BORAH, DANIEL VERNOR, JR.
disputed -- REMAINS IDENTIFIED 18 APRIL 1997 -- SEE STORY
Name: Daniel Vernor Borah, Jr.
Rank/Branch: O3/US Navy (Reserve)
Unit: Attack Squadron 155, USS ORISKANY (CV-34)
Date of Birth: 18 June 1946
Home City of Record: Olney IL
Date of Loss: 24 September 1972
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 164635N 1072035E (YD140540)
Status (in 1973): Prisoner Of War
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A7B
Other Personnel In Incident: (none missing)
Refno: 1927
REMARKS: ALIVE IN CHUTE-NO MORE CONTACT
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: On September 24, 1972, Lt. Daniel Borah launched from the USS
ORISKANY in his A7B Corsair II subsonic attack plane as the flight leader of
a two plane strike against North Vietnamese troops entrenched in bunkers
northwest of the city of Quang Tri, South Vietnam. They were directed to the
target area by a Forward Air Controller aircraft (FAC).
Lt. Borah and his wingman began their initial bombing run as briefed. Due to
an improper switch setting, the wingman expended his entire ordnance load on
the first load instead of the several runs that were briefed for. He then
proceeded to a holding position at 13,000 feet overhead the target to
observe Borah's succeeding bombing runs.
During the second run, Borah's aircraft was seen to draw a barrage of 37mm
anti-aircraft fire. His wingman radioed for evasive action, then almost
immediately saw Borah's aircraft burst into flames. The FAC saw Borah eject
safely from the aircraft and later established emergency radio contact with
him for 10-15 seconds. No other contact was received during the following
two days of search and rescue efforts.
Intelligence reports indicated that North Vietnamese soldiers removed
Borah's parachute from a tree within half hour of his landing on the ground,
and he is believed to have been captured alive.
When the war ended, and 591 Americans were released from Vietnamese prisons,
Borah was not among them. The Vietnamese deny knowledge of his fate. As
thousands of reports of Americans still alive in captivity accumulate,
Borah's family must wonder if he is still alive waiting for his country to
bring him home. Whether Borah is still alive is unknown. What is certain,
however, is someone knows what happened to him. It's time we got answers and
brought our men home.
------------------
[[bits0718.98 07/19/98]
National Alliance of Families
For The Return of America's Missing Servicemen
World War II - Korea - Cold War - Vietnam
DOLORES ALFOND - VOICE/FAX 425-881-1499
LYNN O'SHEA ------- VOICE/FAX 718-846-4350
E-MAIL-------------- PGGK94A@PRODIGY.COM
WEB SITE ------------- http://www.nationalalliance.org
Bits 'N' Pieces July 17, 1998
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Site Salting -- When remains are recovered from Vietnam, they are
usually in a very poor and fragmented condition. In most cases they
are little more that shards of bone or fragments. Sometimes, nothing
more than a tooth is recovered. We are told the poor condition of the
remains is due to the highly acidic Vietnamese soil.
If the soil is so acidic as to almost completely destroy human remains,
logic would follow that anything less sturdy, buried with the remains,
would be destroyed in a much shorter time. This brings us to the case
of Navy Lt. Daniel V. Borah.
In early 1996, rumors began to circulate that remains had been recovered
in Quang Tri Province, of a pilot a full flight suit. Soon after, the
Borah family was notified that Joint Task Force Full Accounting had
recovered remains in a full flight suit, they believed to be Dan Borah.
According to a Vietnamese witness, Mr. Toan, who led JTF-FA
investigators to the burial site, the pilot was found dead, in his
parachute. He was buried nearby and all identification media was
removed. According to Mr. Toan, Daniel Borah was buried in his flight
suit on September 24th, 1972.
It would be 24 years, before Mr. Toan led JTF-FA investigators back to
the alleged burial site. During the 40th Joint Field Activity, (March
23rd - 31st, 1996) the grave site was excavated. Just as Mr. Toan
stated, investigators found remains in a full flight suit. The remains
consisted of three long bones, and various chips, shards and nineteen
teeth. Due to their poor condition, none of the bones could be used for
anthropological analysis.
The Central Identification Laboratory - Hawaii, (CIL-HI) determined that
the nineteen teeth matched the records of Daniel Borah. Based on this
dental "match" CIL-HI recommended the identification of the remains
found, as those of Daniel Borah. CIL-HI ignored the fact that the
dental matched was successful only if the teeth were moved to the the
other side of the mouth. The resolution of this case was pointed to
with pride, as evidence of Vietnamese cooperation to resolve the fate of
our Prisoners and Missing.
Now, the rest of the story! -- The Vietnamese planned to end the Borah
case a full 19 months prior to the actual excavation. In November, 1994
, the head of the Defense POW/MIA Office, James Wold visited Vietnam.
During his meeting with Mr. Cong, of the Vietnam Office Seeking Missing
Persons (VNOSMP), Mr. Wold was told information on 5 cases would be
provided by the end of the year. One of those cases was Daniel V. Borah
..
Eight months after that promise, on August 14, 1995, Mr. Toan appeared,
ready to led U.S. investigators to the purported burial site.
The Discrepancies..... Dan Borah made voice contact with U.S. aircraft
while in his parachute. U.S. planes picked up several short bursted
"manual beeper transmissions," from the ground. Dan Borah was not
dead in his parachute and he was alive upon landing. Borah's last radio
transmission came from the ground. His last words to American forces...
. "Gomer, all around..." Dead men don't send "manual beeper
transmissions" or report there imminent capture."
What happened to Dan Borah after that, we can't say. We can say without
a doubt that the full flight suit purported to hold the remains of Dan
Borah did not lie in the acidic Vietnamese soil for 24 years.
The grave site was salted. While little is left of the the bones, the
flight suit is in near perfect condition. In the words of Kathy Borah
Duez, sister of Dan Borah, "you could put that flight suit on and wear
it on the street. The pants would barely fit me. They are too small to
be Dan's. Dan tended to gain weight and we joked about him fitting into
the cockpit. These pants would never fit him."
Kathy confirmed that all unit designations, patches, and the American
flag had been carefully cut from the flight suit. Just as there is no
evidence to prove the bone shards are Dan Borah's, there is no evidence
to prove the flight suit is Dan's.
The acidic soil of Vietnam, which destroys bones, should have left
nothing of the flight suit except perhaps the zippers. Instead, after
24 years in this highly acidic soil, this flight suit looks no worse
than if it had been attacked by angry moths, in the back of a closet.
Photographs of the flight suit are available on our website.
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