Killian, Melvin Joseph
Air Force Colonel

Melvin Joseph Killian, age 43, from Pottawattamie County Council Bluffs, Iowa .

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Thursday, September 30, 1965
Death details: On April 8, 1985, the Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii(CILH, now DPAA) identified the remains of Colonel Melvin Joseph Killian, missing from the Vietnam War. Colonel Killian joined the U.S. Air Force from Iowa and was a member of the 334th Tactical Fighter Squadron. On September 30, 1965, he piloted an F-105D Thunderchief (bureau number 610117) as part of a strike mission against enemy targets in Vietnam. Colonel Killian’s aircraft was downed by an enemy surface-to-air missile over the target area, and he was killed in the incident. Immediate search and recovery efforts were unsuccessful. In 1985, Col Killian was identified among a set of remains that the Vietnamese government returned to U.S. custody. Colonel Killian is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery. His name is also inscribed along with all his fallen comrades on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.

Source: National Archives, Associated Press (1965)