ADAMS, LEE AARON

Name: Lee Aaron Adams
Rank/Branch: O2/US Air Force
Unit: (unknown)
Date of Birth: 29 July 1938
Home City of Record: Willits CA
Date of Loss: 19 April 1966
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 173600N 1062157E (XE449463)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D
Other Personnel In Incident: none
Refno: 0307

REMARKS:

Source: Compiled from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S.
Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families,
published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK in 1998.

SYNOPSIS: Larry Adams loved to fly. His classmates at the Air Force Academy
wrote upon his graduation in 1963, "flying is his first love and his last,
and he is in his glory only with stick in hand and throttle forward."

After he left the Academy, Larry trained on the "Thud", the Republic F105
Thunderchief, which he flew in Vietnam. The F105D is credited with making
more strikes against North Vietnam than any other U.S. aircraft, but also
took more losses. The F105 was constantly being modified to meet changing
combat needs. A specially modified version of the F105 was the backbone of
the Wild Weasel program, initiated in 1965 to improve the U.S. Air Force's
electronic warfare capability.

On April 19, 1966, Adams was flying a bombing mission in an F105D over Quang
Binh Province, North Vietnam, about 20 miles southwest of the city of Quang
Khe. His aircraft was observed to crash with no ejection seen and no
emergency beeper signals heard. The Air Force established sufficient
evidence that Lt. Adams died at the time of the crash, but that there was a
good chance the Vietnamese knew his fate.

Not really unexpectedly, Larry was not among the 591 Americans released from
enemy prisons at the end of the war. He may not be among the hundreds of
Americans experts believe to still be alive, held in Southeast Asia. But one
can imagine he would cheerfully fly one last mission, "with stick in hand
and throttle forward" to bring his comrades home.

Lee Aaron Adams graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1963.

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