Synopsis:
Captain Doyle R. Sprick was the pilot, and 2Lt. Delmar G. Booze his
navigator/bombadier on board an F4B fighter jet flying out of Da Nang
Airbase, South Vietnam on 24 January 1966. Sprick and Booze
were part of a multi-aircraft strike mission during a Christmas moratorium.
At some point during their mission, while over Thua Thien Province,
South Vietnam and about 10 miles south of the city of Hue, the aircraft
flown by Sprick and Booze went down. Both men were declared
Missing in Action

Another F4B, apparently on the same strike mission, was downed at
the same location on that day. This aircraft was also flying out of
VMFA 314 , 11th Marine Air Group, and presumably departed Da Nang
as well. The second was flown by Capt. Albert Pitt, accompanied by
navigator 2Lt. lawrence N. Helber. This aircraft disappeared after striking
a target. The last contact with the aircraft was that the strike on the target
had been successful. Helber and Pitt were declared
Missing In Action.

All four Marines lost that day were also given a clarifying code indicating
the degree of enemy knowledge of their fates. These four were all
classified Category 4, which means that U.S. Intelligience has no
information leading to indicate that the Vietnamese know their fates.

According to Doyle Sprick's twin brother; Duane, searches were
conducted for the aircraft which were extensive and thorough for the
time and condition.The Da Nang area, according to Duane, was
unfriendly, so the search and rescue was fairly limited since the
area was "owned by the Viet Cong at the time."

In 1969 the Central Intelligence Agency received a rather extensive
and detailed report relating to a POW camp near the city of Hue in
which scores of Americans had been held. When asked to view the
photographs of Americans still missing, the source giving the
information positively identified Albert Pitt as having been detained
in this camp. The identification was made on 11 April 1969. The source
also listed the Viet Cong Huong Thuy District Committee members and
provided sketches of the committee's heaquarters and POW camp.

The U.S. intelligience community determined that it could not "be
determined why the source selected (Pitt's) photograph" as he "was
never seen by other U.S. POW's following his loss incident". The source
was summarily dismissed, and his information discounted.
The report was classified.

Over 15 years later, this report was unearthed by a concerned citizen
through the Freedom of Information Act. He immediately contacted the
family of one of the men on the "Positive ID" list, and was shocked to
learn that they had never been told of the reports existence, nor did
they have any clue that their son could possibly have been captured.

Since that time, the lengthy report was distributed widely, and
came into the hands of two of the men whose name appeared on
the "Positive ID" list and had been fortunate enough to be released
in 1973 by the North Vietnamese. These returned POW's verified
the accuracy of the report insofar as the compound was concerned
and added that it was a "Way Station", or temporary holding center in
which POW's were held for only a brief period of time. Thus they were
not surprised to see many names on the list of men that they
had not seen at this facility.

Since American involvement in the Vietnam War ended in 1975, nearly
10,000 reports concerning Americans missing in Southeast Asia
have been received by the U.S. Government. Less than 200 of them
have been determined to have been false, or fabricated reports. Many
have been correlated to individuals who returned to the U.S. in 1973.
In late 1989 about 125 cases were still under investigation, undergoing
the "closest scrutiny" the U.S. intelligience community could give them.
Thus far, according to the U.S. Government, it had not been possible to
resolve these cases as false or true. Many authorities are convinced that
hundreds of Americans are still being held prisoner in Southeast Asia.

If Albert Pitt was accurately identified by the Vietnamese source in 1969,
he has been criminally abandoned by the country he proudly served. If
Albert Pitt could be forgotten and be held unseen by other American POW's,
why not Sprick? Booze? Helber? Why not several hundred of the nearly 2500
still missing? If they are alive, why are they not home? Are we doing enough
to learn the fates of our hero's?
 

Prepared by Homecoming II Project 01 December 1989.


 
 
 

Visit His Navigator, Lawrence N. Helber