This page is dedicated to Terry Treloar
Koonce of the United States Air Force.
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KOONCE, TERRY TRELOAR
Name: Terry Treloar Koonce
Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 13 September 1938
Home City of Record: San Antonio TX
Date of Loss: 25 December 1967
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 172000N 1054400E
(WD782822) Status
(in 1973): Missing in Action
Category: 4
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: T28
Refno: 0950 Other Personnel in Incident:
(none missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II
Project with the
assistance of one or more
of the following: raw data from U.S.
Government
agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families,
published sources, interviews: 15 March
1990. Updated
by the P.O.W. NETWORK 1998.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: The North American T28 Nomad
was used
throughout Southeast Asia
for counterinsurgency missions. The
T28's normally
flew in two-plane formations for day
strikes against
previously selected targets or for armed
escort of
A26 or helicopter operations. During
daylight the
Nomad usually attacked in a shallow
dive, releasing
its bombs and recovering at 2,000 feet
to avoid small
arms fire, for shock effect on the
enemy, as well as
to lighten the aircraft and increase its
maneuverability. Night operations
usually consisted
of armed reconnaissance by single T28's.
At night
pilots could dive below 2,000 feet using
darkness for
concealment as enemy gunners in South
Vietnam and
Laos did not employ radar.
Long after the T28 had proved too
vulnerable to
survive the enemy's increasingly
accurate
antiaircraft fire, T28s served as the
principal
attack plane of the Royal Lao Air Force
and were
sometimes flown by Thai volunteers as
well. Few T28
losses resulted in missing American
personnel.
On December 25, 1967, Capt. Terry T.
Koonce was the
pilot of a T28 on a mission in Laos.
Koonce was a
relatively experienced pilot, having
graduated from
the Air Force Academy in 1961 and gone
into flight
training following graduation. The
Christmas Day
mission took Koonce over Khammouane
Province, Laos
near the Ban Karai pass.
The Ban Karai Pass was one of several
passageways
through the mountainous border of
Vietnam and Laos.
American aircraft flying from Thailand
to missions
over North Vietnam flew through them
regularly, and
many aircraft were lost. On the Laos
side of the
border coursed the "Ho Chi Minh Trail",
a road
heavily travelled by North Vietnamese
troops moving
materiel and personnel to their
destinations through
the relative safety of neutral Laos. The
return ratio
of men lost in and around the passes is
far lower
than that of those men lost in more
populous areas,
even though both were shot down by the
same enemy and
the same weapons. This is partly due to
the extremely
rugged terrain and resulting difficulty
in recovery.
Koonce was at the city of Ban Som Peng
when his
aircraft was hit by enemy fire and
crashed. Whether
Koonce was able to bail out of the
aircraft is
unclear, but he was declared Missing in
Action. He is
one of nearly 600 Americans lost in Laos
during the
Vietnam war.
In the early 1970's the Pathet Lao
stated on a number
of occasions that they held "tens of
tens" of
American prisoners and that those
captured in Laos
would also be released from Laos.
Unfortunately, that
release never occurred, because the U.S.
did not
include Laos in the negotiations which
brought
American involvement in the war to an
end. The
country of Laos was bombed by U.S.
forces for several
months following the Peace Accords in
January 1973,
and Laos steadfastly refused to talk
about releasing
our POWs until we discontinued bombing
in their
country.
Consequently, no American held in Laos
was ever
returned. By 1989, these "tens of tens"
apparently
have been forgotten. The U.S. has
negotiated with the
same government entity which declared it
held
American POWs and has agreed to build
clinics and
help improve relations with Laos. If, as
thousands of
reports indicate, Americans are still
alive in
Indochina as captives, then the U.S. is
collaborating
in signing their death warrants.
Terry T. Koonce graduated from the U.S.
Air Force Academy in 1961.
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