Douglas Lee O’neill from Bayonne, New Jersey.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: April 3, 1972
Death details: On April 3, 1972, a UH-1H Iroquois (tail number 68-16330, call sign “Cavalier 70”) with a crew of four departed Marble Mountain, Da Nang, South Vietnam, on a combat support mission to Quang Tri City, South Vietnam. During the flight, the pilot told a Hue/Phu Bai Ground Control Approach (GCA) controller that he was lost, but he believed that the helicopter was near Quang Tri. Following the transmission, the GCA controller could not locate the helicopter on the radar, and reported the helicopter missing in the vicinity of (GC) YD 330 530. When the helicopter failed to appear at any of the air bases in South Vietnam, an aerial search was initiated but found no sign of the missing aircraft or crew.
Warrant Officer 1 Douglas Lee O’Neill, who joined the U.S. Army from New Jersey, served with the Headquarters & Headquarters Detachment, 37th Signal Battalion, 1st Signal Brigade. He was the pilot of “Cavalier 70” when it disappeared on April 3, 1972, and his remains were not recovered. After the incident, the Army promoted WO1 to the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 3 (CW3). Today, Chief Warrant Officer 3 O’Neill is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency