Name: Don Charles Wood
Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force
Unit: 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Takhli AB, Thailand
Date of Birth: 11 November 1929
Home City of Record: Provo UT
Date of Loss: 16 January 1966
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 193210N 1030825E (TG959751)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D
Other Personnel In Incident:
(none missing)
Source:
Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 April 1990 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.
REMARKS:
POSS CAPT - ID IN PL FILM
SYNOPSIS:
The Plain of Jars region of Laos was long been controlled by the
communist Pathet Lao and a continual effort was made by the secret CIA-directed
force of some 30,000 indigenous tribesmen to strengthen anti- communist
strongholds there. The U.S. committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the war
effort in Laos. Details of this secret operation were not released until August
1971.
Don C. Wood's F105D fighter plane was flying as the number five aircraft in a flight of five on a combat mission over the Plain of Jars region on January 16, 1966. He was observed making a pull-up from the target, but the other aircraft then lost sight of him. He did not return to friendly control, and was declared Missing in Action. His wife and six children were told that there was the possibility that he had been taken prisoner as he had been identified from a Pathet Lao film of American prisoners of war.
Wood is among nearly 600 Americans who were lost in Laos. Because Laos was "neutral", and because the U.S. continued to state they were not at war with Laos (although we were regularly bombing North Vietnamese traffic along the border and conducted assaults against communist strongholds thoughout the country at the behest of the anti-communist government of Laos), and did not recognize the Pathet Lao as a government entity, the nearly 600 Americans lost in Laos were never recovered.
The Pathet Lao stated that they held and would release the "tens of tens" of American prisoners they held only from Laos. At war's end, no American held in Laos was released - or negotiated for.
Alarmingly, evidence continues to mount that Americans were left as priosoners in Southeast Asia and continue to be held today. Unlike "MIAs" from other wars, most of the nearly 2500 men and women who remain missing in Southeast Asia can be accounted for. If even one was left alive (and many authorities estimate the numbers to be in the hundreds), we have failed as a nation until and unless we do everything possible to secure his freedom.
