Fitts, Richard Allan
Army Staff sergeant

Richard Allan Fitts from Abington, Massachusetts, Plymouth county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: November 30, 1968
Death details: On December 20, 1989, the Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii (CILHI, now DPAA) identified the remains of Staff Sergeant Richard Allan Fitts, missing from the Vietnam War.

Staff Sergeant Fitts entered the U.S. Army from Massachusetts and served with the 5th Special Forces Group. On November 30, 1968, he was a passenger aboard a CH-34 Choctaw (tail number 144653) when it was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire over Laos, and crashed and exploded in Savannakhet Province, killing SSG Fitts. The heavy enemy presence around the loss area prevented the recovery of SSG Fitts’ remains at the time. In 1989, a joint U.S./Laotian search team excavated the crash site and recovered human remains; U.S. investigators were able to identify SSG Fitts from these remains.

Source: National Archives, Evansville Courier & Press, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency