Vancampen, Thomas Charles
Army Private 1st class

Thomas Charles Vancampen, age 19, from Butte County Oroville, California .

Parents: Charles A. VanCampen

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Thursday, June 24, 1965
Death details: Private First Class Thomas Charles Van Campen entered the U.S. Army from California and was a member of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. On June 24, 1965, he was on a combat operation near Bien Hoa, South Vietnam, when he became separated from his unit and was shot and killed by a sniper in the vicinity of grid coordinates YT 075 215. His unit was forced to retreat and was not able to retrieve his body at the time. The unit eventually returned to the area but did not find PFC Van Campen’s body, and further attempts to recover his remains have been unsuccessful. Today, Private First Class Van Campen is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed along with all his fallen comrades on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.

Source: National Archives, Oroville Mercury Register (1965), Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency