CAMERON, VIRGIL KING
REMAINS IDENTIFIED 08/06/99
Name: Virgil King Cameron
Branch/Rank: United States Navy/O2
Unit:
Date of Birth: 08 May 1939
Home City of Record: MCALLEN TX
Date of Loss: 29 July 1966
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 190000 North 1053500 East
Status (in 1973): Presumptive Finding of Death
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A4E #152045
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident:
Refno: 0408
Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File.
REMARKS: SURVIVAL UNLIKELY
CACCF CRASH/PILOT
-------------------------------
The Monitor
1101 Ash Avenue
McAllen, Texas
78501
Top Stories August 6, 1999
Navy pilot comes home
By VILMA MALDONADO
and CINDY LONG
The Monitor
Copyright 1999
McALLEN - Thirty-three years after Lt. Cmdr. Virgil King Cameron's plane
was shot down in North Vietnam, the Navy pilot is coming home.
His parents, Charles and Leona Cameron, of McAllen, received confirmation
July 7 that Navy officials had identified their son’s remains following a
complex series of DNA tests.
At their home on Thursday, his parents sat weeping as they looked through
yellowed newspaper clippings and brittle photographs, recalling their son’s
life and the bitter years of waiting to find out what exactly happened to
him in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam.
"After the attack on King, I cried every day for three years," said his
sobbing mother, 84-year-old Leona Cameron. "And even though the news of the
government finding his remains opens old wounds, I’m very pleased because
the Lord has a purpose in everything, and I know there is a purpose in his
remains."
Cameron's father said he is relieved that the family has found a way to put
their grief to rest.
"We are just thinking about what we are going to see when we go to
Washington," said his father, 93-year-old Charles Cameron, "so we can't wait
for it all to be over."
He said he is happy to have lived long enough to see his son buried
properly.
Cameron will be buried with full military honors, 11 a.m. Aug. 23 at
Arlington National Cemetery, said Chief Petty Officer Michael Morales, of
the U.S. Navy.
Morales said that he admired the Camerons' strength during a long vigil.
"But 33 years is a long time," Morales said. "I'm just saying God bless Mr.
and Mrs. Cameron to be living this long to put him to rest."
Morales said he was notified of the identification of Cameron's remains on
June 28 and has been coordinating the services since then. He will escort
the parents to Washington, D.C., for the burial ceremony.
Cameron's former wife, Ellen Fox, will attend the funeral. She had been
married to Cameron for just six months when his plane went missing.
She said he was a religious, talented man who loved to laugh and have fun.
High school and college sweethearts, they parted soon after taking their
vows, she said. It was difficult, but they relied on their faith.
"It was the confidence that we knew we're both in the Lord's hands that we
could bear it - I thank the Lord that he and I were able to share those six
months," said Fox, who remarried in 1977, 11 years after he disappeared.
Cameron was listed as missing in action for eight years, and later
reclassified as killed in action. His remains were among other remains found
in North Vietnam and shipped to Hawaii, where the laboratory that conducted
the special DNA tests is located.
His remains will be flown to Washington, D.C., accompanied by his brother,
Drake Cameron.
"I thought the world of him," said Drake Cameron, who now lives in Houston.
"When he made it to the (U.S. Naval) Academy - there's nothing much greater
than that."
He said he is glad that the remains finally have been identified and that
his brother will be laid to rest, bringing an end to a 33-year heartache.
"I think it is better to have closure and to have a ceremony and bring the
remains back," Drake Cameron said. "I think it's great that the country
honors their war heroes."
In honor of Cameron's sacrifice, a Purple Heart is displayed on a wall of
the Cameron home, accompanied by a plaque with a bronze eagle soaring over
his medals, a saber and miniature United States flags. Memorabilia and
memories are all that remain now of the man who flew his A-4E Skyhawk from
the U.S.S. Constellation, an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin, to be
shot down by enemy fire over Vinh, North Vietnam.
"We've felt that he died on impact, so we didn't have any hope that he was
alive the same day it happened," Leona Cameron said, as she paged through a
collection of black-and-white portraits and newspaper clippings. "King was a
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we know where he is."
"Of course we grieved having lost him, but we didn't dwell on him being
tortured for years like many other families still do today," she said.
Cameron's best friend at McAllen High School, Vinson McLeod, said he has
been haunted for 33 years by the fact that he missed a chance to see his
friend alive again by just one day.
"We were both in the service. He was in the Navy and I was in the Air
Force," the 59-year-old McLeod said from his McAllen home.
"We were on a rendezvous in Hong Kong on July 28, 1966, but when I got there
I tried looking for King, and his plane had just taken off the
Constellation. And the next day he was shot down," he said, his voice
breaking. "I've carried his memory with me all these years and made our
relationship special."
McLeod said Cameron was "a delightful person with a strong personal faith,
strong sense of belief in this country and what it represented."
He said he had a great sense of humor and was a good and loyal friend.
They corresponded through the 1960s, sharing their feelings about the war.
"King was humbled and awed by being a Navy pilot and all that it meant with
the responsibility of flying combat missions," said McLeod who plans to
attend his friend's funeral. "His letters were about his thinking about the
position he was in and his responsibility under a war condition. And he was
concerned that he was dropping bombs on faceless, nameless people."
He also recalled his friend's skill in the cockpit.
"He was top flight and King was the best this country had to offer," he
said.
Ray Vance, a high school friend and pallbearer at Cameron's funeral in 1974
- after Cameron was taken off the missing in action roster and declared
killed in action - said he was relieved to hear the family finally will have
some closure.
"I'm sure that's a relief to the family," he said. "It was a pretty bad
shock. I think he was probably the only one in our class that was killed in
Vietnam."
He said Cameron started to fly when he was in high school, during Civil Air
Patrol classes.
"Flying is what he loved," Cameron's mother said, tears brimming.
After the war ended, four people were listed as missing in action from
McAllen. In addition to Cameron, James "Nikki" Rowe, escaped from a prisoner
of war camp after five years. Rowe later was assassinated in the
Philippines.
Spc. 1st Class Samuel Almendariz was presumed killed in 1973 in a ground
attack in Laos on July 12, 1967. He is still missing.
Lt. William Edward Campbell was shot down in Laos on Jan. 29,1969. His
official status is missing in action.
Mary Schantag, of the POW Network, said families of MIAs often just want to
know what happened, even if they are not able to recover the bodies of the
missing soldiers.
"A lot of the families realize they may never see their loved one walk out
of the jungle," Schantag said. "But what they want is the whole truth. They
just want the truth. They want to know everything that happened."
She said some families have been forced to accept identifications that are
questionable, but the Cameron family has a clear DNA identification.
"At least that's one answer," Schantag said.
The Camerons are simply thankful that after 33 years, they are closer to
seeing their son.
"When you're a believer you know you are going to see them again, so now we
can have this service and rejoice," Leona Cameron said. "I have no doubt
it's my son."
Distributed through the P.O.W. NETWORK 660-928-3304
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.
-----------------------------
No. 138-M
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS August 27, 1999
The remains of three American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from
Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their families
for burial in the United States.
They are identified as Army Capt. Clyde D. Wilkinson of Mineral Wells, Tex.,
Army Warrant Officer Arthur E. McLeod of Bay Shore, N.Y., and Navy Lt. Cmdr.
V. King Cameron of McAllen, Tex.
On Feb. 12, 1971, Wilkinson and McLeod were flying an armed
reconnaissance mission approximately 37 miles west of Quang Tri, South
Vietnam, when their AH-1G Cobra gunship was struck by enemy ground fire.
The crew attempted to fly the helicopter back to the home base at Khe Sanh
when the aircraft began to smoke and burn, forcing an emergency landing.
Shortly before touchdown the helicopter exploded and crashed. An intense
fire, fed by exploding ordnance, engulfed the aircraft. Other aircraft crew
members involved in the mission flew over the crash site, but saw no
evidence of survivors. The presence of enemy forces in the area precluded a
ground search.
In July 1993, a joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam team, led by the
Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, traveled to Quang Tri Province and
interviewed a villager claiming to have knowledge of a U.S. helicopter
crash. However, the team found no evidence of a crash at that time. In May
1995, another team interviewed two local villagers claiming to have
information about two U.S. crash sites in the same province. One of the
sites was scheduled for excavation.
During May and June of 1997, a third team excavated the crash site. They
recovered human remains as well as personal effects and pilot-related items.
On July 29, 1966, Cameron took off from the USS Constellation on an armed
reconnaissance mission over the coastal waterway of North Vietnam. As he
attacked a barge near Nghe Tinh Province, his A-4E Skyhawk was hit by enemy
fire. The mission flight leader observed fuel streaming from Cameron's
right wing shortly before his plane crashed. There was no sign of an
ejection and when the flight leader flew over the crash site, he concluded
that no one could have survived the impact.
In 1990, Vietnam repatriated to the United States 20 boxes containing
remains believed to be those of U.S. servicemen. Documents supplied at the
time suggested that the remains in one of the boxes were those of an
American pilot who died in a crash in Nghe Tinh Province. Analysis of these
remains failed to associate them with any known U.S. loss.
In June 1993, a joint U.S./Vietnam team traveled to Nghe An Province
(formerly Nghe Tinh) and interviewed several villagers who reportedly had
information about the crash of a U.S. aircraft which might correlate with
Cameron's loss. The team found no wreckage during their investigation, but
one of the villagers turned over a fragment of aircraft wreckage taken from
the crash site. However, after analysis it was found that fragment was from
an F-105 Thunderchief and thus not associated with his crash.
Two other teams investigated alleged crash sites in 1994 and 1998
with negative results.
In February 1998, Vietnam issued a report stating that the remains
repatriated in April 1990 may be those of Commander Cameron. The date of
loss supplied by the Vietnamese in 1990 actually related to an individual
whose remains had been repatriated in 1989 and subsequently identified. The
correction of this information ultimately led to the identification of the
1990 remains as those of Cmdr. Cameron.
Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U.S. Army
Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii confirmed the identification of
Wilkinson, McLeod and Cameron. With the accounting of these three
servicemen, 529 Americans have been identified from the war in Vietnam and
returned to their families. There are currently 2,054 Americans
unaccounted-for from that war.
The U.S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the
government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which resulted in the
accounting of these servicemen. We hope that such cooperation will bring
increased results in the future. Achieving the fullest possible accounting
for these Americans is of the highest national priority.
-END-
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