Red Wing Minnesota

Thomas Edward Reitmann, age 34, from Goodhue County Red Wing, Minnesota .

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Wednesday, December 1, 1965
Death details: On May 13, 2011, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Major Thomas Edward Reitmann, missing from the Vietnam War. Major Reitmann entered the U.S. Air Force from Minnesota and was a member of the 344th Tactical Fighter Squadron. On December 1, 1965, he piloted an F-105D Thunderchief (tail number unknown) that took off from Takhli Air Base, Thailand on a strike mission to destroy a railroad bridge in Lang Son Province, North Vietnam, northeast of Hanoi. While over the target area, this aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed, killing Maj Reitmann. Intense enemy fire precluded search-and-rescue operations and Maj Reitmann’s remains were not recovered at the time. Post-war search efforts by joint U.S./Vietnamese teams were unable to locate the crash site. However, in 2011, a local villager turned over human remains and an artifact from an American military member’s uniform discovered in his cornfield. Using a combination of forensic and circumstantial evidence, and with the assistance of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, these remains were identified as those of Maj Reitmann. Major Reitmann is memorialized in 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.
Cemetery: Arlington National

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency