Thomas Carl Daffron, age 26, from Pinckneyville, Illinois, Perry county.
Service era: Vietnam
Schools: Air Force Academy (1965)
Date of death: Wednesday, February 18, 1970
Death details: On July 21, 1999, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Captain Thomas Carl Daffron, missing from the Vietnam War. Captain Daffron joined the U.S. Air Force from Illinois and was a member of the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron. On February 18, 1970, he was the pilot of an F-4C Phantom II (serial number 63-7671) on a night strike mission over Laos. The Phantom was downed by anti-aircraft fire during the mission, and Capt Daffron was killed in the incident. Search and rescue efforts for the Phantom were unsuccessful. In 1995, a joint U.S. and Laotian investigative team recovered remains from a site associated with Capt Daffron’s Phantom. In 1999, U.S. forensic analysts identified the recovered remains as those of Capt Daffron.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Arizona Daily Star (1970)