Stewart, Paul Clark Army Chief warrant officer 2

Paul Clark Stewart from Buena Park, California, Orange county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Monday, February 8, 1971
Death details:  On February 8, 1971, a UH-1H Iroquois (tail number 68-16307, call sign “Chalk 03”) carrying four crew and an unspecified number of South Vietnamese Army passengers took part in a ten-aircraft insertion mission in Laos. As the formation flew to the drop-off point, “Chalk 03” radioed to the flight leader that it had taken damage from enemy ground fire, and was returning to the pickup zone. “Chalk 03” crashed and exploded in the vicinity of (GC) XD 582 368 during its return flight. Search and rescue teams located the wreckage and recovered six sets of remains identifiable as those of Vietnamese passengers, as well as four badly burned sets of remains. Three of these burned remains were later identified as U.S. service members, while the fourth was identified as another Vietnamese passenger. The remains of the fourth U.S. crew member from “Chalk 03” have not been recovered, and he is still unaccounted for.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Paul Clark Stewart, who joined the U.S. Army from California, was a member of Company C, 158th Aviation Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. He was the aircraft commander aboard “Chalk 03” when it went down, and was lost with the aircraft. His remains have not been recovered. Today, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Stewart is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency