Christiano, Joseph
Air Force Colonel

Joseph Christiano, age 43, from Monroe County Rochester, New York .

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Friday, December 24, 1965
Death details: On April 5, 2012, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Colonel Joseph Christiano, missing from the Vietnam War. Colonel Christiano entered the U.S. Air Force from New York and was a member of the 4th Air Commando Squadron. On December 24, 1965, he was a crew member aboard an AC-47D Spooky (serial number unknown), carrying five other crew members on an armed reconnaissance mission against enemy targets over southern Laos. The gunship aircraft crashed during the mission in Savannakhet Province, and Col Christiano was killed in the incident along with the other crew members. In 1995, a joint U.S./Laotian team investigated a reported location in Savannakhet Province that led the team to the Spooky’s crash site and recovery of aircraft wreckage. The team re-visited the site from 1999 to 2001, and again in 2010 and 2011, and recovered human remains, personal items, and military equipment. Modern forensic techniques identified Col Christiano among the remains recovered. Colonel Christiano is memorialized in 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.
Cemetery: Arlington National

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency