LOLLAR, JAMES LEON
Name: James Leon Lollar
Rank/Branch: E5/US Air Force
Unit: TDY to 72 Strat Wing, Anderson AFB Guam
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Kilmichael MS
Date of Loss: 21 December 1972
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 211500 1054600 (WJ795497)
Status (in 1973): Released POW
Category:
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: B52
Missions: 52
Other Personnel In Incident: Charles E. Darr; (missing); Randall J.
Craddock; Bobby A. Kirby; George B. Lockhart; Ronald D. Perry (remains
returned)
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.
REMARKS: RELEASED MARCH 29 1973
SYNOPSIS: On December 21, 1972, a B52 bomber from the 72nd Strat Wing,
Anderson AFB Guam, was sent on a bombing mission during the famed Christmas
Bombings during that month. By the 21st, when the B52 departed for the Hanoi
region, 8 B52's and several fighter bombers had been lost since December 18,
and 43 flyers had been captured or killed during the same period.
The Christmas Bombings, despite press accounts to the contrary, were of the
most precise the world had seen. Pilots involved in the immense series of
strikes generally agree that the strikes against anti-aircraft and strategic
targets was so successful that the U.S., had it desired, "could have taken
the entire country of Vietnam by inserting an average Boy Scout troop in
Hanoi and marching them southward."
A very high percentage of B52 aircrew were captured immediately and returned
in 1973, a much higher percentage than strategists imagined. Beyond that
number, several were known to have made it safely to the ground, yet did not
return for unknown reasons.
When the B52 from 72 Strat Wing, Guam was hit by a surface-to-air missile in
the early hours of December 21, 1972, the fate of the crewmembers was
varied. Multiple emergency beepers were heard by aircraft in the area,
indicating that several of the crew members had safely bailed out of the
crippled aircraft.
James Lollar was captured and subsequently released in March the following
year. The U.S. did not know he had been captured.
Ronald Perry's remains were returned exactly 3 years to the day from the day
he was shot down. The remains of Randall J. Craddock, Bobby A. Kirby, George
B. Lockhart and Charles E. Darr were returned six days short of the
sixteenth anniversary of their shoot-down. The positive identifications of
the second group to be returned was announced in August 1989.
Another returned POW, Ernest Moore, mentioned that he believed Darr had been
held at the "Zoo" in Hanoi, but the U.S. never changed Darr's status from
Missing to Prisoner. There is every reason to suspect the Vietnamese knew
what happened to all the crewmembers, but especially Charles E. Darr.
Whose radios beeped in distress from the ground that day in December 1972?
When and how did Bobby Kirby, Randall Craddock, Charles Darr, Ronald Perry
and George Lockhart die? If any of them were prisoners of war, why did we
allow the Vietnamese wait 16 years to return their remains?
George Barry Lockhart is a 1969 graduate of the United States Air Force
Academy.
SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977
Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor
P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602
Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and
spelling errors).
UPDATE - 09/95 by the P.O.W. NETWORK, Skidmore, MO
JAMES L. LOLLAR
Staff Sergeant - United States Air Force
Shot Down: December 21, 1972
Released: March 29, 1973
I entered the Air Force in March 1967 as a Weapons Specialist. After
completing training in the Weapons Lab in Colorado, I spent 23 months in
South Vietnam with a B-57 and AC-47 outfit. I returned from Vietnam to take
a tour in Germany with F-4's and then a tour in Turkey with F-100's.
I then returned to the States for flight training in the B-52 as a Defensive
Fire Control Operator, better known as a "tail gunner." I then went to Guam
and started flying combat missions again. I was flying my 52nd mission when
my plane was shot down over Hanoi, North Vietnam on 21 December 1972. I
parachuted and was captured shortly after getting on the ground. The rest is
history now. I came home on 29 March 1973. Sarah, my wife, had twin girls,
Karla and Karen, while I was a POW so I actually came home to a full house.
Sarah and I hope that there will never be a situation again where I might
get shot down, but if America ever needs the military again, we'll be ready.
Use your Browser's BACK function to return to the PREVIOUS page