JENSEN, GEORGE WILLIAM
Remains Returned 12/13/99
Name: George William Jensen
Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force
Unit: 4th Air Commando Squadron, DaNang Airbase, South Vietnam
Date of Birth: 24 February 1925
Home City of Record: Seattle WA
Date of Loss: 15 May 1966
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 165800N 1060400E
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: AC47
Refno: 0339
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.
Other Personnel In Incident: William L. Madison; Kenneth D. McKenney; James
A. Preston; Lavern G. Reilly; Marshall L. Tapp; George W. Thompson; James E.
Williams (all missing)
REMARKS: NO RAD CNTCT - POS DED FBIS - J
SYNOPSIS: Maj. George W. Jensen was the pilot of an AC47 aircraft which
departed Ubon Air Base, Thailand on an armed visual reconnaissance mission
over Laos on May 15, 1966. His crew that day consisted of Maj. Lavern G.
Reilly, spare pilot; Capt. Marshall L. Tapp, co-pilot; 1Lt. George W.
Thompson, navigator; SSgt. James A. Preston, load master; Sgt. James E.
Williams, flight engineer; Airman 1st Class Kenneth D. McKenney and Sgt.
William L. Madison, gunners.
At 1745 hours, Jensen radioed his position, and again at 2100 hours, Jensen
radioed situation normal, with no position given, nor was the target area
specified. The aircraft's last location was over the Laotian panhandle about
15 miles due east of the city of Ban Muong Sen in Savannakhet Province.
When the aircraft failed to return to the base as scheduled, an aerial
search was conducted during the daylight hours of May 16, with negative
results. The aircraft was not found, and no evidence of the crew surfaced.
The crew of the AC47 is among nearly 600 Americans lost in Laos during the
war with Vietnam. Although the numbers of men actually termed "prisoner of
war" are quite low, this can be explained in understanding the blanket of
security surrounding the "secret war" the U.S. waged in Laos. To protect the
public perception that we "were not in Laos", details of many loss incidents
were "rearranged" to show a loss or casualty in South Vietnam. Only a
handful of publicly exposed cases were ever acknowledged POW, even though
scores of pilots and ground personnel were known to have been alive and well
at last contact (thus increasing the chance they were captured alive).
The Lao communist faction, the Pathet Lao, stated on several occasions that
they held "tens of tens" of American prisoners, but the Pathet Lao were not
included in the Paris Peace agreements ending American involvement in the
war. As a consequence, no American POWs held in Laos were negotiated for.
Not one American held in Laos has ever been released. As thousands of
reports continue to flow in regarding Americans still captive in Southeast
Asia, the fates of the crew of the AC47 become more intriguing. It is
entirely possible, with no evidence to the contrary, that they survived to
be captured. Whether they survived or not, they were abandoned to the enemy.
---------------------------
No. 190-M
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS December 13, 1999
The remains of eleven American servicemen previously unaccounted-for
from the Vietnam War have been identified and are being returned to
their families for burial in the United States.
They are identified as U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Tim L. Walters, South Bend,
Ind.; U.S. Army 1st Lt. James R. McQuade, Hoquiam, Wash.; U.S. Army Spc.
James E. Hackett, Bradenton, Fla.; U.S. Air Force Col. George W. Jensen,
Seattle, Wash.; U.S. Air Force Col. Marshall L. Tapp, Los Angeles,
Calif.; U.S. Air Force Col. Lavern G. Reilly, St. Paul, Minn.; U.S. Air
Force Maj. George W. Thompson, Beckley, W.Va.; U.S. Air Force Chief
Master Sgt. James A. Preston, Bowden, Ga.; U.S. Air Force Chief Master
Sgt. James E. Williams, Oxford, Miss.; U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt.
William L. Madison, Lexington, Ky.; and U.S. Air Force Senior Master
Sgt. Kenneth D. McKenney, Auburn, Mass.
On March 9, 1969, Walters was aboard a 0-2A Super Skymaster flying a
forward air control mission over Laos. The aircraft crashed, due to an
unknown cause. Other aircrews in the area reported seeing the aircraft
shortly after impact. A ground party went to the site shortly after the
crash and determined that both crewmembers were dead, but they could not
recover the remains due to heavy enemy activity in the area.
Joint U.S.-Lao investigators visited several alleged crash sites in
1993, 1994 and 1998, and an excavation was conducted in January,
February and March 1999, where a team recovered human remains, personal
effects and crew-related items.
Hackett and McQuade were attempting to rescue the crew of a downed
aircraft when their own OH-6A helicopter exploded in mid-air over South
Vietnam on June 11, 1972. In 1993 and 1994, joint U.S.-Vietnamese teams
conducted investigations and an excavation where they recovered numerous
human remains, pilot-related gear and personal effects.
On May 15, 1966, Jensen was piloting an AC-47D gunship on an armed
reconnaissance mission over Laos. Also aboard the aircraft were Tapp,
Thompson, Preston, Madison, McKenney, Williams, and Reilly. That
evening, Jensen radioed to his airborne control aircraft that everything
was normal on the mission, but the aircraft never returned to its home
base. Joint U.S.-Lao investigative teams visited several sites in 1994,
1995, 1996 and 1997 and conducted excavations where they recovered human
remains an d crew-related items.
With the accounting of these servicemen, 2,032 are missing in action
from the Vietnam War. Another 551 have been identified and returned to
their families since the end of the war. Analysis of the remains and
other evidence by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii
confirmed the identification of these servicemen.
The U.S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the
governments of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's
Democratic Republic that resulted in the accounting of these servicemen.
We hope that such cooperation will bring increased results in the
future. Achieving the fullest possible accounting for these Americans
is of the highest national priority.
-END-
=======================
Vietnam vet MIA finally laid to rest
After 34 years, it brings closure to fighter pilot's family
Monday, May 15, 2000
By HECTOR CASTRO
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
May 15, 2000
Some teeth and a few bits of an old Kodak camera were all that remained of
Air Force Col. George W. Jensen.
But the sparse remnants of the Seattle native, shot down over Laos 34 years
ago today, were enough to identify him.
This morning, in a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia,
Jensen will be buried -- a year after he was officially identified and three
years after his remains were finally recovered.
"I'm just happy that this happened before I died," said Jensen's widow, Mary
Jane O'Neil, 73.
In 1966, Jensen was flying a reconnaissance mission when he disappeared
along with his crew of seven: a co-pilot, a navigator, a flight engineer, a
loadmaster, two gunners and a South Vietnamese observer.
The crew was listed as missing in action the same day.
But in March 1997, American and Laotian searchers, acting on a tip from a
conversation overheard in a Vietnamese bar, found the crash site and were
able to recover Jensen's remains. Although the investigators found other
items that likely belonged to the flight crew members, such as dog tags, a
Timex watch and a coin, they were unable to identify any of the other men.
Finally, on Nov. 24, 1999, military officials announced that dental records
had confirmed that the remains were Jensen's.
Jensen will be buried in a morning service, but the government will also set
a memorial marker for the entire crew later in the afternoon.
The service will include a ceremonial casket draped with an American flag, a
21-gun salute and fly-over of jets in missing-man formation.
About a dozen of Jensen's friends and relatives plan to attend the service,
said O'Neil, who remarried and now lives in Steilacoom. Her second husband
died in 1987.
Jensen first joined the Air Force back when it was still the Army Air Corps
during World War II, she said, though he did not go overseas.
When war broke out in Korea, Jensen was recalled into the service, this time
as a fighter pilot.
When the fighting ended there, Jensen remained in the service, believing
there would be another war soon.
In 1965, word came that he would be going to Vietnam.
"It was a hard time for all of us," said Jensen's daughter, Carolyn Jensen
of Yakima.
Knowing he would be going soon, Jensen took his wife, daughter and son,
George A. Jensen, on a monthlong vacation to California.
"We hadn't been home but an hour when the phone rang and he found out he got
orders," Carolyn Jensen said.
Jensen went to Vietnam eagerly, his family said, because it was a chance for
him to fly again. Also, he felt it was his duty.
O'Neil took one last trip with her husband, a second honeymoon of sorts from
their home in Lakewood to Sacramento, where he was shipping out.
She drove him to the Air Force base on Nov. 6, 1965.
"He kissed me goodbye and said, 'I'll see you in a year,'" O'Neil recalled.
She drove back to the motel where they had been staying. From there, she
watched as the planes from the base took off -- one every 10 minutes.
In the months that followed, Jensen wrote to his family, including his
daughter, then a teenager.
"In one letter he wrote me he said, 'This is a very strange war. I'm sitting
in a bar and watching it go on outside,'" Carolyn Jensen said.
Jensen became a pilot for an AC-47D "Spooky" gunship, a two-prop airplane
armed with three miniguns capable of firing 6,000 rounds per minute.
The plane was noted for being vulnerable to enemy fire. It was slow, and its
guns were mounted all on one side of the plane.
On May 15, 1966, Mother's Day, word came that Jensen was missing.
O'Neil had spent the day at the movies with her children and another woman,
whose husband was also in Vietnam.
She was in the middle of watching an old Ingrid Bergman film on television
when the Air Force officials arrived.
"I've never seen the end of that movie," she said.
The Air Force group told O'Neil that her husband was missing. They did not
know what happened to him.
"There was no Mayday, no SOS, no nothing," Carolyn Jensen said.
In the years that followed, the family clung to the hope that Jensen had
been captured and was being held as a prisoner of war.
They obtained MIA bracelets and handed them out to friends and supporters.
"I still have mine," Carolyn Jensen said. "I thought about bringing it and
leaving it at the (Vietnam Memorial) Wall, but I couldn't part with it."
They made trips to Laos and tried speaking with officials at the Vietnamese
Embassy in France. O'Neil spoke to college groups about her family's
experience.
When the last POWs were released, the family realized Jensen would not be
coming home.
And as the years passed, they began to lose hope that even his remains would
be found.
The discovery of Jensen's remains, and the site where his plane went down,
has brought relief.
"There's a finality to it," Carolyn Jensen said. "We don't ever have to
wonder again."
As of this month, investigators at the Central Identification Laboratory in
Hawaii have identified the remains of 555 servicemen. Another 2,028
Americans remain unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.
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