Caniford, James Kenneth
Air Force Senior Master Sergeant

James Kenneth Caniford from Frederick, Maryland, Frederick county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: March 29, 1972
Death details: Laos
Cemetery: On March 28, 2008, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Senior Master Sergeant James Kenneth Caniford, missing from the Vietnam War.

Senior Master Sergeant Caniford entered the U.S. Air Force from Maryland and was a member of the 16th Special Operations Squadron. On March 29, 1972, he was a crew member aboard an AC-130A gunship (tail number 55-0044, nicknamed “Prometheus”) that took off from Ubon Airfield, Thailand, on a night reconnaissance mission to targets east of Savannakhet in southern Laos. The aircraft was shot down by enemy surface-to-air missiles, killing SMSgt Caniford and the other crew members. Search and rescue efforts were curtailed due to heavy enemy activity, and no remains could be recovered at that time. Between 1986 and 2006, joint U.S./Laotian teams excavated the crash site in Savannakhet Province and recovered human remains and artifacts. Modern forensic techniques were eventually able to identify Caniford among the remains recovered.

Source: National Archives