STINSON, WILLIAM SHERRIL
Remains identified 11/03/99
Name: William Sherril Stinson
Rank/Branch: E5/US Army
Unit: 67th Aviation Company, 11th Combat Aviation, 1st Aviation Brigade
Date of Birth: 17 June 1947
Home City of Record: Georgiana AL
Date of Loss: 08 January 1973
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 16421N 1070956E (YD324528)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 1
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1H
Refno: 1978
Other Personnel in Incident: Elbert W. Bush; William L. Deane; Richard A.
Knutson; Manuel A. Lauterio; Mickey A. Wilson (all missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 April 1991 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 1999.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: WO1 Richard Knutson, pilot; WO1 Mickey A. Wilson, aircraft
commander; SP5 William S. Stinson, gunner; SP5 Manuel A. Lauterio, crew
chief; and SSgt. Elbert W. Bush and Maj. William L. Dean, both passengers;
were aboard a UH1H helicopter (serial #69-15619) that flew in support of the
American Senior Advisor to the Vietnamese Airborne Division in Quang Tri and
Thua Thien Provinces, working between the provincial capitals of Hue and
Quang Tri.
On January 8, 1973, at about 1430 hours, the aircraft had departed a landing
zone en route to other LZs without making radio contact with the 2nd
Battalion Technical Operations Center. When no radio contact was received by
1500 hours, the other LZs were queried. The helicopter did not go to either
of the two designated LZs, nor had any communication been established with
them.
The helicopter's intended route would have taken it northwest toward Quang
Tri, with a left turn to an LZ south of the Thach Han River. Although the
helicopter failed to contact either LZ along the route, it was later seen
flying northwest toward Quang Tri City and crossing the Thach Han River into
enemy held territory. While in this area, the helicopter was seen to circle
with door guns firing. Enemy automatic weapons fire was heard, and a direct
hit was made on the tail boom by a missile, reportedly an SA7.
Aerial searches of the suspected crash site on January 8 and 9 failed to
locate either the wreckage or the crew. The aircraft was shot down less than
three weeks before American involvement in the war came to an official end.
Intelligence reports indicated that of the six men aboard, four were seen
alive on the ground. Further information indicated that the aircraft did not
explode or burn on impact. The families of the men assumed that their loved
ones would be released with the other POWs. Some were even so informed.
But the crew of the UH1H was not released, and have not been released or
found since that day. As thousands of reports of Americans alive in
Southeast Asia mount, these familes wonder if their men are among the
hundreds thought to be still alive.
-----------------------------
Defense POW/MIA Weekly Update
November 9, 1999
MISSING IN ACTION SERVICEMEN IDENTIFIED
The remains of seven 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 Major Thomas H. Amos, USAF, of Springfield, Mo.;
Captain Mason I. Burnham, USAF, of Portland, Ore; Sergeant First Class
William S. Stinson, US Army, of Georgiana, Ala.; and four other servicemen.
Their names are not being released at the request of their families...
On January 8, 1973, Stinson and other crew members were on board a
UH-1H Huey helicopter over Quang Tri City, South Vietnam which was believed
to have been hit by a surface-to-air missile. Aerial searches of the area
following the incident failed to locate the aircraft's crew or wreckage.
In August 1993, a joint team interviewed witnesses to a 1972 helicopter
crash in a river near their village. Two of the witnesses provided
information on the burial of several bodies near the crash site, but
indicated several had been exhumed in subsequent years. In 1994, a second
team interviewed other witnesses who led them to a cemetery in which some
claimed to have buried remains, which the team recovered. Returning to the
crash site in 1996, a team excavated a burial site and recovered human
remains and personal effects from three separate graves.
Analysis of the remains and other evidence by CILHI confirmed the
identification of each of these seven servicemen. With the accounting of
these servicemen, 536 Americans have been identified from the war in Vietnam
and returned to their families. There are currently 2,047 Americans still
unaccounted-for from that war.
================================
FLORIDAY TODAY - Friday April 7, 2000
Time to remember Vietnam victims
An older man parks his dark sedan beneath the shade pines at Melbourne's
Wickham Park on one of those early spring afternoons you want to stick on a
postcard and mail to those in less fortunate northern latitudes. Nylon flags
of all 50 states and their international allies againsf communism are driven
into urgent rippling by western winds. In the clearing next to the pond sits
the Moving Wall, the shrine to the dead.
The man climbs out slowly and clicks the door shut behind him. He could be
on lunch break, or maybe retired. He looks before him and leans against the
driver-side door. A roller blader flashes past on the main road.
The scene mostly speaks for itself. One sign reads "Bring 'Em Home Or Send
Us Back! Write Your Legislator"; another reads "Bring Them Home Alive, You
Are Not Forgotten." Directly below the American flag flies the accusatory
black POW/MIA banner, that national symbol of suspicion.
The man stares at it all for awhile, takes a few steps forward, thinks
better of it, and goes around to the passenger door. He sags against it. He
crosses his arms and looks down at his feet. He casts a sidelong look at the
activity around the wall.
There isn't much going on right now. Old people, mostly, this time of day.
Straw hats, baseball caps, sun visors. Here comes a guy with a young family
in tow. His son rides atop his shoulders. A grey van pulls up. The driver
hobbles out using a walker.
After awhile, the man shoves his hands in his pockets and shuffles, head
lowered, toward what he was trying to put off. He trudges past the tripod
wreaths, the flowers, old mounted family photos ("We miss you dad, granddad,
great granddad") past two men in a crouch running their fingers along the
wall, and merges into the sanctuary of anonymity.
"Sometimes, it takes a little while," says Vietnam vet Frank Anton of
Satellite Beach. "But these guys are getting older. Sooner or later, they
usually come around."
In 1968, Anton initially was listed as one of the missing after his chopper
went down in the South. He spent five years in captivity, the last of it in
Hanoi. At a 3 p.m. public engagement at Wickham Park today, Anton will
introduce fellow ex-POW Mike Benge, with whom Anton communicated solely
through hand signals while incarcerated in opposing cells. Benge will be the
guy in the tiger cage, which he'll use to symbolize the plight of POWs that
a number of Americans suspect were willfully abandoned for political
expedience.
In 1998, Anton detailed his horrific experience as a captive in an
autobiography, Why Didn't You Get Me Out? The book suggests military
intelligence passed up several opportunities to rescue him and his fellow
POWs to protect their surveillance resources. Initially, Anton believed
large numbers of American captives were left behind when the war ended. But
not anymore.
"There may have been POWs alive early on, but I'm not optimistic, not after
all these years," he says. "My main interest in this issue now is for an
accurate accounting."
At 9 a.m. next Friday at Arlington National Cemetery, Ingrid Deane of
Melbourne will witness the latest chapter in accurate accounting when her
late husband, Lt. Col. William L. Deane, is buried with full military
honors. She says her 27-year struggle to cope with a loss that ultimately
was verified by dental records in 1998 is too painful to discuss at this
time. She asked that the names of his colleagues who'll be buried with him
appear in print: Mickey A. Wilson, Elbert W. Bush and William S. Stinson.
Twenty-five years after U.S. helicopters ripped free from Saigon's human
webbing and swung away, the Vietnam debacle remains as fresh as memorial
roses. Among other things, this weekend at Wickham Park pays special tribute
to the women who served, entertained, died and waited in vain back home.
Anton remembers one woman in particular, a German nurse named Monika
Schwinn. She and three other German noncombatants doing humanitarian work
were abducted and imprisoned briefly in Anton's Viet Gong prison camp. He
watched Schwinn die from disease.
"It's not something you forget. It'll never be over," Anton says.
The one sure thing: It's a beautiful afternoon in the park. For all those
who find it difficult to be here, there are others who could spend the
entire afternoon amid the soft cool breeze.
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