Cody, Howard Rudolph
Air Force Captain
Howard Rudolph Cody from Harrison County Gulfport, Mississippi .
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Sunday, November 24, 1963
Death details: On November 24, 1963, a B-26 Invader (tail number 44-35703) carrying three crew members took off on a combat mission against enemy forces in South Vietnam. During a pass over the target area, this Invader was hit by enemy fire, which caused its cockpit to fill with smoke. The damaged Invader departed the target area but eventually crashed near Ca Mau, An Xuyen Province, South Vietnam, in the vicinity of (GC) WQ 150 902 and near friendly forces. The crash site was searched the next day, and the remains of two of the crew members, the navigator and an observer from the South Vietnamese Air Force were recovered; however, the pilot was not located or his remains recovered at the time. The area flooded during the search, hampering any continued investigative efforts. Captain Howard Rudolph Cody, who joined the U.S. Air Force from Mississippi, was a member of the 612th Tactical Fighter Squadron. He was the pilot of the Marauder when it went down, and his remains have not been recovered. Today, Captain Cody 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, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency