GRIFFITH, ROBERT SMITH

Name: Robert Smith Griffith
Rank/Branch: E5/US Army
Unit: 57th Aviation Co., 17th Aviation Group, 1st Aviation Brigade
Date of Birth: 26 December 1942
Home City of Record: Hapeville GA
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; Melvin C. Dye (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: SSgt. Melvin C. Dye was the engineer and SSgt. Robert S. Griffith
the door gunner onboard a UH1H helicopter performing an emergency extraction
mission in Laos on February 19, 1968. They were extracting a reconnaissance
patrol team consisting of three U.S. Army Special Forces and 3 indigenous
personnel. The aircraft carried a crew of four. SFC 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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