MARTIN, DOUGLAS KENT
Remains identified 04/16/99
Name: Douglas Kent Martin
Rank/Branch: Capt O3/USAF
Unit: 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron
Date of Birth: 24 July 1947 (Shreveport LA)
Home City of Record: Tyler TX
Date of Loss: 18 April 1973
Country of Loss: Cambodia
Loss Coordinates: 134200N 1065900E (YA153151)
Status (in 1973): (none)
Category: 3
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4D
Refno: 1986
Other Personnel In Incident: Samuel L. James (missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 September 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: DEAD - CHARRED BODIES - FBIS
SYNOPSIS: Capt. Douglas K. Martin was the pilot, and Capt. Samuel L. James
the weapons system officer on an F4E "Phantom" jet assigned the task of
marking a target in Cambodia with a smoke rocket on April 18, 1973. Radar
contact was lost with the aircraft during the mission and no radio contact
was made with the crew. Wingmen observed no explosion or parachutes, and no
emergency radio signal "beepers" were heard. The wingmen did not see the
plane go down, but they did observe a new swath cut through dense jungle
nearby.
A subsequent 700-square-mile search was conducted for the aircraft. During
the search for Martin and James, aerial photographs were taken of a probable
crash site which revealed an ejection seat, wing debris and one main landing
gear. The Air Force stated that James "is probably a POW according to our
intelligence."
A July 8, 1973 report from a South Vietnamese agent who spoke with a refugee
described three American prisoners wearing one-piece flight suits who
arrived in Kompong Barey Hamlet in Prey Veng Province in southern Cambodia,
en route to an unnamed location near Loc Ninh in South Vietnam. The agent
contacted a Viet Cong cadre who stated that they would be held at Loc Ninh
for future exchange. U.S. officials later denied that the July 8, 1973
sighting report existed, although James' father saw it himself in James'
file when in Thailand in October, 1973. Mr. James also spoke with the
wingmen. They all agreed that the crew could have survived.
A Cambodian broadcast report stating that the bodies of Martin and James
were found "charred" in the plane wreckage, was dismissed in 1973 by the
Defense Department as "propaganda," and the family was told not to regard it
seriously. Yet, as late as 1980, the "charred bodies" remark remain as data
identifiers in Defense Department records, with no further explanation given
to the family. James' family has never given up hope that he is still alive,
waiting for his country to secure his freedom. His family has worked
tirelessly since the day he was shot down to bring him home.
Both Douglas K. Martin and Samuel L. James attended the U.S. Air Force
Academy. When shot down, James was wearing a POW bracelet bearing the name
of a missing Academy friend, Dennis Pugh.
-------------------------------
National Alliance of Families
For The Return of America's Missing Servicemen
World War II - Korea - Cold War - Vietnam - Yugoslavia
Dolores Alfond ----- 425-881-1499
Lynn O'Shea ------- 718-846-4350
Email ----------------pggk94a@prodigy.com
Website ------------- http://www.nationalalliance.org
April 11, 1999
Another Family's Questions - On April 18, 1999 remains identified as Douglas
Martin and Samuel Larry James will be intered at the Air Force Academy
Cemetary. While Capt. James' daughter accepts the identification, his
mother Virgie James, and his sister Barbara White DO NOT. Larry's
identification is based on a dog tag found at the site and several teeth
which DO NOT match Capt. Martin and "compare favorably" to Capt. James.
The dental identification of Capt. James is far from conclusive. Four
independent dentists reviewed the odentolgist report. Their opinion is
split down the middle, with two saying it could be Capt. James and two
saying it might not be Capt. James. A dental comparison should either
match or not match. A favorable comparison, is not sufficient for an
identification.
The identification of remains is not a game of horseshoes. Close does not
count!
Neither Larry's mom nor his Sister will be attending the April 18th
internment. Both Mrs. James and her daughter Barbara ask that those wearing
Larry's POW bracelet continue to wear the bracelet, as they do not consider
him accounted for.
No. 057-M
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS April 16, 1999
The remains of six 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 Air Force Capt. Dean A. Wadsworth,
Clarendon, Texas; Marine SSgt. Harold E. Reid, Salt Lake City,
Utah; Navy Lt. David L. Hodges, Chevy Chase, Md.; Air Force Lt.
Col. Lewis M. Robinson, Saginaw, Mich.; Air Force Capt. Douglas
K. Martin, Tyler, Texas; and Air Force Capt. Samuel L. James,
Chattanooga, Tenn.
On Oct. 8, 1963, Wadsworth and his South Vietnamese crewman were
flying their T-28B Trojan on a combat support mission approximately 50
miles southwest of Da Nang, South Vietnam. As he completed his bombing
run over the target, his aircraft broke apart in mid air, crashed and
exploded, as reported by another pilot on the mission. A massive search
and rescue operation was initiated that day by two Marine helicopters
but they disappeared during the mission. At dawn on the following day,
Marine heli copters airlifted two companies of South Vietnamese
infantrymen to the area of the downed aircraft. As the helicopters
landed, enemy troops fired on them, wounding three Marine crewmen and
killing a Vietnamese soldier.
Two T-28s, B-26s and a South Vietnamese A-1 aircraft responded
by strafing enemy positions. An American L-19 light observation
aircraft directing the strike was hit, the Vietnamese observer was
wounded, and the aircraft made a forced landing. Meanwhile, the
Vietnamese ground troops found both Marine helicopters that had
disappeared on the first day. Ten bodies were recovered, but two remain
missing in action to this day. In the days during the search and rescue
operations, 207 missions were flow n, three aircraft were lost and four
others damaged. Fifteen South Vietnamese soldiers were killed and seven
were wounded.
In late 1993, a Vietnamese local turned over remains he said
were recovered near the crash site. In May of the following year, a
joint U.S./Vietnamese team, led by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting,
visited the area of the crash, interviewed villagers and obtained some
aircraft debris and pilot-related equipment. In September, another
joint team examined the crash site and found more debris, but no
remains. Then in May 1995, another team excavated the site where they
found remains, as well as two identification tags of Wadsworth.
On Sept. 13, 1967, Reid completed his tour guarding an
observation post near a river in Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam.
Before dawn, he crossed the bridge to visit a friend on the south side
of the river. He was never seen again. A joint U.S./Vietnamese team in
August 1993 interviewed local informants who claimed to have buried an
American Marine who had been shot by the Vietcong near the river. The
informants stated that the body had been moved and re-buried at another
location, but the team could not locate it. In September 1995, another
team interviewed other informants, but obtained little information.
Then in April 1996, a third team excavated the reported burial site
about 1,000 meters from the southern end of the bridge where they found
remains as well as material evidence and personal equipment.
On Oct. 7, 1967, Hodges was leading a strike mission near Hanoi,
North Vietnam when his A-4E Skyhawk was struck by an enemy
surface-to-air missile. His wingman reported receiving a radio
transmission from the lieutenant that his engine had flamed out. As the
wingman watched, Hodges' burning aircraft rolled to the right, entered a
steep dive, and crashed. No parachute was sighted and no emergency
beeper signals were heard. Because of enemy control of the area, there
was no search and rescue missi on mounted.
Acting on information obtained from Vietnamese wartime documents, a
joint U.S./Vietnamese team interviewed villagers in July 1995 who
claimed to have visited the site shortly after the crash and buried the
pilot. But the crash crater had been filled with dirt to allow farming,
so the team found no evidence of a crash. But the following April,
another team mounted an excavation at the site where they did recover
remains, a wristwatch fragment, pilot-related items and aircraft
wreckage. Later, in S eptember 1996, a third team continued the
excavation and found additional remains among the wreckage.
Robinson was flying his A-1E Skyraider on a close air support mission
over Saravane Province, Laos, on June 4, 1967, when he was struck by
enemy ground fire. His aircraft pitched up abruptly, struck the wing of
another aircraft, went into an inverted spin and crashed amid an
explosion. None of the other pilots in the flight reported seeing a
parachute nor hearing emergency beeper signals. Hostile threats in the
area prevented air or ground searches of the crash site.
In early 1988, representatives of the Laotian government turned over
remains to the U. S. Joint Casualty Resolution Center, the unit leading
joint recovery operations in Southeast Asia at the time. A joint
U.S./Lao team traveled to the area of the crash site in November 1993,
interviewed villagers, surveyed the area and recovered skeletal
fragments, aircraft wreckage and pilot-related equipment. Then in
January 1998, a second joint team excavated the site and recovered more
remains and personal eq uipment.
Martin and James were flying a forward air control mission over Cambodia
on April 18, 1973, when they descended below a 6,000-foot layer of haze
in their F-4E Phantom. They radioed they had the target in sight, but
their wingman was unable to maintain visual contact. He asked Martin
and James to give him an automatic direction-finder signal but there was
no response. On several passes over the target, the wingman noted fires
and explosions near the target area. There were no parachutes sighted,
nor emergency beeper signals. Enemy activity in the area prevented a
ground search, but aerial reconnaissance the following day noted
aircraft debris at the site.
In 1993, 1995 and 1997, three joint U.S./Cambodian teams developed leads
through interviews with local villagers and surveys of the crash site.
The informants noted that the crash site had been heavily scavenged and
that remains had been present at one time. Then in January 1998, a
joint team excavated the site where they found remains amid numerous
pieces of aircraft wreckage. Anthropological analysis of the remains and
other evidence by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory,
Hawaii confirmed the identification of all six of these servicemen.
With the accounting of these six, there are now 2,063 Americans
unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War. Since the release of American
POWs in 1973, 520 MIAs from Southeast Asia have been accounted-for and
returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
The U.S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of
the governments of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Lao People's
Democratic Republic, and the Kingdom of Cambodia 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-
Saturday, Apr. 17, 1999
Southlake family's 26 years of waiting ends
By Marisa Taylor
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
SOUTHLAKE -- Scott Martin abruptly awoke from a dream one night last summer,
his second dream in 25 years about his older brother who disappeared during
the Vietnam War.
Unable to go back to sleep, Martin woke his wife, Amy, and the couple sat in
the kitchen, drinking coffee and speculating about the dream's meaning.
"It wasn't a nightmare," Martin recalled. "My brother was fine, and we
talked. It was a pleasant dream."
Martin didn't know it, but about the same time, scientists at the military's
Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii were identifying the remains of
his brother, U.S. Air Force Capt. Douglas Kent Martin, who had been listed
as missing in action since his plane disappeared over the jungles of
Cambodia in 1973.
The recent discovery is a resolution to a mystery that has haunted the
family for more than two decades and finally offers them an explanation of
the events leading up to his plane crash. But the Martins are reliving the
pain of their loss and reminiscing about their lives with Doug, whom they
remember as a patriotic, resilient and determined soldier.
Today, the 26th anniversary of his crash, there will be a burial ceremony at
the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., for Doug Martin and his
navigator, Capt. Samuel L. James, whose remains also were recently
identified. Three planes will fly overhead in the missing pilot formation.
"The ceremony will bring us closure," said Doug Martin's 75-year-old mother,
June Martin of San Antonio. "It's better to go ahead and go through the
formalities. It helps us to accept it."
Never certain of his death, the family had yearned for the day that the
soldier would walk back into their lives.
"You make the presumption that he's been shot down, but you don't make the
presumption that he's been killed," Scott Martin said. "Of course you say,
`I hope he's still alive.' But then you say, `Oh God, I pray he's not,
because 26 years is a long time to be held by somebody in some bamboo cage
as a prisoner of war.' "
Martin, a Southlake councilman known for impassioned speeches during council
meetings, said he is emotionally drained by the new flood of memories and
has few words to describe his feelings about the burial. Partly because of
the grief rekindled by the discovery, Martin recently decided not to seek
re-election to the City Council, he said.
"I don't think I'll even be able to say anything during the ceremony," he
said. Doug Martin's widow, Karen Martin, never remarried. For years, she
pleaded with the military to continue the search for her husband. At the
same time, she said, she forced herself to accept that he may never come
home.
When his death was confirmed, though, she said she was surprised by the
depth of her sorrow.
Renewing contact with her husband's friends, Karen, a 54- year-old state
district judge in Florida, shares her remorse with others who have not
forgotten him.
"I still miss him terribly," she said.
Details about Doug Martin's death are still scant.
The family knows that Martin had volunteered for an experimental mission, in
which he was to fly low over the triple- canopy jungles of Cambodia. The
assignment: target a bridge believed to be a supply route for the Khmer
Rouge and North Vietnamese.
"He asked another guy if he would swap with him and take the mission," Scott
Martin said. "He wanted the experience of this new mission. He wanted to
know what it was like to be that first guy."
On April 18, 1973, 25-year- old Doug Martin and 27-year- old James took off
in their F-4E aircraft. About 3 p.m., Martin radioed to another aircraft
that he had the target in sight and was taking the aircraft below a haze
layer from 6,000 feet.
Nothing more was heard from the two pilots.
Another pilot passed over the area several times, but he never saw a
parachute or emergency beepers -- the signs of survivors.
Instead, he saw fires and explosions 200 yards northwest of the target.
To Scott Martin, his older brother was the model soldier that their father,
U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Sherman Fielder Martin, wanted for a son.
Sherman Martin, who served in three wars and was decorated 12 times, pressed
both his sons to attend a military academy because he believed that it would
give them courage and confidence to serve their country.
"By the time we were in elementary school, he was intensely training us to
understand our civic duty," Scott Martin said.
To the disappointment of his father, Scott chose architecture instead of the
military, he said. Doug, however, followed his father's lead and went to the
Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs after graduating from high school in
1965.
In the academy, Doug become known for remarkable determination. The day
after he was released from the hospital for a back injury, he tried out for
the swimming team. As part of the tryout, he was told to swim 30 laps. He
swam 29 before back pain forced him to stop.
"Doug was so tenacious and tried so hard that the coach was impressed and
let him join the team," June Martin said.
In his senior year, the coach nominated him for Athlete of the Year.
Above all, Doug wanted to fly. When he graduated from the academy, problems
with his eyesight disqualified him from pilot training. Refusing to give in,
he found an optometrist in Denver who had patented a contact lens that
eventually helped change his eyes, and he passed the eye exam without
contact lenses.
"My brother wanted to be a career military officer -- that was his life,"
Scott said.
The military then began preparing his brother for war. Scott, younger than
his brother by two years, said he was sometimes frightened by the changes in
his brother's personality.
Once, the brothers were swimming at an officers club and Scott playfully
jumped on his brother from behind. Reacting instinctively, Doug flipped his
younger brother over his shoulder to break his neck.
"I remember being flabbergasted that he could throw me over," Scott said.
"My vision started tunneling in, and I just about passed out."
When a friend yelled at him to stop, Doug let go, picked up his younger
brother and sat him on the edge of the pool. Without saying a word, Doug
jumped out of the pool and drove off in his car.
"His friend yelled at me, saying, `Don't you know he's a trained killer?' "
Scott said. "I knew he had been trained to do it that way, but why would he
do it to me?
"That's when I said they've done something to my brother that he didn't want
and that I didn't want."
In 1972, Doug was ordered to report to Udorn Air Force Base in northeast
Thailand for his tour of duty in Vietnam.
"We didn't want to think about him not coming back," Scott said. "But
knowing all the guys who had already died, it was always in the back of my
mind."
About 11 p.m. the day that Doug Martin's plane disappeared, two Air Force
officers arrived at the apartment that Karen Martin shared with five other
military wives in Bangkok, Thailand.
"I knew immediately," she said.
Thousands of miles away, several officers pulled up in an Air Force vehicle
in front of June Martin's house. When she saw a chaplain in the group, she
also guessed the bad news.
"I saw the cross, and I just knew," she said.
Exhausted by giving his thesis presentation at Texas Tech University in
Lubbock, Scott Martin was resting in his dorm room when his roommate told
him that he had a call.
"I told him, `I don't want to talk to anybody,' and he said, `Scott, it's
your Dad,' " he said. "I picked up the phone and my father said, `Scott I
just got a report that Doug's MIA in Cambodia.' I went, `Oh my God.' "
A reconnaissance team searched the suspected crash site the next day and
spotted aircraft debris in the area, but the family was told that a ground
search was too dangerous.
Six months after his arrival in Thailand, Doug Martin became one of the last
four American pilots to be listed as missing in action by the military
during the Vietnam War.
Doug Martin's family was given few details about his disappearance at a time
when the U.S. government was hesitant to acknowledge military action in
Cambodia.
"I had just heard that my brother had disappeared and that evening
[President] Richard Nixon came on the television and made a public
declaration that we were not bombing Cambodia," Scott Martin said. "I sat
there in shock."
Attempts to look for soldiers listed as prisoners of war or missing in
action were stymied for years because the United States was either at war or
had broken off dialogue with Cambodia.
Still, Karen Martin refused to give up hope. The family had been told that
the military had classified information that two U.S. prisoners of war had
been seen in the area where her husband's plane went down.
She urged the military not to list her husband as killed in action, saying
the information -- however unsubstantiated -- should prompt the military to
investigate.
For five years after her husband's disappearance, she worked to keep his
case open as an active member of the National League of Families of American
Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.
"I wasn't about to let them close the books on him," she said.
For a long time, she said, she would not accept his death. But about 10
years ago, she said, she finally felt prepared and went to visit the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., to see her husband's name on the
wall.
"I just stood there weeping," she said.
Sherman Martin died in 1992, never knowing of his son's death.
After relations between the United States and Cambodia began thawing in the
late 1980s, new information began coming in about the two missing pilots,
prompting a team of Cambodian and American representatives to visit the
suspected crash site in March 1993, April 1995 and June 1997.
After interviewing witnesses who collaborated the theory that the pilots had
been shot down, team members began excavating the site in January 1998.
The Martins knew that a discovery was not guaranteed. Excavating in Cambodia
and Vietnam is arduous work and the hot, humid conditions speed decay.
"We're fighting a battle against the clock in Southeast Asia," said Larry
Greer, spokesman for the office that works MIA and POW cases for the
Pentagon. "The excavation is either in the middle of water- filled rice
paddies or hanging off the side of a cliff."
After 12 days, the team began recovering skeletal fragments, teeth and bits
of aircraft wreckage. They soon found James' dog tag.
Between August and March, the military reviewed the case and finally
concluded that Doug Martin and James had been found.
"I look at it as though he died doing something he believed in," Karen
Martin said. "He loved flying. He had said to me those were some of the
happiest moments of his life."
Knowing now what happened, she said, the family can begin to resolve his
death.
"There's a big difference between accepting the death of someone you love
intellectually and having something final," she said. "Now, I feel like he's
coming home."
----------------------------------
I am a cadet at the US Air Force Academy. Yesterday I attended the funerals
of Capts. Doug Martin and Sam James, 2 USAFA grads whose remains were
recently found in Cambodia and returned to the United States to be buried.
They were buried together in the same casket with the same headstone, just
as they were found "buried" together in their F-4 for the last 26 years. I
thought it was a great moment. There were over 300 people at the service
including many of the two deceased pilots' classmates from the Academy, as
well as many Vietnam vets and those who have still "not forgottetn". Thank
you for your time.
Respectfully,
C3C Jerimy D. Maclellan
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