Bednarek, Jonathan Bruce
Air Force Captain
Jonathan Bruce Bednarek, age 23, from Greenlawn, New York, Suffolk county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: May 18, 1972
Death details: On June 1, 1989, the Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii (CILH, now DPAA) identified the remains of Captain Jonathan Bruce Bednarek, missing from the Vietnam War.
Captain Bednarek joined the U.S. Air Force from New York and was a member of the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron. On May 18, 1972, he was the avigator aboard an F-4D Phantom II (serial number 66-7612) on a combat mission over Kep Airfield in Vietnam. Captain Bednarek’s aircraft was shot down by enemy aircraft during the mission, and Capt Bednarek was killed in the crash. Immediate search efforts failed to locate the Phantom’s crew. In December 1988, the Vietnamese government returned Capt Bednarek’s remains to U.S. custody, with forensic analysis confirming the identification shortly thereafter.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency