| Date: 26 March 1964 |
| Aircraft type: O-1F Bird Dog |
| Serial Number: 55-4695 |
| Military Unit: 19 TASS, 34 TG |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Bien Hoa detached to Khe Sanh |
| Name(s): |
| Capt Richard Lebrou Whitesides (KIA) |
| Capt Floyd James Thompson (US Army) (POW) |
| An O-1 FAC aircraft was flown by Capt Whitesides with Capt Thompson of the US Army Special Forces as observer on a visual reconnaissance of the Khe Sanh region. Capt Thompson was based at the Special Forces camp at Khe Sanh close to the DMZ and the aircraft was brought down by small arms fire about 15 miles to the west near Lang Kat. Capt Whitesides was killed in the crash but Thompson survived although badly injured with burns and a broken back. Capt Thompson was taken prisoner by the Viet Cong and spent the next nine years as a prisoner of war, being kept initially in South Vietnam by the VC until moved to Hanoi in March 1970. After much suffering and deprivation he was released on 16 March 1973 in Operation Homecoming. Although not as widely known as the early aircrew POWs, Capt Thompson was the longest held American POW of the Vietnam war.
In 1999 the wreckage of an O-1F was discovered by a DPMO team and in 2014 human remains were discovered which were later confirmed by mitochondrial DNA testing to be those of Capt Whitesides. His remains were buried at West Point on 1 May 2015. |
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