SCALES, THOMAS R.
DECEASED
Name: Thomas R. Scales
Rank/Branch: Civilian
Unit:
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record:
Date of Loss: 27 May 1966
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 103500N 1070000E (YS320610)
Status (in 1973): Released POW
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Jeep
Other Personnel in Incident: Robert W. Monahan (released)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 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.
REMARKS: 670101 RELEASED
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.
1998
Thomas Scales is deceased.
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