Kenneth Edwin Nance from Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Saturday, April 12, 1975
Death details: Body recovered
Source: National Archives
Alexander Mciver, age 34, from Santa Monica, California, Los Angeles county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Wednesday, May 3, 1972
Death details: On June 12, 1974, the Central Identification Laboratory-Thailand (CILT, now DPAA) identified the remains of Captain Alexander McIver, missing from the Vietnam War. Captain McIver joined the U.S. Air Force from California and was a member of the 345th Tactical Airlift Squadron, 374th Tactical Airlift Wing. On May 3, 1972, he was a crew member aboard a C-130E Hercules that took off on a resupply mission near An Loc, Vietnam. The aircraft was shot down during the mission, and Capt McIver died in the incident. Once fighting in the area had subsided, search and rescue teams recovered the remains of most of the C-130E’s crew; however, Capt McIver’s remains could not be individually identified until 1974.
Cemetery: Arlington National
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, findagrave.com
Donald Everett Crone from Whittier, California, Los Angeles county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Monday, February 15, 1971
Death details: On December 11, 2000, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Specialist 4 Donald Everett Crone, missing from the Vietnam War.
Specialist 4 Crone entered the U.S. Army from California and served with the 159th Aviation Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. On February 15, 1971, he was the crew chief aboard a CH-47C Chinook (tail number 18506, call sign “Regard 25”) on a combat support/resupply mission over Laos. During the flight, “Regard 25” caught fire, exploded in mid-air, and crashed near the Pon River in Savannakhet Province, Laos. Specialist 4 Crone was killed in the crash and his remains could not be recovered at the time. After the war, a series of joint U.S.-Laotian investigative teams located the crash site and recovered human remains, some of which were forensically identified as those of SP4 Crone.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Henry Douglas Weese from Susanville, California, Lassen county.
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Tuesday, January 13, 1953
Death details: Late in the afternoon on January 12, 1953, a RB-29A Superfortress (serial number 44-62217, call sign Stardust 40) departed Yokata Air Base, Japan, with a crew of 14 aviators. The briefed mission was a classified leaflet dropping operation targeting multiple cities along the west coast of North Korea in an area known as “MiG Alley”. At approximately 45 minutes before midnight, a ground station received a May Day distress call on the air emergency channel, but all attempts to establish radio contact failed. A ground radar station reported the distressed aircraft as approximately 15 miles south of the Yalu River; a short time later the Superfortress disappeared from radar. On January 21, a communist propaganda broadcast from Beijing, China, claimed that the B-29 had been shot down over Manchuria; of the 14 aircrew members, all but three had survived. The 11 survivors were held in Mukden (Shenyang), then Peking (Beijing), and finally released through Hong Kong in 1955. It is believed that the remaining three aviators perished while attempting to parachute over Antung (Dandong).
First Lieutenant Henry Douglas Weese, who joined the U.S. Air Force from California, was assigned to the 581st Air Resupply Squadron, 581st Air Resupply and Communications Wing. On the day of his loss he was on temporary duty orders to 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron. 1st Lt Weese was the Radar Operator on this RB-29 when it was lost and one of the three aviators that remain unaccounted-for. Today, First Lieutenant Weese is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency