LAVOO, JOHN ALLEN
Remains identified 06/04/99
Name: John Allen Lavoo
Branch/Rank: United States Marine Corps/O3
Unit: VMFA 542 MAG 11
Date of Birth: 07/15/1940
Home City of Record: PUEBLO CO
Date of Loss: 19 September 1968
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 171327 North 1064243 East
Status (in 1973): Killed In Action/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4B #152232
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident: Robert Holt, KIA/BNR
Refno: 1281
Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File.
REMARKS:
CACCF/CRASH SOUTH VIETNAM/PILOT/6YRS USMC/QUANG TRI
----------------------------
Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update
June 4, 1999
TWO SERVICEMEN IDENTIFIED
The remains of two American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from the
war in Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their
families for burial in the United States.
They are identified as Capt. Robert A. Holt, USMC, Reading, Mass.; and Capt.
John A. Lavoo, USMC, Pueblo, Colo.
On Sept. 19, 1968, Holt and Lavoo were flying their F-4B Phantom on a combat
mission over Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam. After they launched their
rockets at the target, their aircraft appeared to pitch very slightly
without breaking its dive. It then pulled suddenly to the right 90 degrees,
then back 45 degrees. It crashed amid a large explosion. No parachutes were
observed and no beepers were heard by their wingman.
The wingman and another tactical control aircraft made low passes over the
wreckage, but saw no evidence that the crew survived. An additional
electronic search yielded no indication of survivors. The hostile ground
threat precluded any search and rescue efforts.
In July 1992, a joint U. S./Vietnamese team, led by the Joint Task
Force-Full Accounting, visited the suspected area of the crash and
interviewed several informants with firsthand knowledge of the site. One of
the informants turned over remains they said were taken from the site. The
team also examined some aircraft wreckage in the possession of the
villagers.
Another joint team reinterviewed one of the informants in August 1993, while
another team in January 1994 surveyed the site again and recommended it for
excavation. Then in May 1994, excavation team members recovered numerous
pilot-related items as well as human remains.
A fifth team continued the excavation in June and July 1994 and recovered
additional remains and pilot-related artifacts. A sixth team completed the
excavation in August and September 1994, recovering some artifacts, but no
remains.
Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U. S. Army
Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii confirmed the identification of
both of these servicemen. With the accounting of these two, there are now
2,061 Americans unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War. Since the release of
American POWs in 1973, 522 MIAs from Southeast Asia have been accounted-for
and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
----------------------------------
Denver Post
Tuesday, June 8, 1999
Fallen Marine to be buried 31 years later
Mike McPhee Denver Post Staff Writer
The Vietnam War will finally come to an end this summer for a Pueblo
family, 31 years after its oldest son was shot down while flying a bombing
mission over North Vietnam.
Konstance Lavoo, 82 years old and blind for the past 12 years, was
recently notified by the US Marine Corps that the remains of her son, John,
have been positively identified. The US government will fly her and several
family members to Arlington National Cemetery, where her son will be given a
military burial July 19.
Capt. John Lavoo was 27, a graduate of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis
and a Marine pilot when he was shot down in an F-4 Phantom jet over Quang
Binh Province, North Vietnam, on Sept. 19, 1968. His navigator, Marine Capt.
Robert A. Holt, of Reading, Mass., also died in the crash. A joint
U.S.-Vietnamese team found the crash site in 1994 and located 25 bone
fragments. They were positively identified as those of the two airmen
through DNA testing.
"It was terrible," said Konstance Lavoo, whose husband died in February.
"I had lost a daughter to multiple sclerosis at 23. And now I couldn't
believe this could happen. At first they (the Marines) told us only that he
was missing. I thought he might find some shelter and be OK.
"The day I kissed Johnnie goodbye, I asked him, 'You will come home, won't
you?' He said, 'Mama, if I don't, you'll always know where I am.' He always
trusted in God. I didn't think he was a prisoner of war. We were so close
that I would have felt it if he was in trouble or a captive.
"After I accepted the fact that he wasn't coming back, I got a letter from
his commanding officer that they had held a memorial service for him. I
tried not to grieve over it too hard."
She said the service next month will relieve a lot of the pain.
"I think it's going to be a good closure."
Capt. Lavoo went to Thatcher Elementary School, Freed Junior High School
and Centennial High School. Sgt. William McCluskey of the Pueblo Police
Department recalled his classmate as an intelligent kid, a member of the
school orchestra and ROTC.
Lavoo had a choice of either the Air Force Academy or the Naval Academy;
he chose the latter because of its older tradition, McCluskey said.
Lavoo was the oldest of four children. Juliette Lavoo died of multiple
sclerosis. Another sister, Jeanette Swearingen, now lives in Denver and
Penrose, and a brother, James, lives in Garden City, Kan.
At the time of his death, Lavoo had been married to his wife, Rosalie, for
six and a half years, and had a daughter, Karna, 2. "It was the end of hopes
and dreams for a young couple," recalled his widow. "It's very consoling
now, to have this closure. We can finally pay our respects to John."
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