GILLESPIE, JOHN FRANCIS Remains Returned 12/2007
Name: John Francis Gillespie Branch/Rank: United States Navy/E3 Unit:8FD AMP Date of Birth: Home City of Record:Australia Date of Loss:17 April 1971 Country of Loss: Nouth Vietnam Loss Coordinates: Status (in 1973): MIA/BB Category: Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1D 3170244 Missions: Refno: 1741 Other Personnel in Incident: See below
Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK with information provided by Bruce S. and from data from U.S. Government agency sources. Edited 2007.
REMARKS:
Synopsis:
Dear Sir,
I am an Australian Vietnam Veteran and while reading through your site I came across the name of a friend of mine:
JOHN FRANCIS GILLESPIE Dated 17th APR 71
John Gillespie was a medic on a RAAF helicopter which was shot down over the Long Hai hills in the Australian Army area of operations in Phuoc Tuy province.
The chopper was hit and l/cpl Gillespie was hit in the chest and when the aircraft went down he was trapped in the wreckage. The other crew members were unable to free him from the wreckage and his body was totally destroyed.
The name is the same and the date is the same so I would presume the man on your list is the Australian John Francis Gillespie. The Australian JFG is among only six Australians from that conflict listed as MIA and all have subsequently been changed to KIA.
I hope this will clear your records up. Great site by the way.
Cheers Bruce S
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NATIONAL NEWS
COURIER MAIL (AUS)
Army to search for Vietnam soldier Nick Papps 27mar04
A SEARCH is to be launched for an Australian soldier missing in action from the Vietnam War.
The US Army will lead the search after a team of Australian Vietnam veteran investigators found helicopter wreckage in dense bushland in southern Vietnam.
It is believed the wreckage is from a helicopter shot down in 1971 during a medical evacuation while carrying Lance Corporal John Gillespie.
The Melbourne man's remains have not been found but last month the crash site was located and US authorities said they expected to visit the area by July.
Lance-Cpl Gillespie, a medical assistant, is believed to have died in a fire in the crash, while three other soldiers died underneath the chopper.
The wreckage was found by Vietnam veteran Peter Aylett with a former Viet-Cong guide.
They used a report on the helicopter crash prepared by former Vietnam veteran Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Bourke and located an antenna, circuit boards, wiring and screws believed to be from the chopper.
The new search will be spearheaded by the US Army's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command which searches for all missing US soldiers from all wars.
The Gillespie case is being investigated by JPAC because a US soldier died underneath the crash.
In December 2002 Mr Bourke's report identifying the crash site was handed to the Defence Department but the department refused to conduct a search.
It was reported last year that the Australian Government had refused a US military request for DNA relating to the six Australian soldiers missing in Vietnam: Lance-Cpl Gillespie, Private John Fisher, Lance-Cpl Richard Parker, Pte Peter Gillson, Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver.
The office assisting the Minister for Defence Mal Brough later ordered Defence to ask every missing man's family for DNA related to the six.
Defence and Mr Brough later said all families had been asked and had declined to give any samples.
But Michael Herbert's sister Kerryn said she had not been asked if she wished to give a sample.
"I was not contacted by the ADF," she said.
After the reports at least one relative of a missing soldier gave DNA to JPAC via Jim Bourke and his organisation Operation Aussies Home.
Another missing man's family is set to give DNA in the next few weeks.
Yesterday Lance-Cpl Gillespie's daughter Fiona Pike said she hoped the discovery of her father's crash site would help other families but said her family had "closure" over the death.
"My father has left some wonderful memories and we would like to enjoy those memories and not go through the pain and suffering of people reliving the tragedy," she said.
Ms Pike also said the family was "satisfied with the Army's explanation and interpretation of the incident".
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http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Two-buried-at-site-of-Vietnam-action/2005/12/05/1133631178647.html
Two buried at site of Vietnam action
December 5, 2005 - 11:58AM
Two Australian soldiers whose bodies were never recovered from Vietnam are believed to have been buried near where they fell 40 years ago, making it easier to find them, a former soldier says.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Jim Bourke, who has headed a team seeking the graves of Lance Corporal Richard "Tiny" Parker, 24, and Private Peter Gillson, 20, said his team had interviewed a former Viet Cong soldier who participated in the action in which the two men died.
"The salient piece of information that we obtained from the Vietnamese witness who was on the feature was that bodies were buried on the actual position and weren't carted away," he told ABC radio.
"I was concerned that maybe they had been carted away and buried elsewhere. He claims that they were recovered next morning and buried adjacent to the position."
Lance Corporal Parker and Private Gillson are two of the six Australians missing from the Vietnam conflict. Both were members of 1RAR which was involved in Operation Hump on November 8, 1965. Mr Bourke was also a member of 1RAR involved in the same operation.
This was a combined Australian-US attack on a feature known as Hill 82, 17km north-east of the city of Bien Hoa, under overall US command.
As Lance Corporal Parker patrolled into a small clearing, he was cut down by at least four Viet Cong machine guns. Massive incoming fire barred immediate recovery of his body but his colleagues organised an assault.
Private Gillson, carrying an M60 machine gun, was climbing over tangled tree roots when he was hit. He managed to kill two enemy soldiers but was struck repeatedly by enemy fire.
On three occasions, platoon Sergeant Colin Fawcett crawled forward but each time recovery of the body was thwarted by intense enemy fire.
The Australian infantrymen then withdrew to regroup but the US commander forbade any further recovery attempts. That decision reportedly caused great dissatisfaction among the diggers.
Mr Bourke said the former enemy soldier gave a description of the two Australians, their equipment and the circumstances of their death which coincided with what was known.
He also said the smaller soldier (Gillson) had been carrying a pistol as well as his machine gun.
Mr Bourke said he hadn't known that but former associates of Gillson in Australian confirmed he had indeed carried a handgun.
However, there's a one kilometre discrepancy between where the Vietnamese believe the action took place and where Australian records showed it happened.
He said he was more inclined to believe the Australian account because the Vietnamese were relying only on local knowledge and sketch maps.
Mr Bourke said there would need to be a forensic excavation of the burial site and the United States agency engaged in searching for the 2,000 Americans missing in Vietnam might be the best to accomplish that task.
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http://www.awm.gov.au/database/roh.asp?surname=gillespie&conflict=VN Gillespie, J F Number: 3170244 Rank: Lance Corporal [L Cpl] Unit: 8 Fd AMB (RAAMC) Service: Army Conflict: Vietnam, 1962-1972 Date of Death: 17/04/1971 Place of Death: South Vietnam Cause of Death: Killed In Action Memorial Panel: 5 Cemetery or Memorial Details: Next Of Kin: Wife - Mrs C P Gillespie Notes: Source: AWM153 Roll of Honour cards, Vietnam
RA
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Townsville Bulletin (Australia) August 30, 2006
Hope to get vets home
THE bodies of two 1RAR soldiers killed in Vietnam more than 40 years ago could finally be coming home.
Jim Bourke, a former Ayr resident and the man charged with leading a recovery mission to find the men, is tipping a better-than-even chance their bodies will be found.
Mr Bourke, a Vietnam veteran and president of the group Operation Aussies Home, said next year's mission would use ground-penetrating radar to search a site where it was believed Lance Corporal Richard `Tiny' Parker, 24, and Private Peter Gillson, 20, were buried in 1965.
They are two of six Australians missing in action from the Vietnam War. All were almost certainly killed, and their bodies remain unrecovered to this day.
Lance Corp Parker and Pte Gillson were shot dead by Viet Cong forces on November 8, 1965.
Intense enemy fire halted repeated attempts to retrieve their bodies and their mates reluctantly withdrew when ordered.
Mr Bourke said crucial information gained from a former enemy soldier earlier this year was that the pair had been buried the following morning a short distance from where they died.
A concern was that the bodies might have been moved some distance, then buried, or relocated after the war.
Mr Bourke said no one knew of them having been moved.
However, there is still a 1km discrepancy between Australian and VC accounts of where the action took place in jungle about 60km north-east of Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City, after the war.
Mr Bourke believes the Australian accounts are more accurate and has narrowed the search to an 80m by 300m area.
The former enemy soldier recounted that the two Diggers were buried head-to-toe in a trench.
``If they are there, the probability of us finding them is pretty good,'' Mr Bourke said.
``If they were buried in a trench, (it) would have run across the hill along a contour line.''
Using a search pattern up and down the slope, the radar should be able to detect filled-in trenches from variations in earth density.
``If we have got the right area marked out, the probability of us finding them . . . is pretty good,'' Mr Bourke said. ``I'd say there is an 80 per cent chance.''
Mr Bourke said the two week expedition would be mounted during the Vietnamese dry season in January or February.
He said the ground-penetrating radar would be operated by an expert from the Australian National University in Canberra.
``We are furiously trying to raise money,'' he said. ``It's not all that expensive and I don't know why someone hasn't done it before.''
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Australian
December 18, 2007
Digger makes final journey
THIRTY-SIX years after he fell in combat in Vietnam , the body of Lance Corporal John Francis Gillespie was finally returned to Australia yesterday.
Arms wrapped around each other, Gillespie's widow Carmel Hendrie and daughter Fiona Pike paid a tearful tribute to the army medic at Hanoi International Airport last night before his casket was carried on to a waiting military plane for the journey to Melbourne.
Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin, who also attended the ceremony, thanked the Vietnamese Government and the volunteer organisation Operation Aussies Home, who played a crucial role in the discovery of Gillespie's body this month.
``Soon, Lance Corporal Gillespie will be laid to rest at home, where his family can say the goodbyes that have been denied them for so long,'' Mr Griffin said in a statement.
Gillespie was one of the few remaining Australian soldiers declared missing in action in Vietnam\l "I" after the helicopter he was travelling in was shot down during an attempted evacuation of a South Vietnamese soldier in what were then the country's Long Hai Hills, in April 1971.
The surviving crew members had attempted a rescue but were beaten back during a heavy firefight and forced to retreat.
The helicopter's crash site was found in 2004 by Peter Aylett, an Australian whose place on the flight was taken by a friend at the last moment. The Australian government subsequently organised an excavation, which uncovered Gillespie's remains.
He is the third veteran found through the efforts of Operation Aussies Home, which in 2002 began a serious attempt to find the six Australians still missing in action in Vietnam\l "I".
Gillespie's family will hold a funeral ceremony tomorrow.
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Herald Sun (Australia)
December 18, 2007
A lost brother finally returns
Neil Wilson
CHRISTINE Gillespie journeyed back to her childhood's Catholic church in Huntingdale yesterday but her mind was much further away -- in Vietnam .
>From there her brother John yesterday began his final journey home, 36 years after being killed in combat.
She's waiting so she can make her own peace with him. When he joined the army, she was a university student who scorned his decision.
For all those years the army medic was missing in action, his remains were lying in the earth near the RAAF helicopter he was shot down in during a rescue mission in the Long Hai hills.
``I never had a chance to explain, to mellow with him as we both got older, and talk it over,'' Ms Gillespie says.
``No place to go to remember him.''
But last month Lance-Cpl Gillespie became the third Australian MIA in Vietnam\l "I" to be found this year, by veterans' group Operation Aussies Home.
Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin took possession of his remains yesterday in an official ceremony at Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.
Flying John home in another RAAF aircraft were his wife in 1971, Carmel, and daughter Fiona, who was just two when he was killed.
Carmel remarried many years ago, to another Digger, but still wished to honour her lost love.
His four other brothers and sisters have journeyed to Darwin for a private reflection when the plane and casket arrive. But Christine stayed home, helping to arrange Saturday's funeral.
``Our mother died when I was 19. John was 17, so I had a strong sense of responsibility, but he went and did as he liked -- I envied his freedom, with his mates,'' she said.
``He was quite blokey, charismatic, with a lot of vitality.''
As she sat at St Anthony's in Glen Huntly yesterday, she recalled how John was a typical local lad: car-mad, meeting Carmel O'Sullivan at a Catholic social club dance.
``John and Carmel had gone out since they were 14. I think they met at the parish dance,'' Christine said.
``They had married, and Fiona was two when John died.''
John had been working as a carpet layer and Christine was at Melbourne University, studying arts, when he told her he was joining the army during the Vietnam\l "I" War.
``I thought he was mad, because I was so anti-war and my friends were. There was discussion within the family, like the rest of the country,'' she says. ``I thought it was just a crazy thing to do, to go to another country and fight in a war with nothing to do with us.
``John saw the army as a career, and he saw the Vietnam\l "I" War as necessary to defend Australia.''
For years, Carmel and the family lived with the pain, reminded of John by press reports about MIAs.
But they believed government assurances that John's remains could not be found, until Operation Aussies Home chief Jim Bourke told them the wreck was readily accessible.
``I had imagined him at rest in a peaceful jungle, but when I went over that wasn't quite true,'' she says.
She is reverent in her respect for the commitment of John's comrades, particularly Mr Bourke, in bringing him home.
``There is really extraordinary depth about leaving a comrade behind there.''
Tomorrow Lance-Cpl Gillespie will arrive home by air at RAAF Williams Point Cook, with full military honours.
It will be a more honoured homecoming than many surviving comrades made in 1971.