Hensley, Ronnie Lee Air Force chief master sergeant

Ronnie Lee Hensley, age 21, from Richwood, West Virginia, Nicholas county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Wednesday, April 22, 1970

Death details: On September 1, 1995, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Chief Master Sergeant Ronnie Lee Hensley, missing from the Vietnam War.

Chief Master Sergeant Hensley joined the U.S. Air Force from Kentucky and was a member of the 16th Special Operations Squadron. On April 22, 1970, he was a crew member aboard an AC-130 gunship (serial number 54-1625) on an armed reconnaissance mission over enemy targets in Saravane Province, Laos. The AC-130 was downed by anti-aircraft fire during the mission, and CMSgt Hensley was killed in the crash. Search and rescue efforts were unable to locate his body at the time. In November 1993, a joint U.S. and Laotian investigative team recovered remains from a crash site associated with this AC-130. In 1995, forensic analysis identified some of the recovered remains as those of CMSgt Hensley.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency