Lancaster, Kenneth Ray
Army Staff sergeant

Kenneth Ray Lancaster from Silver Spring, Maryland, Prince George’s county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: January 3, 1968

Death details: South Vietnam; Hostile, died missing; body not recovered. Specialist 4 (SP4) Kenneth Ray Lancaster entered the U.S. Army from Maryland and served with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, 9th Infantry Division. On January 3, 1968, he was the team leader of a reconnaissance patrol being extracted by helicopter from their designated pick-up point in South Vietnam. About a minute after takeoff, SP4 Lancaster was seen hanging from the helicopter’s right landing skid. The pilot was informed and attempted to land, but rough terrain precluded a safe landing. A rope was lowered to SP4 Lancaster, but he lost his grip on the skid before he could be pulled aboard and fell into the jungle below. Multiple attempts to locate SP4 Lancaster after he fell were unsuccessful, and he remains unaccounted for. Following the incident, the Army promoted SP4 Lancaster to the rank of sergeant first class. Today, Sergeant First Class Lancaster is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency