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Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1
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1990-06-10
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MONAHAN, ROBERT W.
Name: Robert W. Monahan
Rank/Branch: Civilian
Unit:
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record:
Date of Loss: 27 May 1966
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 103500N 1070000E (YS320610)
Status (in 1973): Released POW
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Jeep
Other Personnel in Incident: Thomas R. Scales (released)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 June 1990 from one or more of the
following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.
REMARKS: 670101 RELEASED
SYNOPSIS: Daniel L. Niehouse was an automobile salesman working for Ford Motor
Company in Saigon. On November 26, 1966, he rented a jeep and left Saigon for a
holiday in Da Lat, some 150 miles northeast of Saigon.
Niehouse was headed northeast and had traveled about 10 miles northeast of Bien
Hoa and was in Long Khanh Province, when he was apparently stopped and captured
by revolutionary troops.
Niehouse was held with two other Americans who had been captured 27 May 1966
several miles southeast of Saigon in Gia Dinh Province. Thomas R. Scales and
Robert W. Monahan, U.S. civilians, had been traveling by jeep when they were
stopped and captured by the Viet Cong.
Niehouse, Scales and Monahan were apparently held in a temporary holding
facility near the city of Hue. In 1969, a source revealed detailed information
relating to this compound to U.S. intelligence officials, including names,
duties and family members of camp personnel, hand-drawn maps of the compound,
and many other details. The source, after viewing photo albums of American
missing military personnel and civilians positively identified the photos of 22
Americans (including Niehouse) as being held at the facility. He selected as
"possibly held" the photos of another 33 Americans and 2 women. The "possible"
group included Robert Monahan.
The report was considered credible enough for the U.S. to plan a BRIGHT LIGHT
rescue mission. Yet, families of the men whose photographs were selected by the
source were not notified of the report until after it became public in 1984.
Scales and Monahan were inexplicably released by the Viet Cong on January 1,
1967, and they reported that Daniel Niehouse was alive and in good health at
that time.
In 1973, when 591 American prisoners were released by the Vietnamese, Daniel
Niehouse was not among them. His name appeared on a list of Americans who had
died in captivity. The Vietnamese stated that Niehouse died in captivity on
April 12, 1967, yet they have never returned his remains.
Since the end of the war, over 10,000 reports such as the one about the POW camp
at Hue have been received by the U.S. Government. Many authorities, including a
former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, believe that many Americans
remain captive today, and that there exists ample intelligence to prove it.
Others in government take a more conservative stand, saying they operate under
the assumption that one or more Americans are being held, but that actionable
evidence has not been obtained to warrant rescue attempts or a hard-line stand
against the Vietnamese.
In 1990, the USG trend is clearly moving towards normalization of relations with
Vietnam. Many critics believe normalization should occur only when American POWs
are released by Vietnam and the fullest possible accounting of MIAs is given. It
seems inappropriate to reward a country with U.S. economic largess which
continues to illegally hold Americans captive.