VIRGIL GRANT STEWART
.
.
CAPT - Air Force - Reserve
Rank/Branch: USAF, O2
26 year old Married, Caucasian,
Male
Date of Birth: Oct 10, 1942
Home City of Record: BATON ROUGE,
LOUISIANA
Length of service 2 years
His tour of duty began on May
17, 1969
Date of Loss: May 17,
1969
Country of Loss: LAOS
Loss Coordinates: 173602N 1054515E
HOSTILE, FIXED WING - PILOT
AIR LOSS, CRASH ON LAND
Status (in 1973): Killed in
Action/Body not Recovered
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4D
Religion
BAPTIST
Panel 24W - - Line 34
Category: 3
Source:
Compiled by THE P.O.W. NETWORK 02 February 93 from the
following published sources
- POW/MIA's -- Report of the Select Committee
on POW/MIA Affairs United States
Senate -- January 13, 1993. "The Senate
Select Committee staff has prepared
case summaries for the priority cases
that the Administration is now
investigating. These provide the facts about
each case, describe the circumstances
under which the individual was lost,
and detail the information learned
since the date of loss. Information in
the case summaries is limited
to information from casualty files, does not
include any judgments by Committee
staff, and attempts to relate essential
facts. The Committee acknowledges
that POW/MIAs' primary next-of- kin know
their family members' cases
in more comprehensive detail than summarized
here and recognizes the limitations
that the report format imposes on these
summaries."
On May 17, 1969, First Lieutenant
Stewart was the pilot of an F-4D
in the area of the Mu Gia Pass,
Khammouane Province, Laos, when his
aircraft sustained battle damage.
He ejected from his aircraft and
reported to rescuers that he
was on the ground with a broken arm
and leg. Rescue forces
had a visual sighting of him and short
beepers. A hostile gun
position was located south of his position
and it was attacked by SAR forces.
A pararescue specialist later
landed in the area and found
him dead. Hostile groundfire
prevented recovery of his body.
He was declared killed in action,
body not recovered, in May 1969.
In 1978, the Defense Intelligence
Agency reevaluated a December
1972 report from the Defense
Attache Office, Vientiane, prepared by
the Air Force member (Project
5800-09-05) of the Attache's
Exploitation Team. One
of the items reported by the source of the
report was that an F-4H had
crashed circa May 1969 and it was
assumed the pilot had been rescued.
This report was reevaluated to
be a possible correlation to
one of several losses in the area of
the crash, one of which was
Lieutenant Steward's loss incident.
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