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Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1
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1989-11-11
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49 lines
CASE SYNOPSIS: ERNEST LEO DESOTO
==============================================================
Name: Ernest Leo DeSoto
Rank/Branch: Colonel O4/USAF
Unit:
Da Nang
Date of Birth: 30 December 1931
Home City of Record: Manning AR
Loss Date: 12 April 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 152820N 1073715E
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 3
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4D
Other Personnel In
Incident: Frederick M. Hall
Remarks: DISAP IN CLOUD BANK
SYNOPSIS: Ernest DeSoto was the pilot of an F4D in South Vietnam on
April 12, 1969 when it disappeared into a cloud bank. His backseater
was Frederick M. Hall. They were part of a 3-plane mission. No
further word has surfaced on the two airmen.
Three weeks later, an aviator who had been recommended for the
Congressional Medal of Honor was put on report. It had been decided
it would be "unwise" to award the Medal because it might remind the
Vietnamese that American troops were active near the DMZ and upset the
Paris peace talks.
At the war's end, Vietnam pledged to return all Prisoners of War and
make a full accounting of the missing, but failed to do so. Known
prisoners of war did not return. Precise locations of crash sites
were known in many cases, but access to them was denied.
DeSoto and Hall are among nearly 2500 Americans who were lost in
Southeast Asia and never returned. Reports continue to mount that
some of them are alive, being held prisoner. Contrary to policy
statements, the return of these men does not seem to be a high
priority of the U.S. Government.
Americans like Hall and DeSoto went to Vietnam prepared to be wounded
or taken prisoner, even prepared to die. They did not go prepared to
be abandoned. They must be brought home.