WINN, DAVID WILLIAM

Name: David William Winn
Rank/Branch: O6/United States Air Force
Unit: 333rd TFS (Wing DCO/flying with squadron for the mission)
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Austin MN
Date of Loss: 09 August 1968
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 171000 North 1065500 East
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D

Other Personnel in Incident: none

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.

REMARKS: 730314 RELEASED BY DRV

SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977
Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor
P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602
Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and
spelling errors).
UPDATE - 09/95 by the P.O.W. NETWORK, Skidmore, MO

DAVID W. WINN
Brigadier General - United States Air Force
Shot Down: August 9, 1968
Released: March 14, 1973

I was born in Austin, Minnesota, and had a totally unspectacular childhood.
I went off to Carroll College, just outside of Milwaukee, to get two years
of college in order to qualify for the Army Air Corps. When the age and
college requirements were dropped following Pearl Harbor, I dropped school,
and graduated from pilot training in February 1943.

During the next five years, I flew nearly all the fighters we had, but my
World War 11 combat flying was in Martin B-26's and the photo version of the
P-38. I instructed gunnery for three years at Williams Field, Arizona in
P-47's, P-51's and P-80's until 1948, when I switched to the Minnesota Air
National Guard to look for a wife and an education.

Without achieving either, I was recalled to active duty in February 1951.
But Mary Flumerfelt married me on Flag Day in 1952, and the Air Force
Bootstrap program got me a University of Minnesota degree in Journalism in
1958.

We had a most rewarding year in Yorkshire (flying Hawker Hunters and English
Electric Lightnings, Mk. 11) plus eight months at Fighter Command
Headquarters at Stanmore on exchange with the R.A.F. Mary finally added a
daughter, Helen, to our family of sons, David Jr., Frank and Peter, while we
were in England.

After two puzzling years in the Pentagon, my prejudices were totally
shattered by a very rich year at the National War College at Ft. McNair,
during which I completed graduate studies in international relations.

The post, post-graduate training in Hanoi was next. I was a two-time loser,
having been downed in April 1968 and again on 9 August.

I don't know how to put those 55 months at Hoa Lo and the Plantation into
words right now - maybe someday. For me, that experience has to marinate
awhile.

Meanwhile, there is work to do and a determination to be worthy of all the
prayers and efforts on our behalf - for those of us who came out. We are the
lucky ones and we know it. I reckon we ought now to get even-to make our
lives important for those who couldn't come back, and for those whose
steadfast vision and determination gave us our freedom and a chance for
freedom to all of Southeast Asia.

Proverbs 25:11 says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in
pictures of silver." Further on, in Ezekiel 36:24-28 are some apples
which, to me, write a fitting finis to the episode:

"For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you from out
of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I
sprinkle clean water upon you, and from all your idols will I cleanse
you.

"A new heart also will I give you, and new spirit will I put within
you: and I will take away the stoney heart of your flesh, and I will
give you an heart of flesh.

"And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my
statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. And ye shall
dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my
people, and I will be your God."

December 1996
David Winn retired from the United States Air Force as a Brig General. he
and his wife Mary reside in Colorado.

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