JONES, LOUIS FARR

Name: Louis Farr Jones
Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 29 December 1925
Home City of Record: San Angelo TX (family in Fairfax Co. VA)
Date of Loss: 29 November 1967
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 163700N 1060800E (XD220269)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C
Refno: 0929
Other Personnel In Incident: (pilot recovered)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 October 1990 from one or more
of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources,
correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources: Washington Star and
Salina (KS) Journal, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 1998.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: Radicalization can be an instant process. For Mrs. Mitch Jones, it
came the minute President Nixon said he would keep a small force of American
troops in South Vietnam as long as the communists held American prisoners of
war. Mrs. Jones quit her job, sent out hundreds of letters to enlist support
and became a full time, unpaid lobbyist for peace and helped form a group
called "Families for Immediate Release." Mrs. Jones was convinced Nixon's
policy would continue the war forever - and that the prisoner problem would
then be solved - they would die waiting for the war to end.

Mitch Jones' husband, Louis, a 22-year veteran of the military, was shot
down over Laos on November 29, 1967. He was the bombardier/navigator onboard
an F4C Phantom fighter/bomber whose pilot was apparently rescued. The
aircraft was downed in Savannakhet Province about 5 miles southwest of the
city of Sepone, Laos. Mrs. Jones had not received any word of her husband
since that day, although she traveled to Laos to inquire in 1969.

Mitch Jones had been through this before. Her brother, Lt. Frank N.
Mitchell, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, had been declared
Missing In Action in Korea. Her family struggled for years against a growing
tide of indifference to her brother and the other men missing in Korea. She
watched helplessly as the war ended, and the men were written off one by
one. She had lived her years as a military wife knowing her husband could
also be captured or become missing, but not fully realizing that the
handling of the American POWs in Korea was not to be unique. Final
recognition came when she realized Nixon would continue the war with no
seeming regard for her husband or the other POWs.

When the war ended, not a single man held in Laos was released, although
many were known to have survived. Over 18 years has passed since Mitch Jones
began to realize her country was not going to bring her husband home. Still,
no word of Louis Farr has been received, and the U.S. engages in publicity
campaigns to renew relationships with the countries of Southeast Asia, while
ignoring and debunking mounting evidence that Americans are still alive in
Laos and Vietnam.

Mrs. Jones no longer walks the halls of Congress, and since an 18-year-old
clipping described her activities, she has disappeared from public view.
Louis Jones, if he is alive, must also have decided, in disappointment, that
the country he proudly served would not bring him home.

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