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## News Release

# CIA Pilot Missing In Action From Vietnam Is Identified (McGovern)

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today thatthe remains of an American civilian pilot, missing in action from Vietnam while flying for Civil AirTransport, a proprietary of the CIA, have been identified and returned to his family for burial withfull military honors.

He is James B. McGovern, Jr., also known as “Earthquake McGoon,” of Elizabeth, N.J. Hewill be buried tomorrow at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

On May 6, 1954, McGovern, along with his co-pilot, First Officer Wallace A. Buford, andfour French servicemen, departed Haiphong, Vietnam, in their Civil Air Transport C-119 on whatwas to be the last supply drop to the besieged French forces at Camp Isabelle—the remainingFrench holdout in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. As the aircraft approached the drop zone, it was hitby anti-aircraft fire. The pilots attempted to fly southwest to the relative safety of Laos, but crashedalong the Song [River] Ma in Houaphan Province. Only two of the Frenchmen survived and weretaken prisoner by Lao forces. One of them died within a few days, and the other was released andreturned to France a few months later. McGovern, Wallace and two of the French servicemen werenot recovered.

During WWII, McGovern flew in China with the Flying Tigers and is credited withdestroying two enemy aircraft in the air and five on the ground. He was captured by the NorthKoreans and held as a prisoner of war for several months during the Korean War.

Between 1997 and 1998, joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) teams, ledby the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), traveled to Houaphan Province two times toinvestigate the incident. They interviewed several Laotian citizens who recalled the crash. Thecitizens said that three of the crewmen who died in the impact had been buried near the crash site.When the team surveyed the site, they found small fragments of aircraft wreckage, but did notlocate any grave sites.

In 2002, another joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. team excavated the site. They found crew-relatedequipment and aircraft wreckage, including an aircraft data plate dated 8-21-52, but found nohuman remains. A few months later, another team revisited the site and recovered human remainsfrom an isolated burial.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPACand the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used dental comparisons andmitochondrial DNA in the identification of McGovern’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) 699-1169.

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