Toms, Dennis Leroy
Navy Airman apprentice

Dennis Leroy Toms from Burnsville, Minnesota, Dakota county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Sunday, November 21, 1965
Death details:  Airman Apprentice Dennis Leroy Toms entered the U.S. Navy from Minnesota and served aboard the aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA 31). On November 21, 1965, while the carrier was operating in the South China Sea off the North Vietnamese coast, he fell over the edge of one of the ship’s aircraft elevators and went into the water in the vicinity of (GC) 49Q BK 200 000. He was not wearing survival or flotation equipment. Marker lights and life rings were immediately thrown into the water where he fell, and multiple ships and aircraft searched the area, but AA Toms could not be found. He remains unaccounted for. Today, Airman Apprentice Toms is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Based on all information available, DPAA assessed the individual’s case to be in the analytical category of Non-recoverable.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency