NIEHOUSE, DANIEL LESTILE
Name: Daniel Lestile Niehouse
Rank/Branch: Civilian
Unit: Ford Motor Company
Date of Birth: 15 February 1946
Home City of Record:
Date of Loss: 25 November 1966
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 110730N 1071340E (YT433302)
Status (in 1973): Prisoner of War
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Jeep
Refno: 0529
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 June 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: 670412 DIC - ON PRG DIC LIST
SYNOPSIS: Daniel L. Niehouse was an automobile salesman working for Ford
Motor Company in Saigon. On November 26, 1966, he rented a jeep and left
Saigon for a holiday in Da Lat, some 150 miles northeast of Saigon.
Niehouse was headed northeast and had traveled about 10 miles northeast of
Bien Hoa and was in Long Khanh Province, when he was apparently stopped and
captured by revolutionary troops.
Niehouse was held with two other Americans who had been captured 27 May 1966
several miles southeast of Saigon in Gia Dinh Province. Thomas R. Scales and
Robert W. Monahan, U.S. civilians, had been traveling by jeep when they were
stopped and captured by the Viet Cong.
Niehouse, Scales and Monahan were apparently held in a temporary holding
facility near the city of Hue. In 1969, a source revealed detailed
information relating to this compound to U.S. intelligence officials,
including names, duties and family members of camp personnel, hand-drawn
maps of the compound, and many other details. The source, after viewing
photo albums of American missing military personnel and civilians positively
identified the photos of 22 Americans (including Niehouse) as being held at
the facility. He selected as "possibly held" the photos of another 33
Americans and 2 women. The "possible" group included Robert Monahan.
The report was considered credible enough for the U.S. to plan a BRIGHT
LIGHT rescue mission. Yet, families of the men whose photographs were
selected by the source were not notified of the report until after it became
public in 1984.
Scales and Monahan were inexplicably released by the Viet Cong on January 1,
1967, and they reported that Daniel Niehouse was alive and in good health at
that time.
In 1973, when 591 American prisoners were released by the Vietnamese, Daniel
Niehouse was not among them. His name appeared on a list of Americans who
had died in captivity. The Vietnamese stated that Niehouse died in captivity
on April 12, 1967, yet they have never returned his remains.
Since the end of the war, over 10,000 reports such as the one about the POW
camp at Hue have been received by the U.S. Government. Many authorities,
including a former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, believe that
many Americans remain captive today, and that there exists ample
intelligence to prove it.
Others in government take a more conservative stand, saying they operate
under the assumption that one or more Americans are being held, but that
actionable evidence has not been obtained to warrant rescue attempts or a
hard-line stand against the Vietnamese.
In 1990, the USG trend is clearly moving towards normalization of relations
with Vietnam. Many critics believe normalization should occur only when
American POWs are released by Vietnam and the fullest possible accounting of
MIAs is given. It seems inappropriate to reward a country with U.S. economic
largess which continues to illegally hold Americans captive.
---------------------------------
[ssrep6.txt 02/09/93]
South Vietnam Daniel L. Niehouse
(0529)
On November 25, 1966, Mr. Niehouse, a salesman for Ford Motor
Company, was driving between Saigon and Dalat when he was stopped
and detained by Vietnamese communist forces 20 kilometers north of
the town of Xuan Loc. Three foreign civilians released from
captivity on January 1, 1967 (Thomas R. Scales, Robert W. Monahan,
Mrs. Ofelia T. Gaza) last knew Mr. Niehouse to be alive in
captivity with them. Prior to their release, Mrs. Gaza's husband
and an Australian civilian died in captivity.
Mr. Niehouse was reported missing and then captured. He was
identified by the Provisional Revolutionary Government at Operation
Homecoming as having died in captivity on April 12, 1967. His
remains have not yet been repatriated. Other returning POWs were
unable to provide information on his eventual fate.
-----------------------
Daniel Niehouse, a U.S. civilian captured on November 25, 1966
sent a letter to his family in Scotland by prisoners released
in 1967. Niehouse appeared on the PRG died-in- captivity
list, but his remains have not been repatriated.
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