Coates, Donald Leroy
Marines Staff sergeant

Donald Leroy Coates, age 29, from Tigard, Oregon, Washington county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Tuesday, February 1, 1966
Death details: On February 1, 1966, a KC-130F Hercules (bureau number 149809) took off carrying six crew members on an aerial refueling mission over the Gulf of Tonkin. En route to its rendezvous point, all radio and radar contact was lost with the aircraft while over the water in the vicinity of (GC) 48Q YE 520 190. Search efforts to locate the aircraft and the six crew members were unsuccessful. Sergeant Donald Leroy Coates entered the U.S. Marine Corps from Oregon and was a member of the Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 152, 1st Marine Air Wing. He was a crew member aboard this Hercules when it disappeared on February 1, l966, and he was lost with the aircraft. He remains unaccounted-for. After the incident, the Marine Corps promoted Sgt Coates to the rank of Staff Sergeant (SSgt). Today, Staff Sergeant Coates 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