REILLY, LAVERN GEORGE
Remains Returned 12/13/99 (SEE BELOW)
Name: Lavern George Reilly
Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force
Unit: 4th Air Commando Squadron, DaNang Airbase, South Vietnam
Date of Birth: 05 December 1926
Home City of Record: St. Paul MN
Date of Loss: 15 May 1966
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 165800N 1060400E
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: AC47
Refno: 0339
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.
Other Personnel In Incident: William L. Madison; Kenneth D. McKenney; James
A. Preston; George W. Jensen; Marshall L. Tapp; George W. Thompson; James E.
Williams (all missing)
REMARKS: NO RAD CNTCT - POS DED FBIS - J
SYNOPSIS: Maj. George W. Jensen was the pilot of an AC47 aircraft which
departed Ubon Air Base, Thailand on an armed visual reconnaissance mission
over Laos on May 15, 1966. His crew that day consisted of Maj. Lavern G.
Reilly, spare pilot; Capt. Marshall L. Tapp, co-pilot; 1Lt. George W.
Thompson, navigator; SSgt. James A. Preston, load master; Sgt. James E.
Williams, flight engineer; Airman 1st Class Kenneth D. McKenney and Sgt.
William L. Madison, gunners.
At 1745 hours, Jensen radioed his position, and again at 2100 hours, Jensen
radioed situation normal, with no position given, nor was the target area
specified. The aircraft's last location was over the Laotian panhandle about
15 miles due east of the city of Ban Muong Sen in Savannakhet Province.
When the aircraft failed to return to the base as scheduled, an aerial
search was conducted during the daylight hours of May 16, with negative
results. The aircraft was not found, and no evidence of the crew surfaced.
The crew of the AC47 is among nearly 600 Americans lost in Laos during the
war with Vietnam. Although the numbers of men actually termed "prisoner of
war" are quite low, this can be explained in understanding the blanket of
security surrounding the "secret war" the U.S. waged in Laos. To protect the
public perception that we "were not in Laos", details of many loss incidents
were "rearranged" to show a loss or casualty in South Vietnam. Only a
handful of publicly exposed cases were ever acknowledged POW, even though
scores of pilots and ground personnel were known to have been alive and well
at last contact (thus increasing the chance they were captured alive).
The Lao communist faction, the Pathet Lao, stated on several occasions that
they held "tens of tens" of American prisoners, but the Pathet Lao were not
included in the Paris Peace agreements ending American involvement in the
war. As a consequence, no American POWs held in Laos were negotiated for.
Not one American held in Laos has ever been released. As thousands of
reports continue to flow in regarding Americans still captive in Southeast
Asia, the fates of the crew of the AC47 become more intriguing. It is
entirely possible, with no evidence to the contrary, that they survived to
be captured. Whether they survived or not, they were abandoned to the enemy.
------------------------------
No. 190-M
MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS December 13, 1999
The remains of eleven American servicemen previously unaccounted-for
from the Vietnam War have been identified and are being returned to
their families for burial in the United States.
They are identified as U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Tim L. Walters, South Bend,
Ind.; U.S. Army 1st Lt. James R. McQuade, Hoquiam, Wash.; U.S. Army Spc.
James E. Hackett, Bradenton, Fla.; U.S. Air Force Col. George W. Jensen,
Seattle, Wash.; U.S. Air Force Col. Marshall L. Tapp, Los Angeles,
Calif.; U.S. Air Force Col. Lavern G. Reilly, St. Paul, Minn.; U.S. Air
Force Maj. George W. Thompson, Beckley, W.Va.; U.S. Air Force Chief
Master Sgt. James A. Preston, Bowden, Ga.; U.S. Air Force Chief Master
Sgt. James E. Williams, Oxford, Miss.; U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt.
William L. Madison, Lexington, Ky.; and U.S. Air Force Senior Master
Sgt. Kenneth D. McKenney, Auburn, Mass.
On March 9, 1969, Walters was aboard a 0-2A Super Skymaster flying a
forward air control mission over Laos. The aircraft crashed, due to an
unknown cause. Other aircrews in the area reported seeing the aircraft
shortly after impact. A ground party went to the site shortly after the
crash and determined that both crewmembers were dead, but they could not
recover the remains due to heavy enemy activity in the area.
Joint U.S.-Lao investigators visited several alleged crash sites in
1993, 1994 and 1998, and an excavation was conducted in January,
February and March 1999, where a team recovered human remains, personal
effects and crew-related items.
Hackett and McQuade were attempting to rescue the crew of a downed
aircraft when their own OH-6A helicopter exploded in mid-air over South
Vietnam on June 11, 1972. In 1993 and 1994, joint U.S.-Vietnamese teams
conducted investigations and an excavation where they recovered numerous
human remains, pilot-related gear and personal effects.
On May 15, 1966, Jensen was piloting an AC-47D gunship on an armed
reconnaissance mission over Laos. Also aboard the aircraft were Tapp,
Thompson, Preston, Madison, McKenney, Williams, and Reilly. That
evening, Jensen radioed to his airborne control aircraft that everything
was normal on the mission, but the aircraft never returned to its home
base. Joint U.S.-Lao investigative teams visited several sites in 1994,
1995, 1996 and 1997 and conducted excavations where they recovered human
remains an d crew-related items.
With the accounting of these servicemen, 2,032 are missing in action
from the Vietnam War. Another 551 have been identified and returned to
their families since the end of the war. Analysis of the remains and
other evidence by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii
confirmed the identification of these servicemen.
The U.S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the
governments of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's
Democratic Republic that 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-
------------------------------
December 15, 1999
Star Tribune
Bittersweet news from military about loved one lost over Laos
Sharon Schmickle and Bill McAuliffe / Star Tribune
For 33 years, the Minnesota relatives of Air Force Col. Lavern G. Reilly
have hoped -- first for good news, and later for at least closure -- after
the St. Paul man's gunship crashed during a mission over Laos in 1966.
But the peace they sought didn't come in the Defense Department's
announcement this week that it had identified the remains of 11 U.S.
servicemen from the Vietnam War, including Reilly.
His remains will not be coming home, said his brother James Reilly of Rush
Lake.
"They found bits and pieces of the people who were on the plane with him,
and now what they are trying to do is put it to a closure," he said.
Instead, the family has received a detailed report of the search of the
crash site and of plans to honor the victims in a national memorial service
next spring, said Reilly's sister Nancy Slavik of Albertville. Initially the
family lived on edge, waiting for any news and hoping for the best, Slavik
said. Jeanne Reilly, who lives in Florida, went to Laos with other wives of
men missing in action. And the tension took a toll on the couple's five
children.
Over the years, the family came to believe he wouldn't return but haven't
quite realized the peace they could get from burying remains, Slavik said.
"You still have that little feeling, 'What if he's still alive somewhere?' "
she said.
Reilly was last seen boarding the gunship AC-47 for a reconnaissance mission
on May 15, 1966. The plane never returned. A search the next day turned up
no wreckage. But three weeks later, a radio broadcast in Laos referred to an
AC-47 that had been shot down May 15, according to U.S. Senate records.
Reilly, who graduated from what was then called the College of St. Thomas,
joined the Air Force in 1951 after serving with other military branches
since 1943. He had earned a Purple Heart and 12 other commendations. He was
an Air Force major when he disappeared and was promoted to colonel after the
crash because he was still considered on active duty. He was declared killed
in action Jan. 3, 1979. Joint U.S.-Lao investigative teams conducted
excavations from 1994 through 1997, when they recovered some remains. An
Armed Forces identification review board approved "group identification" of
the remains on Nov. 24 this year.
But Slavik said family members have been told that the remains were too
deteriorated for DNA testing. "It's just a hard thing to live with," Slavik
said.
=========================
Associated Press Newswires
Monday, May 15, 2000
34-year wait for missing husband ends for Panhandle woman
DESTIN, Fla. (AP) - Jeanne Riley waited 34 years for her Air Force
husband to return after his plane went down over Laos only three weeks after
he had gone off to the war in Vietnam.
Her wait ended Monday with a memorial service at Arlington National
Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on the anniversary of his disappearance.
Capt. LaVerne Riley's plane, a C-47 transport, crashed on May 15, 1966
and he was listed as missing. His wife realized there was little hope he had
survived only after American prisoners of war were released from Vietnam in
1973.
"I had hoped for a long time, but I started to realize someone couldn't
live that way for that long," Riley, 75, told the Northwest Florida Daily
News of nearby Fort Walton Beach for a story Monday.
The woman, who had gone on to raise their five children while owning and
operating a Fort Walton Beach restaurant, received word six months ago that
her husband had been found.
Air Force officials called to say remains were found at a crash site in
Laos and those of her husband, promoted to colonel while listed as missing,
were believed among them.
The remains, however, were just fragments and her husband wasn't
positively identified, said Johnnie Webb, the civilian deputy commander of
the Central Identification Laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.
"They really haven't found anything," Riley said. "I think they wanted to
close the books and get off the case."
The laboratory said it confirmed the death of her husband because it could
identify remains of other crew members. Also, investigators doubted anyone
could have survived the crash, based on the wreckage and noted a lack of
live-sighting reports, Webb said.
The couple had been high school sweethearts and were married for 19 years
before he disappeared, Riley recalled in an interview before leaving for
Washington. Her eyes rimmed red as she spoke of him.
"I just don't do very good at this, not good at all," she said. "It should
get better, but it doesn't. That word, closure, I don't really have it that
way."
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