ANDREWS, STUART MERRILL Remains to be buried 2006. See story.
Name: Stuart Merrill Andrews Rank/Branch: Colonel USAF Unit: 21st Tactical Air Support Squadron, Pleiku AB SV Date of Birth: 22 September 1928 Home City of Record: Stamford CT Date of Loss: 04 March 1966 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 133700N 1090000E (BR836079 Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 3 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: O1E Refno: 0262 Other Personnel In Incident: John F. Conlon (missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 May 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 2006.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: Major Stuart M. Andrews was the pilot of an O1E aircraft on which his observer-in-training was 1Lt. John F. Conlon III in March 1966. Andrews and his observer were sent on a cross-country visual reconnaissance mission in South Vietnam.
The O1E "Bird Dog" was used extensively in the early years of the war in Vietnam by forward air controllers and provided low, close visual reconnaissance and target marking which enabled armed aircraft or ground troops to close in on a target. The O1E was feared by the enemy, because he knew that opening fire would expose his location and invite attack by fighters controlled by the slowly circling Bird Dog. The Vietnamese became bold, however when they felt their position was compromised and attacked the little Bird Dog with a vengeance in order to lessen the accuracy of an impending strike by other craft.
Andrews and Conlon departed Qui Nhon Airfield on March 4, 1966 at 3:20 p.m. At 3:40 p.m. they made radio contact with a Special Forces Camp in the area and were asked to check campfires that had been spotted. That radio contact with the Special Forces camp was the last word anyone heard of Andrews and Conlon. There was at that time no indication that anything was wrong, but when the plane failed to arrive at its destination, both men were declared missing.
When 591 Americans were released from prisoner of war camps in 1973, Andrews and Conlon were not among them. Nearly five years later, in December 1977, they were presumptively declared dead, based on no information that they were alive.
Alarmingly, evidence continues to mount that Americans were left as prisoners in Southeast Asia and continue to be held today. Unlike "MIAs" from other wars, most of the nearly 2500 Americans who remain missing in Southeast Asia can be accounted for. Many U.S. Government officials have said it is their belief that Americans are being held, but have not yet found the formula that would bring them home. Detractors claim that not enough is being done to bring these men home.
Stuart M. Andrews was promoted to the rank of Colonel and John F. Conlon III was promoted to the rank of Major during the period they were maintained missing.
===============
Grave of two missing pilots found in Vietnam after 40 years ID tag, four teeth only remains THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A Montgomery woman whose husband's military ID was recovered from a grave in Vietnam after 40 years said she's relieved to know he had not been captured and tortured.
"After so many years, I had no hope that he was still alive," Ann Andrews said.
The Defense Department in May informed her that Air Force Maj. Stuart M. Andrews and a co-pilot apparently were buried by villagers after a plane crash.
Andrews, then 37, had taken off from Qui Nhon Air Field in South Vietnam's Binh Dinh province on a reconnaissance flight on March 4, 1966, flying with 1st. Lt. John Conlon. They never returned.
Despite a lack of remains, Andrews was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on June 13, 1978, and that same year, his name joined a list of 33 Yale University graduates on a memorial tablet at the university, honoring those who died in the Vietnam War.
"You'd hear stories about people who were captured and tortured, and you'd just pray that nothing like that could have happened. Knowing that it hadn't, that it had been quick, was a relief," Ann Andrews said.
Claire Evans, Conlon's sister who lives in Dallas, Pa., agreed.
"That was the worst part of not knowing - not knowing how they died," she said.
The grave was discovered after military officials followed up on a tip in August 2005 from a villager in the Gia Lai province about a plane crash.
On Feb. 6, investigators began an archaeological dig after hearing reports of villagers burying two men from the crash.
They found a metal military ID bearing the name Stuart M. Andrews. Because the grave was shallow and dug in what the report called "an erosion area," searchers found only four teeth, but an expert at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii identified them as Conlon's.
Evans plans to bury her brother's remains next month at Arlington. She's doing it for her children, she said, one of whom is named John Conlon Evans after her brother.
"When I got the news, I found myself thinking this is awful," she said. "But it isn't because at least now there is closure, and in my heart, I have the feeling that they have finally come home."