Name: Terrance Hastings Griffey
Rank/Branch: O2/US Air Force
Unit: (Unknown per USAF)
Date of Birth: 05 November 1940
Home City of Record: Fort Dodge IA
Date of Loss: 26 May 1966
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 135342N 1991442E (CR104367)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C
Other Personnel in Incident: Gary A. Glandon (missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 September 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: 1Lt. Terrance H. Griffey was the pilot and 1Lt. Gary A. Glandon his weapons systems officer on an F4C Phantom sent on a bombing mission on May 26, 1966. The aircraft was number two in a flight of three. After making the bombing run over the target, Griffey's aircraft was observed to burst into flames and explode. The aircraft burned in the air, impacted the ground and disintegrated into small pieces. The location of the crash was on the coast of South Vietnam about 10 miles northeast of the city of Qui Nhon in Binh Dinh Province. Both men were thought to have been killed and to have gone down with the aircraft.
These two young officers were among the nearly 3000 Americans who were missing, prisoner, or otherwise unaccounted for at the end of the Vietnam war.
Griffey, 25, who had excelled at football at the Air Force Academy was just beginning an Air Force career. Glandon, a native Tennessean, had just turned 26. They are among roughly 58,000 men who died in Vietnam -- men who become statistics from the sheer enormity of the numbers.
Since American involvement in Vietnam ended in 1975, nearly 10,000 reports relating to Americans missing, prisoner, or otherwise unaccounted for in Indochina have been received by the U.S. Government. Many officials, having examined this largely classified information, have reluctantly concluded that many Americans are still alive today, held captive by our long-ago enemy.
Griffey and Glandon apparently did not survive the crash of their aircraft to be captured, and cannot be among those thought to be still alive today. What is certain, however, is that as long as even one American remains alive, held against his will, we owe him our very best efforts to bring him to freedom. Terrance H. Griffey graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1962.
