Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1/swsii.zip/swsii/009/C115.ZIP/C115.TXT

Text File | 1989-11-11 | 4KB | 71 lines

CARROLL, PATRICK HENRY

Name: Patrick Henry Carroll
Rank/Branch: O2/US Air Force
Unit: Commando Sabre Operations, Tuy Hoa Airbase, South Vietnam
Date of Birth: 12 December 1942
Home City of Record: Allen Park MI
Date of Loss: 02 November 1969
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 144500N 1071700E (YB218846)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F100F
Other Personnel In Incident: Lawrence W. Whitford (missing)

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: When North Vietnam began to increase their military strength in South
Vietnam, NVA and Viet Cong troops again intruded on neutral Laos for sanctuary,
as the Viet Minh had done during the war with the French some years before. The
border road, termed the "Ho Chi Minh Trail" was used for transporting weapons,
supplies and troops. Hundreds of American pilots were shot down trying to stop
this communist traffic to South Vietnam. Fortunately, search and rescue teams
in Vietnam were extremely successful and the recovery rate was high.

Still there were nearly 600 who were not rescued. Many of them went down along
the Ho Chi Minh Trail and the passes through the border mountains between Laos
and Vietnam. Many were alive on the ground and in radio contact with search and
rescue and other planes; some were known to have been captured. Hanoi's
communist allies in Laos, the Pathet Lao, publicly spoke of American prisoners
they held, but when peace agreements were negotiated, Laos was not included,
and not a single American was released that had been held in Laos.

On November 2, 1969, LtCol. Lawrence W. Whitford, Jr., pilot, and 1Lt. Patrick
H. Carroll, navigator, departed Tuy Hoa Airbase in South Vietnam in a F100F
Super Sabre fighter bomber on a visual reconnaissance mission over the Ho Chi
Minh Trail in Laos.

Whitford radioed that he was running out of fuel in Attapeu Province, about 20
miles east of the city of Muong May. He had a scheduled refueling, but never
appeared. Searches did not reveal any sign of the aircraft crash or the crew.

Several months later, a damaged plane thought to be the plane flown by Carroll
and Whitford was found in the area with no bodies inside and nothing to
indicate that the crew had perished in the crash. Both Whitford and Carroll
were declared Missing in Action.

Carroll and Whitford went down in an area heavily infiltrated by enemy forces.
In Whitford's case, there is certain indication that the enemy knows what
happened to him. As pilot, he would have ejected second. In Carroll's case, it
is highly suspected that the Lao or the Vietnamese know his fate.

Whitford and Carroll are two of the nearly 600 Americans who disappeared in
Laos, never to return. Although Pathet Lao leaders stressed that they held
"tens of tens" of American prisoners in Laos, not one man held in Laos was ever
released - or negotiated for.

Patrick Carroll attended the Air Force Academy, graduated from the University
of Colorado and had just begun a promising career in the military. Larry
Whitford was a senior officer with a distinguished record. The country they
proudly served abandoned them in their haste to leave an unpopular war.

Were it not for the thousands of reports concerning Americans still held
captive in Southeast Asia, the Whitford and Carroll families might be able to
close this tragic chapter of their lives. But as long as Americans are alive,
being held captive, one of them could be Carroll or Whitford. It's time we
brought these men home.