Crear, Willis Calvin
Army Specialist 4

Willis Calvin Crear from Birmingham, Alabama, Jefferson county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Monday, February 15, 1971

Death details: On November 12, 2000, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Specialist 4 Willis Calvin Crear, missing from the Vietnam War.

Specialist 4 Crear entered the U.S. Army from Alabama and served with the 159th Aviation Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. On February 15, 1971, he was the door gunner aboard a CH-47C Chinook (tail number 18506, call sign “Regard 25”) on a combat support/resupply mission over Laos. During the flight, “Regard 25” caught fire, exploded in mid-air, and crashed near the Pon River in Savannakhet Province, Laos. Specialist 4 Crear was killed in the crash and his remains could not be recovered at the time. After the war, a series of joint U.S.-Laotian investigative teams located the crash site and recovered human remains, some of which were forensically identified as those of SP4 Crear.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency