William B. Hunt was a replacement platoon leader III
CTZ Mike Force (Detachment A-302), 5th Special
Forces Group. On November 4, 1966, he was a
passenger on a helicopter on an assigned mission in
Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam (grid coordinates
XT 418 657) when the helicopter diverted to conduct
a medevac for an American lead company that had
suffered heavy losses.
At a landing zone northeast of Soui Da, 10 miles from
Dau Tieng, Hunt was lifted into battle to help
evacuate the wounded. He voluntarily left the aircraft
to help reinforce the remaining troops on the ground,
and the helicopter left with the wounded.
The Viet Cong again attacked the position the unit was
maintaining that evening. After two days of heavy
fighting, and numerous casualties, the Mike Force was
overrun by numerically superior forces on November
6. As Hunt carried the wounded company commander,
SFC George H. Heaps, out of danger, Hunt was gravely
wounded by a bullet that hit him in the shoulder,
penetrated his upper back, and exited his side, but
Hunt still succeeded in moving Heaps to a covered
position where both passed out from loss of blood.
Both Heaps and Hunt later regained consciousness and
crawled toward the landing zone for extraction, with
two ARVN. Progress was very slow because of their
wounds, and finally Hunt told Heaps he could not go
farther, and for Heaps to continue on and leave him
there. A Nung soldier stayed behind with Hunt, and
Heaps and the two ARVN were evacuated. The Nung
later reported that Hunt had died, but when searches
were made to recover his body, it was not found.
In 1985 a private citizen obtained a lengthy report
through the Freedom of Information Act in which a
Vietnamese defector described in great detail a
Prisoner of War camp near Hue, South Vietnam.
Together with the report was a list of Americans the
source positively identified as being held at the camp.
William Hunt's name is on the list. Although the report
has been substantiated by returned POWs who were
held there, the U.S. Defense Department has declared
that the defector is a liar, and has discounted his
report.
The defector's report is one of over 10,000 received
by the U.S. that has convinced many experts that
hundreds of Americans are still alive as prisoners
in Indochina. As long as the mindset exists to term
these reports "lies," we cannot expect to learn the
truth of the matter. Until we learn the truth, we
cannot expect anyone who is alive to come home.
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