Mann, Robert Lee
Air Force Captain

Robert Lee Mann, age 32, from Lafayette, Indiana.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Friday, October 22, 1965
Death details:  On October 22, 1965, an RB-66 Destroyer (tail number 53-0452, call sign “Sabre 55”) with a crew of three took off on a night reconnaissance mission over Pleiku, South Vietnam. The aircraft failed to return from the mission for unknown reasons, and search teams were launched. The aircraft’s crash site was located near Sa Thay District, South Vietnam, but later investigations of the site found no evidence of the aircraft’s crew and all three remain unaccounted-for.

Captain Robert Lee Mann, who joined the U.S. Air Force from Indiana, was a member of the 9th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. He was the pilot of “Sabre 55” when it went down on October 22, 1965, and was lost with the aircraft. He was not seen or heard from again following the incident. Today, Captain Mann is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, findagrave.com