Joseph Castleman Morrison from Lexington, Kentucky, Fayette county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Monday, November 25, 1968
Death details: On November 25, 1968, an F-4D Phantom II (tail number 66-7523, call sign “Grommet 02”) with two crew members took off with a reconnaissance aircraft on a mission over North Vietnam. While over the target area, the F-4D radioed that it had been hit and crashed soon after. The reconnaissance aircraft aborted the mission immediately but did not see the Phantom crash; however, the reconnaissance aircraft did detect a steady rescue beeper and directed search and rescue aircraft to the area. Search teams located the crash site and made voice contact with the crew but were driven off by small arms fire. Bad weather complicated search efforts in the following days, and by the time searchers arrived on the ground, neither of the Phantom’s crew members could be located.
Major Joseph Castleman Morrison entered the U.S. Air Force from Kentucky and served in the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 432nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing. He was the aircraft commander aboard the Phantom when it was shot down, and is still unaccounted for. Following the incident, the Air Force promoted Maj Morrison to the rank of Colonel (Col). Today, Colonel Morrison is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency