Richardson, Dale Wayne
Army Major

Dale Wayne Richardson, age 28, from Cashton, Wisconsin, Monroe county.

Service era: Vietnam
Military history: 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division

Date of death: May 2, 1970
Death details:On August 21, 2015, the Department of Defense announced it identified the remains of Major Dale W. Richardson, missing from the Vietnam War.

Major Richardson, who joined the U.S. Army from Wisconsin, served with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armored Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. On May 2, 1970, he was a passenger aboard a UH-1H Iroquois (serial number unknown) that carried eight in total and flying to Fire Support Base Katum, South Vietnam. At some point, the helicopter was diverted due to bad weather. It flew into Cambodian air space where it was hit by enemy ground fire. The pilot made an emergency landing in Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia. The four crew members and four passengers survived the crash landing, but three, including MA Richardson, died in a firefight with enemy soldiers that occurred after the landing. One U.S. soldier escaped, but the rest were taken as prisoners of war. The bodies of the three men killed in the firefight were not recovered until February 2012, when a Joint U.S./Cambodian team located the crash site and recovered human remains, and forensic analysis identified MAJ Richardson among the remains recovered from the site.
Cemetery: Mountain View, Arkansas

Source: National Archives, Department of Defense, WGEM, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency