Bio, Dunn, Joseph P.

Name: Joseph Patrick Dunn
Rank/Branch: O2/US Navy
Unit: Attack Squadron 25, USS CORAL SEA
Date of Birth: 17 September 1942 (Boston MA)
Home City of Record: Hull MA
Date of Loss: 14 February 1968
Country of Loss: China
Loss Coordinates: 185500N 1103800E (DL614917)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 3
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: A1H

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 April 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 2020.

SYNOPSIS: LTJG Joseph P. Dunn joined the Navy in 1964. He received orders
for Vietnam in July 1967, where he was assigned to Attack Squadron 25
onboard the USS CORAL SEA. On February 14, 1968, Dunn launched in his A1H
Skyraider attack aircraft from Cubi Point Naval Air Station, Republic of the
Philippines, to relieve another aircraft from his squadron. The flight was a
ferry flight, returning a repaired A1 aircraft to the USS CORAL SEA,
accompanied by a second unarmed radar plane.

During the flight to the aircraft carrier on station in the Gulf of Tonkin,
both Dunn and his wingman drifted north of their proposed flight route and
wound up off the east coast of Hainan Island, China. The Chinese, having
tracked the aircraft on radar, sent MiG 17 aircraft to turn the intruders
away. Fire from one of them struck Dunn's aircraft.

The pilot of the second plane, along with three other crewmen, saw Dunn
descend with a fully opened parachute and heard the manual UHF emergency
beeper sound for two to three minutes, but then they were forced evade the
attacking MiG aircraft and flew toward the security of South Vietnam. The
wingman immediately reported the shootdown and U.S. aircraft responded
within minutes of the call. Unfortunately, due to the wingman's perception
that he was off the coast of North Vietnam and not China, the U.S. aircraft
searched the wrong area for hours. Upon his landing in South Vietnam, the
mistake was discovered and other aircraft were correctly deployed, but
without success.

Eight hours after the shootdown, an electronic surveillance plane picked up
a beeper signal for 20 minutes from the vicinity of Hainan Island. It is
believed that Dunn would take approximately 8 hours to reach the island in
his emergency life raft. There were a number of junks in the region which
might have picked him up. Had he drowned, his body would have reached the
island and probably have been seen by villagers.

The Chinese reported the shootdown in their radio broadcasts. Numerous
newspapers related the incident, and U.S. State Department efforts were
initiated to try to get more information. Despite the evidence that Dunn
could have been captured, the Chinese will say nothing about his fate.
American envoys to China have raised the question of Dunn's fate to no
avail.

Dunn's wife and son have been very active since he disappeared in the effort
to secure information on the men still missing in Indochina. They know that
Joe Dunn would want them to press for answers. Joe himself was very
concerned about friends who had been shot down, and for the crew of the
ill-fated Pueblo illegally seized by North Korea in 1968. They continually
work to remind the American public and the government of the United States
that the fate of those nearly 2500 Americans remains unresolved and is of
utmost importance.

Joseph P. Dunn was promoted to the rank of Commander during the period he
was maintained missing.

In 1997, Monika Jensen-Stevensen wrote "SPITE HOUSE" and in it notes she
spoke to Maureen Dunn. The author writes "Ms. Dunn also obtained documents
through the Freedom of Information Act that VERIFY that the decision to
ABANDON her husband, and other pilots who were shot down near Hainan Island,
were made at the highest levels....high-level group had made the decision to
abort her husband's rescue in the same way.....[as the] abandoning of the
pilot in October of the same year. She asked McNamara for an apology....He
told her, "I'm not just sorry, I'm horrified..."

07/04/2006
The Search for Canasta 404: Love, Loss, and the POW/MIA Movement, a new
book by Melissa B. Robinson and Maureen Dunn.

Information about The Search for Canasta 404 (hardback at $24.95) is
available at http://www.upne.com/1-58465-486-4.html.

The Search for Canasta 404: Love, Loss, and the POW/MIA Movement
The true story of a personal tragedy that helped spark the POW/MIA movement

The whirlwind romance of Joe and Maureen Dunn began in the spring of 1963.
Each the youngest child of a working-class Irish Boston family, they quickly
fell in love and were married soon after they met. Joe subsequently enlisted
in the Navy, attended flight school, and volunteered for Vietnam. On
Valentine's Day 1968--eleven days after his first tour of duty was
extended--Joe was ferrying an unarmed plane, call sign "Canasta 404," when
he drifted into Chinese airspace and was shot down.

That tragedy helped to ignite one of the most important social movements of
recent decades. Eyewitness accounts suggested Joe might have survived the
initial attack, but Maureen, determined to prove her husband was still
alive, met with resistance rather than answers from a stonewalling U.S.
government. In response, she organized the "Where is Lt. Joe Dunn?"
committee, one of the first POW/MIA activist organizations in the country.

Part love story, part inside account of the growth of a movement, The Search
for Canasta 404 is a deeply personal narrative of private tragedy and public
activism.

A missing pilot and lasting love
By GWENN FRISS
STAFF WRITER
HYANNIS - Behind the bar at The Island Merchant is a photograph of Navy Lt.
Joseph P. Dunn, of Hull, whose unarmed plane was shot down off the coast of
China on Feb. 14, 1968.....

Wicked Local Hull - Quincy,MA,USA

- It was 40 years ago today when a deliveryman showed up at Maureen Dunn's
Oak Street home in Randolph with a bouquet of red roses from her Navy pilot
husband, Hull native Joseph Dunn...

http://www.wickedlocal.com/hull/homepage/x1774383691

CDR JOSEPH PATRICK DUNN

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Conflict
Service
Status

VIETNAM WAR
UNITED STATES NAVY
Unaccounted For

Lieutenant Junior Grade Joseph Patrick Dunn, who joined the U.S. Navy from Massachusetts, was a member of Attack Squadron 25. On February 13, 1968, he piloted a single-seat A-1H Skyraider (bureau number 134449, call sign "Canasta 404") on a two-plane ferry mission from the Philippines to the USS Coral Sea (CVA 43), which was located off the coast of Vietnam. The flight drifted off course due to unforeseen winds, and flew north along the Vietnamese coast toward China. As the flight neared the Chinese coast, they encountered a Chinese fighter aircraft, which engaged and shot down LTJG Dunn�s Skyraider. The pilot of the other aircraft on the mission witnessed a parachute emerge from the plane before it crashed. The other pilot left the scene, eventually landed in South Vietnam, and returned to duty. He directed search and rescue aircraft to the area where he saw LTJG Dunn bail out, but he could not be located at that time. Further attempts to locate him were also unsuccessful and he remains unaccounted for. Subsequent to the incident, and while carried in the status of missing in action (MIA), the U.S. Navy promoted LTJG Dunn to the rank of Commander (CDR). Today, Commander Dunn is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Based on all information available, DPAA assessed the individual's case to be in the analytical category of Active Pursuit.

If you are a family member of this serviceman, DPAA can provide you with additional information and analysis of your case. Please contact your casualty office representative.

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CDR JOSEPH PATRICK DUNN

Unit VA 25 USS CORAL SEA (CVA 43)
Historical Country of Loss
China
Current Country of Loss
CHINA
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