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Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1
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1989-11-11
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GLOVER, CALVIN CHARLES
Name: Calvin Charles Glover
Rank/Branch: E5/USAF
Unit: 41st Tactical Airlift Squadron, Ubon Airbase, Thailand
Date of Birth: 07 January 1938
Home City of Record: Steubenville OH
Date of Loss: 22 May 1968
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 162000N 1063000E (XC843858)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 4
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: C130A
Other Personnel in Incident: Jerry L. Chambers; William H. Mason; Thomas E.
Knebel; John Q. Adam; William T. McPhail; Thomas B. Mitchell; Gary Pate;
Melvin D. Rash (all missing)
REMARKS: CONTACT LOST - NFI
SYNOPSIS: The Lockheed C130 Hercules aircraft was a multi-purpose propeller
driven aircraft, and was used as transport, tanker, gunship, drone controller,
airborne battlefield command and control center, weather reconnaissance craft,
electronic reconnaissance platform; search, rescue and recovery craft.
In the hands of the "trash haulers", as the crews of Tactical Air Command
transports styled themselves, the C130 proved the most valuable airlift
instrument in the Southeast Asia conflict, so valuable that Gen. William
Momyer, 7th Air Force commander, refused for a time to let them land at Khe
Sanh where the airstrip was under fire from NVA troops surrounding that base.
Just following the Marine Corps operation Pegasus/Lam Son 207 in mid-April
1968, to relieve the siege of Khe Sanh, Operation Scotland II began in the Khe
Sanh area, more or less as a continuation of this support effort. The C130 was
critical in resupplying this area, and when the C130 couldn't land, dropped its
payload by means of parachute drop.
One of the bases from which the C130 flew was Ubon, located in northeast
Thailand. C130 crews from this base crossed Laos to their objective location.
One such crew was comprised of LtCol. William H. Mason and Capt. Thomas B.
Mitchell, pilots; Capt. William T. McPhail, Maj. Jerry L. Chambers, SA Gary
Pate, SSgt. Calvin C. Glover, AM1 Melvin D. Rash and AM1 John Q. Adam, crew
members.
On May 22, 1968, this crew departed Ubon on an operational mission in a C130A
carrying one passenger - AM1 Thomas E. Knebel. Radio contact was lost while the
aircraft was over Savannakhet Province, Laos near the city of Muong Nong,
(suggesting that its target area may have been near the DMZ - Khe Sanh). When
the aircraft did not return to friendly control, the crew was declared Missing
In Action from the time of estimated fuel exhaustion. There was no further word
of the aircraft or its crew.
The nine members of the crew are among nearly 600 Americans who disappeared in
Laos. Many are known to have been alive on the ground following their shoot
downs. Although the Pathet Lao publicly stated on several occasions that they
held "tens of tens" of American prisoners, not one American held in Laos has
ever been released. Laos did not participate in the Paris Peace accords ending
American involvment in the war in 1973, and no treaty has ever been signed that
would free the Americans held in Laos, and not one of them has returned home.
(William Mason was a 1946 graduate of West Point. Thomas Mitchell was a 1963
graduate of the Air Force Academy.)