Rowley, Charles Stoddard
Air Force Colonel

Charles Stoddard Rowley, age 38, from Riverton, Connecticut.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: April 22, 1970
Death details: On September 1, 1995, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Colonel Charles Stoddard Rowley, missing from the Vietnam War.

Colonel Rowley joined the U.S. Air Force from Florida and was a member of the 16th Special Operations Squadron. On April 22, 1970, he was a navigator 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 Col Rowley was killed in the crash. Search and rescue efforts were unable to locate his body immediately following the incident. 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 Col Rowley.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency