Name: Willis Rozelle Hall
Rank/Branch: E6/US Air Force
Unit: TDY-Civilian/Lockheed; Lima Site 85-Phou Pha Thi, Laos
Date of Birth: 09 August 1927 (Rose KS)
Home City of Record: Bellevue NE
Date of Loss: 11 March 1968
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 202600N 1034400E (UH680600)
Status (in 1973): Killed In Action/Body Not Recovered
Category:
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Others In Incident:
Clarence Blanton; James Calfee; James Davis; Henry Gish;
Melvin Holland; Herbert Kirk; David Price; Patrick Shannon; Donald
Springsteadah; Don Worley (all missing from Lima 85); Donald Westbrook (missing
from SAR 13 March)
Source:
Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 June 1990 from one or more of the
following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.
SYNOPSIS:
When Willis Hall volunteered for a sensitive assignment called Project
Heavy Green, his wife had to sign a secrecy agreement too. Hall, an Air Force
man, was to be temporarily relieved of duty to take a civilian job with Lockheed
Aircraft. He would be operating cryptographic equipment at Lima 85, a radar base
in Laos, whose neutrality prohibited U.S. military presence. No one was to know.
Lima 85 was on a peak in the Annam Highlands near the village of Sam Neua on a 5860 ft. mountain called Phou Pha Thi. The mountain was protected by sheer cliffs on three sides, and guarded by 300 tribesmen working for CIA. Unarmed US "civilians" operated the radar which swept across the Tonkin Delta to Hanoi.
For three months in early 1968, a steady stream of intelligence was received which indicated that communist troops were about to launch a major attack on Lima 85. Intelligence watched as enemy troops even built a road to the area to facilitate moving heavy weapons, but the site was so important that William H. Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Laos, made the decision to leave the men in place. When the attack came March 11, some were rescued by helicopter, but eleven men were missing. The President announced a halt in the bombing of North Vietnam.
Donald Westbrook was flying one of 4 A1E's orbiting on stand-by to search for survivors of the attack at Phou Pha Thi when his plane was shot down March 13. Westbrook was never found. Finding no survivors, the Air Force destroyed Lima 85 to prevent the equipment from falling into the hands of the enemy.
In mid March, Mary Hall was notified that Lima Site 85 had been overrun by enemy forces, and that her husband and the others who had not escaped had been killed. Many years later, she learned that was not the whole truth.
Reports indicate that all the men missing at Phou Pha Thi did not die. One report suggests that at least one of the 11 was captured; another indicates that 3 were captured; and another indicates 6 were captured. Information has been hard to get. The fact that Lima Site 85 existed was only declassified in 1983, and finally the wives could be believed when they said their husbands were missing in Laos. Some of the men's files were shown to their families for the first time in 1985.
Mary Hall and the other wives have talked and compared notes. Mary still wears her wedding band and lives in a small Kansas town on the same street with two of Willis' sisters. A black POW/MIA flag flutters over her doorstep. She continually seeks information from a government she no longer trusts, believing there is a lot of information still to be had.
Mary and the other wives of the men abandoned at Phou Pha Thi think someone survived the attack on Lima Site 85 that day in March 1968. They wonder if their country will bring their men home.
