead. He is
among over 3000 Americans who were prisoner, missing or unaccounted for when
the war ended.

Others who are missing do not have such clear cut cases. Some were known to
be captives; some were photographed as they were led by their guards. Some
were in radio contact with search teams, while others simply disappeared.

Since the war ended, over 250,000 interviews have been conducted with those
who claim to know about Americans still alive in Southeast Asia, and several
million documents have been studied. U.S. Government experts cannot seem to
agree whether Americans are there alive or not. Distractors say it would be
far too politically difficult to bring the men they believe to be alive
home, and the U.S. is content to negotiate for remains.

Over 1000 eyewitness reports of living American prisoners were received by
1989. Most of them are still classified. If, as the U.S. seems to believe,
the men are all dead, why the secrecy after so many years? If the men are
alive, why are they not home?

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