MAPE, JOHN CLEMENT
Remains identified 03/17/99
Name: John Clement Mape
Branch/Rank: United States Navy/O5
Unit:
Date of Birth: 24 September 1925
Home City of Record: DUBLIN CA
Date of Loss: 13 April 1966
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 182759 North 1053258 East
Status (in 1973): Killed In Action/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A1H #139692
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident:
Refno: 0301
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/PILOT/16 YRS United States Navy
No further information available at this time.
No. 019-M
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS March 17, 1999
The remains of three American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from
Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their families
for burial in the United States.
They are identified as Navy Cmdr. John C. Mape, San Francisco, Calif.; Air
Force Maj. John E. Bailey, Minneapolis, Minn.; and Navy Petty Officer 2nd
Class John F. Hartzheim, Appleton, Wis.
On April 13, 1966, Mape was flying an armed reconnaissance mission over Nghe
Tinh Province North Vietnam when an enemy surface-to air missile struck his
A-1H Skyraider, destroying it. Other pilots in the flight made a visual
inspection of the crash site and concluded there were no survivors.
In May 1991 a joint U.S./Vietnamese team, led by the Joint Task Force-Full
Accounting, traveled to Nghe Tinh Province and interviewed several local
witnesses who recalled the crash of a U.S. aircraft in April or May 1966.
The witnesses also indicated that the site had been heavily scavenged for
metal in the early 1990s. The initial visit to the crash site in 1991 and a
subsequent visit in July 1993 provided little material evidence.
In August 1994 a U.S./Vietnamese team learned that a group of men had been
arrested in Dong Nai Province in late 1992 for illegally excavating and
taking remains from the crash site. Vietnamese authorities confiscated the
remains and turned them over to U.S. anthropologists.
On May 10, 1966, Bailey was leading a combat strike mission over Quang Binh
Province, North Vietnam. Shortly after expending his ordnance, Bailey's
F-105D Thunderchief was seen to tumble end-over-end into the ground with its
canopy in place. Other members of the flight circled the impact area but
observed no survivor.
In 1990 a joint U.S./Vietnamese team interviewed several local villagers in
Quang Binh Province who provided information including an F-105 aircraft
data plate that appeared to correlate with Bailey's loss. The team visited
the recorded crash site but saw no indication of wreckage. A second visit
to that site in 1993 confirmed the absence of evidence there.
In July 1995 another joint team performed a preliminary survey of the crash
site which led to an excavation a month later. The team located aircraft
fragments, pilot-related personal equipment as well as human remains.
On Feb. 27, 1968, Hartzheim was on board an OP-2E Neptune flying a
reconnaissance mission over Khammouan Province, Laos. While over the target
area the aircraft was struck by an enemy 37mm antiaircraft round, causing
the radar well and bomb bay to catch fire. Shrapnel from the explosion
struck Hartzheim. He collapsed at the rear of the aircraft during
evacuation and was presumed dead. The crew parachuted out of the aircraft
as it entered a steep climb before crashing. A subsequent search and rescue
tea m succeeded in rescuing only seven of the nine crew members.
In January 1985 a unilateral turnover from a Laotian source to the Joint
Casualty Resolution Center Liaison Office in Bangkok consisted of several
bone fragments, a compass and a plastic E-and-E (Escape and Evasion) map.
The source indicated that the items were recovered near a 1968 crash site of
an U.S. aircraft in Khammouan Province.
In October and December 1994 joint U.S./Lao teams traveled to the Khammouan
Province to interview several villagers with information about the crash.
While surveying the crash site the team found aircraft wreckage, a fragment
of a possible knife sheath and human remains. Successive visits in 1995 and
1996 recovered more remains, life support equipment and other crew-related
items.
Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U.S. Army
Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii confirmed the identification of
Mape, Bailey and Hartzheim. With the accounting of these three servicemen,
2,069 Americans are listed as unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.
The U.S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the
government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's
Democratic Republic, which 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-
Published Tuesday, March 30, 1999, in the San
Jose Mercury News
U.S. pilot 'coming home'
Ex-Dublin resident shot down in Vietnam
identified with DNA
BY MICHAEL PENA
Valley Times
A Navy commander who was shot down in the Vietnam War 33 years ago is
finally coming home to the Bay Area.
The remains of John Clement Mape, a former Dublin resident, will be flown
home next month. He will be buried April 30 at the Golden Gate National
Cemetery in San Bruno.
"It is a closure, because we weren't sure for such a long time," said his
only living sibling, Mary Mape Sarris. "He could have been a prisoner of
war -- that went through my mind many, many times. But we think he died
right away, and that was a comfort for us."
Mape is one of 520 Vietnam War military members and civilians listed as
missing in action who have been accounted for. Some 2,063 people still
remain classified as MIAs.
The remains of the 40-year-old fallen pilot and two other former Vietnam War
soldiers were identified by the Pentagon Wednesday after U.S. scientists
compared Mape's DNA with that of Sarris. His remains were confiscated by the
Vietnamese government in 1994 from a group of Vietnamese men who planned to
sell them for profit. Six more MIAs will be announced in a few days. About
500 employees from the Department of Defense work with government
counterparts in Bangkok, Hanoi, Laos and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to search for
and retrieve American remains. "We take their sons and daughters and send
them into harm's way," said the Washington office's spokesman, Larry Greer.
"We have a responsibility to bring them home."
For Sarris the return of her brother's remains is a mixed blessing. The
sense of loss for the younger brother she adored -- and from whom she
learned the value of compassion and sacrifice -- has never gone away.
"His one wish was that he got all his boys home, and he got his wish,"
said Sarris, 76, of Santa Rosa. "Everyone came home but him."
"Jack", as his family called him, was leading a reconnaissance mission of
fighter planes over North Vietnam when he was shot out of the air on April
13, 1966.
Mape was leading three fighter planes when his A-1H Skyraider was shot down
by a surface-to-air missile. He went down in the cloud cover over Nghe Tinh
Province, and the other pilots didn't see him eject.
He crashed in a field and was buried by a farmer.
His remains ended up in the hands of Vietnamese men who were arrested in
1992 for illegally excavating the crash site. In an unusual recovery,
Vietnamese authorities confiscated the remains and turned them over to the
United States. In April 1998, family members learned there was a "50-50
chance" the remains were Mape's. Sarris gave a DNA sample for analysis at
the Naval pathology laboratories in Maryland. In December, the family was
told the DNA matched.
"It awakens so many memories," said his sister-in-law, Barbara Mape of
Menlo Park, "because (his being shot down) came as such a shock to the
family. We were expecting him home, and the next thing we heard was that he
had been killed."
Two of Mape's daughters will go to Honolulu to accompany their father's
remains on the final flight home in mid-April. Mape will be buried in San
Bruno following services at St. Matthew's Catholic Church in San Mateo,
where he grew up.
Mape joined the Navy in 1948 after leaving St. Patrick's seminary in
Mountain View, where he was preparing for the priesthood. He was the father
of seven children.
Mape was described as a deeply religious family man. He was born in Holland,
Mich.
"He was just one of the best people to walk the face of this earth,"
Sarris said. "He was not a disciplinarian or a tyrant, but he demanded
respect."
He was assigned to the USS Ticonderoga in September 1965. When he left for
Vietnam, he was stationed at the Alameda Naval Air Station and had lived in
Dublin for several years.
The city of Dublin named a neighborhood park in his honor when it opened in
May 1967. The park, on Plata Way, was renovated in 1997 and renamed Mape
Memorial Park.
"We're just thrilled for the whole family," said Dublin Mayor Guy Houston.
"The city will probably have a delegation at the services."
The Pentagon last week also announced that it had identified the remains of
Air Force Major John E. Bailey of Minneapolis and Navy Petty Officer 2nd
Class John F. Hartzheim of Appleton, Wis. Both were killed in Vietnam.
The U.S. Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office
identifies the remains of MIAs every month. About 78,750 people are listed
as missing in action from World War II; more than 8,200 from the Korean War;
and 123 from the Cold War of the 1950s and '60s.
--------------------------------------------------
Staff writer Sam Richards contributed to this story.
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