Category: Veitnam

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Newman, Larry Jerome
Air Force Technician sergeant

Larry Jerome Newman from North Platte, Nebraska, Lincoln county.

Service era: Veitnam

Date of death: Sunday, June 18, 1972
Death details:  On October 12, 1994, the Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JFA-FA) identified the remains of Technical Sergeant Larry Jerome Newman, missing from the Vietnam War.

Technical Sergeant Newman entered the U.S. Air Force from Nebraska and was a member of the 16th Special Operations Squadron. On June 18, 1972, he was a gunner aboard an AC-130A gunship (tail number 55-0043, call sign “Spectre 11”) that took off from Ubon Airfield, Thailand, on an armed reconnaissance mission over A Shau Valley, South Vietnam. The aircraft was shot down by an enemy surface-to-air missile near the border of Laos and Vietnam. Technical Sergeant Newman was killed in the crash and his remains could not be recovered at the time. In October 1993, investigators visited the crash site and recovered personal artifacts and human remains. Technical Sergeant Newman was identified among the remains recovered.

Source: National Archives, UPI, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

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Zich, Larry Alfred
Army Chief warrant officer 3

Larry Alfred Zich from Nebraska, Lancaster county.

Service era: Veitnam

Date of death: Monday, April 3, 1972.

On October 25, 2022, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Larry A. Zich, missing from the Vietnam War.

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Zich entered the U.S. Army from Nebraska and served in the Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 37th Signal Battalion, 1st Signal Brigade. On April 3, 1972, he was the copilot of a UH-1H Iroquois (tail number 68-16330, call sign “Cavalier 70”) with a crew of four that 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, and believed they were near Quang Tri. Following the transmission, the GCA controller could not locate the helicopter on the radar and reported the team missing. 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. On April 11, 1988, the Defense Intelligence Agency received human remains from a Vietnamese refugee. Reportedly, the remains belonged to individuals who died in an aircraft crash and were buried in Quang Nam Province. These remains were then sent to Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, for further study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between one set of these remains and CW3 Zich.

Zich, who joined the U.S. Army from Nebraska, served with the Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 37th Signal Battalion, 1st Signal Brigade. He was the copilot aboard “Cavalier 70” when it disappeared, and his remains were not recovered. After the incident, the Army promoted CW2 Zich to the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 3. Today, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Zich is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency