MASON, WILLIAM HENDERSON
Name: William Henderson Mason
Rank/Branch: O3/USAF
Unit: 41st Tactical Airlift Squadron, Ubon Airbase, Thailand
Date of Birth: 12 October 1924
Home City of Record: Camden AR
Date of Loss: 22 May 1968
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 162000N 1063000E (XC843858)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 4
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: C130A
Refno: 1187
Other Personnel in Incident: Jerry L. Chambers; Calvin C. Glover; Thomas E.
Knebel; John Q. Adam; William T. McPhail; Thomas B. Mitchell; Gary Pate;
Melvin D. Rash (all missing)
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, interviews.
Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 1998.
REMARKS: CONTACT LOST - NFI
SYNOPSIS: The Lockheed C130 Hercules aircraft was a multi-purpose propeller
driven aircraft, used as transport, tanker, gunship, drone controller,
airborne battlefield command and control center, weather reconnaissance
craft, electronic reconnaissance platform; search, rescue and recovery
craft.
In the hands of the "trash haulers", as the crews of Tactical Air Command
transports styled themselves, the C130 proved the most valuable airlift
instrument in the Southeast Asia conflict, so valuable that Gen. William
Momyer, 7th Air Force commander, refused for a time to let them land at Khe
Sanh where the airstrip was under fire from NVA troops surrounding that
base.
Just following the Marine Corps operation Pegasus/Lam Son 207 in mid-April
1968, to relieve the siege of Khe Sanh, Operation Scotland II began in the
Khe Sanh area, more or less as a continuation of this support effort. The
C130 was critical in resupplying this area, and when the C130 couldn't land,
dropped its payload by means of parachute drop.
One base from which the C130 flew was Ubon, located in northeast Thailand.
C130 crews from this base crossed Laos to their mission areas in Vietnam.
One C130 crew from Ubon was comprised of LtCol. William H. Mason and Capt.
Thomas B. Mitchell, pilots; Capt. William T. McPhail, Maj. Jerry L.
Chambers, SA Gary Pate, SSgt. Calvin C. Glover, AM1 Melvin D. Rash and AM1
John Q. Adam, crew members.
On May 22, 1968, this crew departed Ubon in a C130A carrying one passenger -
AM1 Thomas E. Knebel. Radio contact was lost while the aircraft was over
Savannakhet Province, Laos near the city of Muong Nong (suggesting that its
target area may have been near the DMZ). When the aircraft did not return to
friendly control, the crew was declared Missing In Action from the time of
estimated fuel exhaustion. There was no further word of the aircraft or its
crew.
The nine members of the crew are among nearly 600 Americans who disappeared
in Laos. Many are known to have been alive on the ground following their
shoot downs. Although the Pathet Lao publicly stated on several occasions
that they held "tens of tens" of American prisoners, not one American held
in Laos has ever been released. Laos did not participate in the Paris Peace
accords ending American involvment in the war in 1973, and no treaty has
ever been signed that would free the Americans held in Laos, and not one of
them has returned home.
William Mason was a 1946 graduate of West Point. Thomas Mitchell was a 1963
graduate of the Air Force Academy. Mason was promoted to the rank of Colonel
during the period he was maintained missing.
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