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## News Release

# Naval Aviator Missing From Vietnam War Identified (Swanson)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced todaythat the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have beenidentified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Navy Lt. William E. Swanson, 27, of Zimmerman, Minn., will be buried June 11, at FortSnelling in Minneapolis. On April 11, 1965, Swanson was the pilot of an A-1H Skyraider aircraftthat crashed while on an armed reconnaissance mission over Khammouan Province, Laos. OtherAmericans in the area reported seeing his aircraft being struck by enemy fire and no parachutewas deployed prior to the crash. Recovery efforts were not possible due to enemy presence in thedays following the crash.

In October 2000, a joint U.S./Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team wasinvestigating a different crash in Khammouan Province. Local villagers reported an aircraft crashsite nearby, in the mountains north of the town of Boualapha. The team surveyed the site andfound small pieces of aircraft wreckage, and unexploded bombs and rockets of the same type thatSwanson’s A-1H had been carrying.

In 2009, a joint U.S./L.P.D.R. recovery team excavated the site and found materialevidence and military equipment. In 2010, another U.S./L.P.D.R. team completed the excavationand recovered human remains and additional evidence. Two data plates, with numbers matchingSwanson’s aircraft, were found at the site.

Scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command used circumstantial andmaterial evidence to identify Swanson’s remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missingAmericans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1420.

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