Donnelly, Verne
Navy Commander
Verne Donnelly, age 40, from Yuba County Marysville, California .
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Sunday, September 17, 1972
Death details: On January 17, 1991, the Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii(CILH, now DPAA) identified the remains of Captain Verne George Donnelly, missing from the Vietnam War. Captain Donnelly joined the U.S. Navy from California and was a member of Attack Squadron 35. On September 17, 1972, he piloted an A-6A Intruder (bureau number 157028) on a night armed reconnaissance mission over Vietnam. Captain Donnelly’s Intruder went down over Hai Duong Province during the mission, and he was killed in the incident. Enemy presence in the area prevented ground searches for CAPT Donnelly. In September 1990, the Vietnamese government repatriated a set of unidentified remains to U.S. custody. In 1991, forensic analysis identified the returned remains as those of CAPT Donnelly. Captain Donnelly 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, Press Telegram (1972), Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency