Name: John Cooley Ellison
Rank/Branch: O4/US Navy
Unit: Attack Squadron 85, USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63)
Date of Birth: 16 December 1928
Home City of Record: Layton UT
Date of Loss: 24 March 1967
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 212500N 1065700E (YJ020693)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 4
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: A6A
Other Personnel In Incident:
James E. Plowman (missing)
Source:
Compiled by Homecoming II Project (919/527-8079) 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. Copyright
1991 Homecoming II Project.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS:
LtCdr. John Ellison was the pilot of an A6A Intruder jet aircraft that
launched from the USS Kitty Hawk on March 24, 1967 on a combat mission over
North Vietnam. Ellison's Bombardier/Navigator that day was Ltjg. James Plowman.
The two were assigned to a strike force suppression mission against Bac Giang
Thermal Power Plant in North Vietnam. They were to suppress surface-to-air
missile (SAM) sites. The target was defended by SAM sites, light, medium and
heavy anti-aircraft batteries, automatic weapons and small arms. After the
"bombs away" call, the airborne Combat Information Officer tracked their
aircraft about 11 miles north of the planed track. Radar indications disappeared
in the vicinity of Ha Bac Province, North Vietnam. Although Ellison had radio
contact with rescuers, he and Plowman were not rescued. Ha Bac Province is in
extreme northern Vietnam near the border of China.
The families of Ellison and Plowman wonder what happened to their men that day. There is no indication that they died when their plane disappeared, and unofficial reports that they have been unable to verify suggest that one or both may have been captured. A photo of a POW in the front of a march conducted in China was identified by Navy officer and returned POW Robert Flynn who was released by the Chinese in 1973 as being James E. Plowman. Flynn also saw a photo of Ellison while held in China.
Plowman's wife identified him from a North Vietnamese photo just prior to December 1970, and his parents identified him from a 1967 North Vietnamese photo.
After Seaman Douglas Hegdahl was released from Hanoi in 1969, he told family members of Buzz Ellison that he had seen Buzz.
Ellison and Plowman were maintained throughout the war as Missing In Action. Even though there seems to be some doubt that the two died and that they may have been prisoners after all, their status was never changed, and by 1980, they had been declared administratively dead.
Although evidence existed that China held prisoners from the Korean conflict and the Vietnam war, the U.S. rushed towards friendly relations with that country, ignoring their best men. Today, there is evidence that Vietnam is holding hundreds of prisoners from the war in Vietnam, yet the U.S. is again signing the death warrants of her best men in the rush for normalization of relations.
