Name: Donald Elmer Paxton
Rank/Branch: O5/US Air Force
Unit:
Date of Birth: 03 November 1928
Home City of Record: Cedar Rapids IA
Date of Loss: 22 February 1969
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 163200N 1061600E (XD351297)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: B57B
Other Personnel In Incident: Charles Macko (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: In mid-February, 1969, U.S. Defense policy for response on U.S. operations in Laos was, "The preferable response to questions about air operations in Laos is 'no comment'." We "weren't" in Laos.
The B57 Canberra was one of the aircraft used by the U.S. Air Force to bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Canberra first came to the Vietnam theater at the time of the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. It proved too vulnerable and difficult to repair for working targets over North Vietnam, but proved effective in the armed reconnaissance Trail operations of Operation Steel Tiger. The Canberra was sometimes used in conjunction with other, more sophisticated aircraft, such as the C130, and was especially effective on night missions.
LtCol. Donald E. Paxton and Maj. Charles Macko were in Laos. Paxton was the pilot and Macko the co-pilot of a B57 bomber sent on a mission over Savannakhet Province, Laos, on February 22, 1969. During the mission, the aircraft was shot down and both men were declared Missing In Action.
Macko and Paxton are two of nearly 600 Americans who disappeared in Laos during the Vietnam War. Although Pathet Lao leaders stressed that they held "tens of tens" of American prisoners, they stated that those captured in Laos would be released in Laos, hoping to gain a seat at the negotiating table in Paris where the U.S. and Vietnam were negotiating an end to the war.
The U.S. did not include Laos in the Paris Peace Accords, and no Americans held in Laos were released. In America's haste to leave Southeast Asia, it abandoned its finest men. Since the end of the war, the U.S. has received thousands of reports convincing many that hundreds of Americans are still held captive today.
In seeming disreguard for the Americans either held or having been murdered by the Pathet Lao, by 1989, the U.S. and the Lao devised a working plan to provide Laos with humanitarian and economic aid leading toward ultimate full diplomatic and trade relations while Laos allows the excavation of military crash sites at sporadic intervals. In America's haste to return to Southeast Asia, we are again abandoning our men.
Charles Macko and Donald E. Paxton were both promoted to the rank of Colonel during the period they were maintained missing.
