ANDERSON, GARETH LAVERNE

DECEASED

Name: Gareth Laverne Anderson
Rank/Branch: O2/United States Navy
Unit: VF 114
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Falmouth MA
Date of Loss: 19 May 1967
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 204800 North  1054400 East
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4B

Other Personnel in Incident: Charles Plumb, returnee

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK  from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews. 2023

REMARKS: 730304 RELEASED BY DRV

SYNOPSIS:

Plumb and Anderson were  shot down the following on the birthday of Ho Chi
Minh, May 19, 1967, just south of Hanoi. Joseph Plumb was the pilot, the
radar intercept officer was Gary Anderson. Both were captured immediately.

Plumb recalls the incident: The F4B Phatom lay crumpled in a smoldering
wreckage near the small village. The peasants stripped me of all my flight
gear, blindfolded me, and put me into a pen with a buffalo bull where I got
the opportunity for the first, and hopefully the last time in my life, to
play matador. But having no red cape, I was unable to attract a great deal
of attention from the fairly docile bull. So it was necessary for the
Vietnamese to run around to the aft side of this animal and harass him into
making sweeps upon my innocent body with his horns. I received no permanent
injury. And I look back upon it with more humor than terror.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gary Anderson died during a military training flight in 1974.

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