Navy Pilot Missing In Action From the Vietnam War is Identified

DOD ^ | 6/20/08 | DOD

[Dubya]

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

He is Lt. Cmdr. Ralph C. Bisz, U.S. Navy, of Miami Shores, Fla. His funeral arrangements are being set by his family.

On Aug. 4, 1967, Bisz took off in an A-4E Skyhawk from the USS Oriskany to bomb an enemy petroleum depot near Haiphong, Vietnam. As he neared the target, his aircraft was struck by an enemy surface-to-air missile and crashed near the town of Hai Duong in Hai Hung Province. No parachute was observed and no emergency beeper signal was received.

In 1988, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) repatriated to the United States human remains from Hai Hung Province, which they attributed to Bisz on the basis of their historical records of the shootdown as well as documentation of his burial.

Between 1988 and 2004, joint U.S./S.R.V. teams, led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted several investigations of the incident and surveyed the crash site. A team found aircraft wreckage at the site which was consistent with an A-4E Skyhawk. Teams also interviewed witnesses who recalled the crash and burial of the pilot in a nearby cemetery. Additionally, one witness indicated that he oversaw the exhumation of the American's remains from the cemetery, and their turnover to district officials.

Between 1993 and 2004, 25 samples from the remains turned over in 1988 were submitted to several laboratories for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis, but yielded inconclusive results. In 2007, the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used refined DNA collection techniques and succeeded in obtaining verifiable mtDNA.

Using forensic identification tools, circumstantial evidence, mtDNA analysis and dental comparisons, scientists from JPAC identified the remains as those of Bisz.

For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 509-1905 or (703) 699-1420.

[Army Air Corps]

Finally, some closure for the family. Posthummus thanks to Lt. Cmdr. Ralph C. Bisz. Welcome home, sir.

[Army Air Corps]

Posthummus = Posthumous

[Dubya]

Soldier rest, Gently pressed,
To the calm, Mother Earth's
Waiting breast;
Duty done, Like the sun:
Going West.

SEMPER FI SAILOR
GOD BLESS YOU
AND WELCOME HOME

[RasterMaster]

[proudmilitarymrs]

Thank you Lt. Cmdr. Ralph C. Bisz, welcome home.

[magslinger]

SONOBUOY PING!

Welcome Home, Lt. Cmdr. Ralph C. Bisz.

Click on pic for past Navair pings.

Post or FReepmail me if you wish to be enlisted in or discharged from the Navair Pinglist.
This is a medium to low volume pinglist.

[PGR88]

Lt. Cmdr. Ralph C. Bisz, Rest in Peace.

[FMBass]

Thank you.
Rest in peace.
Condolences to your family.

[NonValueAdded]

Welcome home, brave sir, and prayers for your loved ones.

[tatsinfla]

Thank You Sir for Your Service to Our Country, Welcome Home and May You Rest Peacefully now. Stand down as others take over.

[fish hawk]

Giant BUMP

[Joe 6-pack]

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

[SJSAMPLE]

Well Done, Lt. Cmdr.

Welcome home.

[snippy_about_it]

Welcome home Lt. Cmdr. Ralph C. Bisz, U.S. Navy.

Thank you JPAC.

[pabianice]

Welcome home, shipmate.

pabianice

RVN 1970-1971

[vigilence]

Welcome home and rest in peace knowing that your sacrifice helped defeat the global communist threat and enabled freedom loving people over the entire earth to throw off the shackles of enslavement and to live their lives free from the tyranny that still grips too many of God’s children. Well done and an admiring hand salute from one of your contemporaries!

[Tolkien]

Welcome home Commander!

[Gondring]

I hope that the identification and return of Lt. Cmdr. Bisz will bring some peace to his family and friends. Though the chance of his survival was known to be slim, the question can always linger and closure can be elusive.

For those who are interested in a similar case, I would recommend The Heart of a Man: A Naval Pilot's Vietnam Diary by Frank Callihan Elkins (edited and published posthumously by his widow, Marilyn Roberson Elkins).

Lt. Elkins was also an A-4E pilot from USS Oriskany (though he was in VA-164, not VA-163). His plane was downed by a SAM on October 12, 1966, and his wife fought for decades to get answers--finally being able to put him at rest in American soil in 1990, when remains were repatriated and identified.

RIP, Lt. Cmdr. Bisz and Lt. Elkins, and welcome home. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Welcome Home... GOD Bless...