PASCHALL, RONALD PAGE
Remains identified 04/02/94.
The symbol on the Wall was changed from a cross to a star April 30, 1994
Name: Ronald Page Paschall
Rank/Branch: E5/US Army
Unit: F Troop, 8th Cavalry, 196th Infantry Brigade
Date of Birth: 01 November 1950 (Linwood WA)
Home City of Record: Alderwood Manor WA
Date of Loss: 02 April 1972
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 165022N 1070455E (YD218628)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 1
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1H
Refno: 1812
Source: Compiled 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 in 1998.
Personnel in Incident: April 2: Robin F. Gatwood; Wayne L. Bolte; Anthony
Giannangeli; Charles A. Levis; Henry M. Serex; (all missing from the EB66).
LtCol. Iceal Hambleton (rescued after 12 days from EB66). Ronald P.
Paschall; Byron K. Kulland; John W. Frink (all missing from UH1H rescue
helicopter), Jose M. Astorga (captured and released in 1973 from UH1H).
April 3: William J. Henderson (captured and released in 1973 from OV10A
rescue craft); Mark Clark (rescued after 12 days from OV10A rescue craft).
April 6: James H. Alley; Allen J. Avery; Peter H. Chapman; John H. Call;
William R. Pearson; Roy D. Prater (all KIA/BNR from HH53C "Jolly 52" rescue
chopper). Also in very close proximity to "Bat 21"on April 3: Allen D.
Christensen; Douglas L. O'Neil; Edward W. Williams; Larry A. Zich (all
missing from UH1H). April 7: Bruce Charles Walker (evaded 11 days); Larry
F. Potts (captured & died in POW camp) (both missing from OV10A).
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: On the afternoon of April 2, 1972, two Thailand-based EB66 aircraft
(Bat 21 and Bat 22), from the 30th Air Division, were flying pathfinder escort
for a cell of B52s bombing near the DMZ. Bat 21 took a direct SAM hit and the
plane went down. A single beeper signal was heard, that of navigator Col. Iceal
Hambleton. At this time it was assumed the rest of the crew died in the crash.
The crew included Maj. Wayne L. Bolte, pilot; 1Lt. Robin F. Gatwood, LtCol.
Anthony R. Giannangeli, LtCol. Charles A. Levis, and Maj. Henry M. Serex, all
crew members. It should be noted that the lowest ranking man aboard this plane
was Gatwood, a First Lieutenant. This was not an ordinary crew, and its
members, particularly Hambleton, would be a prize capture for the enemy because
of military knowledge they possessed.
It became critical, therefore, that the U.S. locate Hambleton, and any other
surviving crew members before the Vietnamese did - and the Vietnamese were
trying hard to find them first.
An Army search and rescue team was nearby and dispatched two UH1H "slicks" and
two UH1B "Cobras". When they approached Hambleton's position just before dark,
at about 50 feet off the ground, with one of the AH1G Cobra gunships flying at
300 feet for cover, two of the helicopters were shot down. One, the Cobra (Blue
Ghost 28) reached safety and the crew was picked up, without having seen the
other downed helicopter. The other, a UH1H from F Troop, 8th Cavalry, 196th
Brigade, had just flown over some huts into a clearing when they encountered
ground fire, and the helicopter exploded. Jose Astorga, the gunner, was injured
in the chest and knee by the gunfire. Astorga became unconscious, and when he
recovered, the helicopter was on the ground. He found the pilot, 1Lt. Byron K.
Kulland, lying outside the helicopter. WO John W. Frink, the co-pilot, was
strapped in his seat and conscious. The crew chief, SP5 Ronald P. Paschall, was
pinned by his leg in the helicopter, but alive. WO Franks urged Astorga to
leave them, and Astorga was captured. He soon observed the aircraft to be hit
by automatic weapons fire, and to explode with the rest of the crew inside. He
never saw the rest of the crew again. Astorga was relesed by the North
Vietnamese in 1973.
The following day, Nail 38, an OV10A equipped with electronic rescue gear
enabling its crew to get a rapid "fix" on its rescue target entered Hambleton's
area and was shot down. The crew, William J. Henderson and Mark Clark, both
parachuted out safely. Henderson was captured and released in 1973. Clark
evaded for 12 days and was subsequently rescued.
On April 3, the day Nail 38 was shot down, a UH1H "slick" went down in the same
area carrying a crew of four enlisted Army personnel. They had no direct
connection to the rescue of Bat 21, but were very probably shot down by the
same SAM installations that downed Bat 21. The helicopter, from H/HQ, 37th
Signal Battalion, 1st Signal Brigade, had left Marble Mountain Airfield, Da
Nang, on a standard resupply mission to signal units in and around Quang Tri
City. The crew, consisting of WO Douglas L. O'Neil, pilot; CW2 Larry A. Zich,
co-pilot; SP5 Allen D. Christensen, crew chief; and SP4 Edward W. Williams,
gunner; remain missing in action.
On April 6, an attempt was made to pick up Clark and Hambleton which resulted
in an HH53C helicopter being shot down. The chopper was badly hit. The
helicopter landed on its side and continued to burn, consuming the entire craft,
and presumably, all 6 men aboard. The crew of this aircraft consisted of James
H. Alley; Allen J. Avery, John H. Call III, Peter H. Chapman, William R.
Pearson, and Roy D. Prater. Search and rescue noted no signs of survivors, but
it is felt that the Vientamese probably know the fate of this crew because of
the close proximity of the downed aircraft to enemy locations.
On April 7 another Air Force OV10A went down in the area with Larry Potts and
Bruce Walker aboard. Walker, the Air Force pilot of the aircraft, evaded
capture 11 days, while it is reported that Potts was captured and died in Quang
Binh prison. Potts, the observer, was a Marine Corps officer. Walker's last
radio transmission to search and rescue was for SAR not to make an attempt to
rescue, the enemy was closing in. Both men remain unaccounted for.
Hambleton and Clark were rescued after 12 incredible days. Hambleton
continually changed positions and reported on enemy activity as he went, even
to the extent of calling in close air strikes near his position. He was tracked
by a code he devised relating to the length and lie direction of various golf
holes he knew well. Another 20 or so Americans were not so fortunate.
In July 1986, the daughter of Henry Serex learned that, one week after all
search and rescue had been "called off" for Bat 21, another mission was mounted
to recover "another downed crewmember" from Bat 21. She doesn't know whether or
not it is her father or another man on the EB66 aircraft. No additional
information has been released. When the movie "Bat 21" was released, she was
horrified to learn that virtually no mention of the rest of the crew, including
her father, was made.
In Vietnam, to most fighting men, the man that fought beside them, whether in
the air or on the ground, was worth dying for. Each understood that the other
would die for him if necessary. Thus, also considering the critical knowledge
possessed by Col. Hambleton and some of the others, the seemingly uncanny means
taken to recover Clark and Hambleton are not so unusual at all.
What defies logic and explaination, however, is that the government that sent
these men to battle can distort or withold information to their families, and
knowingly abandon hundreds of men known or strongly suspected to be in enemy
hands.
Thousands of reports have been received by the U.S. Government indicating that
Americans are still alive, in captivity in Southeast Asia. It has been 17 years
for those who may have survived the 1972 Easter crashes and rescue attempts.
How much longer must they wait for their country to bring "peace with honor" to
them and bring them home?
--------------------------------------
[ssrep7.txt 02/09/93]
SMITH 324 COMPELLING CASES
South Vietnam Ronald P. Paschall
Byron K. Kulland
John W. Frink
(1812)
On April 2, 1972, a UH-1H helicopter from the 1st Signal Brigade
with four men on-board was on a direct combat support mission near
Quang Tri City, Quang Tri Province. While searching for the crew
of a downed U.S. Air Force aircraft, the helicopter was hit by
hostile small arms fire and crashed. An airborne SAR mission
failed to locate any survivors and the crew was declared missing in
action.
In April 1972, a former People's Army of Vietnam sergeant reported
the downing of a helicopter on April 1, 1972, which crashed near an
anti-aircraft gun position in the vicinity of this loss incident.
The crew was believed to have been killed in the crash. In another
report, a former People's Army soldier reported sighting an
American POW in April 1972 who was being escorted by nurses near
the Ben Hai River in Quang Tri Province. The American was captured
from an aircraft shot down by People's Army forces.
In March 1973, surviving crewman Jose M. Astorga was repatriated
alive during Operation Homecoming. He reported that hostile fire
hit their helicopter's fuel cell which exploded, engulfing their
helicopter in flames. He believed all other crewmen died in the
ensuing fire and crash, and neither he nor any other returning POWs
had any knowledge that any other crewmen survived into captivity.
After Operation Homecoming, the other crewmen were declared killed
in action, body not recovered based on a presumptive finding of
death.
--------------------------------------------------------------
[her0502.94 05/03/94]
Herald
Washington State
Robin Stanton
Family ends a quest
22 years later, Vietnam hero from Lynnwood is
finally laid to rest
Ronald Paschall looks out from the poster-sized photo in his father's
study.
His dark hair is a little shaggy. He's sitting down, relaxed, a barbed
wire fence a blur in the backround. His mouth is slightly parted, as if
her were about to speak.
But the lively young man in the picture has been dead for 22 years, his
helicopter shot down on Easter Sunday 1972 in Vietnam. And after years
of wondering and waiting, his father and his sister finally laid him to
rest in the Arlington national Cemetery on Saturday.
His mother, Ruth, died in January of 1993, without ever knowing her
son's fate.
"It was always on her mind," Marvin Paschall said. "We'd be sitting here
just talking, and she'd say, 'I wonder,...'"
They'd believed for a long time that Ron was dead, he said.
The crash occurred just six days before he was to return home. He sent a
letter to his girlfriend in Edmonds that day, saying he'd be home in a
week. The same day she got the letter, Army officers visited his parents
to say he'd disappeared.
"They say the helicopter crashed, but didn't catch fire," Paschall said.
"We thought he was a priosoner, and he'd come home when the war was
over."
But the war ended and Ron didn't come home.
Later, the Paschalls heard from the door gunner who had ridden with Ron
when he crashed.
"He sat right here and told us, word for word, what happened," Paschall
said. "He said Ron was out of the helicopter, but another guy was stuck
inside. Ron went back in after him, and the enemy started firing at the
helicopter. It went up in a ball of fire. The door gunner said it was so
hot it took his breath away."
The Army called Mr. Paschall a few months ago to say they had found his
son's remains. Army officials stayed in close touch with the family ,
and an officer flew out to meet with Paschall and his daughter, Janet
Peyton, to discuss how they were able to identify the remains. They made
plans for the funeral service for Ron Paschall and two other soldiers
who died with him.
Mr. Paschall and Janet and David Peyton flew to Washington, DC, Thursday
night. Army officials met them and put them up at the Executive Suites
Inn in Arlington, VA.
The funeral service was held Saturday.
"That church was packed full," Marvin Paschall said. "After it was over,
we came outside and there was a band playing over here and another band
playing on the other side. They set their caskets on a big wagon, pulled
by six white horses.
"We came right behind them, then an honor guard carrying their guns, and
the band followed."
After the bodies were interred, the honor guard fired a 21-gun salute,
he said.
At the funeral, they met the families of the other young men who had
been killed, and men, now older, who served with Ron Paschall in
Vietnam.
:One of them told me he remembered playing with my brother, " Janet
Peyton said. "They'd pretend they were like kids again, and they'd play
on the roofs of the Quonset huts, tossing pop cans filled with rocks at
each other."
"They really were just kids," her husband, David Peyton, said.
Seeing his friends grown older, with hairlines starting to recede, left
Janet Peyton with questions, "I wonder what he'd be like now."
Marvin Paschall fingered the tracing he'd made of his son's name on the
wall, the memorial to the dead of the Vietnam War. Ron's medals covered
the small dining room table in the red wood-frame house he grew up in.
"Here's the Purple Heart. You know that one," Paschall said. "This one
is a special medal, made for those who were missing in the war. Here's a
Bronze Star."
Paschall misses his wife, his sweetheart for 49 years. But he said it
would have been hard for her to go through these last months.
"I wouldn't want her to know that her son laid out in the jungle for 22
years, under the hot sun," he said. "She loved her children so very
much."
Everyone wants to know how he feels now that his long wait is over, he
said. "It's hard to say, afer you have waited and waited for so long,"
he said.
He paused for a moment.
"I'd a damn sight rather have it be this way than for him to have been a
prisoner all these years. It's a relief to really know that he wasn't a
prisoner, that he has been found, and to really know what happened."
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