Portsmouth Ohio

John Walter Arms from Portsmouth, Ohio, Scioto county.

Service era: Korea

Date of death: Sunday, June 6, 1954
Death details:  Just after sunrise on June 5, 1953, an LT-6G Texan (tail number 47-9787, call sign “Mosquito Adverb 2”) departed Chunchon (K-47) Air Base with a crew of two aviators. The briefed mission was a prestrike tactical reconnaissance operation as a Forward Air Controller in an area north of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division’s main line of resistance, known as Black Bear Sector. As the aircraft arrived over the target area, the Texan began to receive heavy ground fire from enemy rifles and machine guns, but the crew still managed to locate a series of targets, enemy artillery, bunkers, and a tank, and radio for fighter-bomber support. With the fighter-bombers en route, “Mosquito Adverb 2” flew low through heavy gunfire over the targets, marking them with white phosphorus rockets. The aircraft repeated this maneuver with each target, coordinating the attack of sixteen fighter-bombers. All totaled, “Mosquitor Adverb 2’s” crew helped to destroy the tank, several enemy fighting positions, and two ammunition bunkers. However, as the pilot of “Mosquito Adverb 2 ” was in the middle of calling for additional airstrikes, his transmission suddenly ended. According to Army witnesses on the ground, the plane was in a shallow bank at roughly 1,000-1,500 feet when its tail section was hit by enemy machine gun fire, sending the aircraft into a loose spin. As the aircraft was recovering, Army personnel heard the pilot gun the engine just before the aircraft crash-landed south of Hill 190, which is in the present-day Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). A forward observer on the ground at the time reported seeing at least one of the crew members exit the wreckage only to be captured by enemy forces and taken into a nearby bunker, but neither crew member could be located following the incident.

Arms entered the U.S. Air Force from Ohio and was assigned to 6148th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 6147th Tactical Air Control Group. He was the pilot of this Texan when it was shot down. No returning POWs mentioned having contact with 1st Lt Arms in captivity, nor was he seen at any known holding point, interrogation center, hospital, or permanent POW camp. He remains unaccounted-for. Today, First Lieutenant Arms is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency