| Date: 22 May 1967 |
| Aircraft type: O-1E Bird Dog |
| Serial Number: 51-12102 |
| Military Unit: 20 TASS, 504 TASG |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Da Nang |
| Name(s): |
| Lt Col Lester Evan Holmes (KIA) |
| It had been suspected for some time that the North Vietnamese were building SAM sites close to the DMZ, which was a worrying development. The suspicions were confirmed in a tragic manner on the 22nd when a Bird Dog (call sign Covey 6) was blown to pieces five miles northwest of Thon Can So, just outside the northern edge of the DMZ buffer zone. Lt Col Holmes was on a visual reconnaissance sortie at 8,000 feet over the DMZ when the SA-2 exploded. The relatively fragile O-1 stood little chance against a missile that, in this case, was bigger than its target. However, other accounts of this loss indicate that the aircraft may have been shot down by AAA rather than a SAM. In July 1998 a joint US/Vietnamese team found human remains at a crash site that were identified in June 2003 as being those of Lt Col Holmes. Lester Holmes had flown B-17 and B-29 bombers during the Second World War and had also flown missions during the Berlin Airlift in 1948/49. |
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