In Memoriam

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Vietnam

Airman Missing from Vietnam War Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Air Force 1st Lt. David A. Thorpe of Seneca Falls, N.Y., will be buried June 23 at Arlington National Cemetery. On Oct. 3, 1966, Thorpe’s C-130E, with four other men aboard, failed to arrive at Nha Trang Air Base following their departure from Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam. Rescue personnel found their remains at the crash site in South Vietnam eight days later approximately 40 miles west of Nha Trang. The cause of the crash is not known.

Between 1984 and 1996, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) received human remains tentatively linked to Thorpe and the other crew members from various sources including refugees from the Vietnam War and Vietnamese citizens. Lacking advanced scientific tools and complete records during this time period, JPAC was unable to make an individual identification of Thorpe’s remains, so he was buried as part of a group at Arlington. Other remains associated with the entire group were held at JPAC’s laboratory for future testing.

As DNA testing procedures improved in the late 1990s, JPAC’s forensic anthropologists applied the latest technologies from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory to include mitochondrial testing, a sample of which matched the DNA from Thorpe’s sister. His dental records also helped confirm the identification.

With the accounting of this airman, 1,687 service members still remain missing from the Vietnam War.

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England

British Army Corporal Lloyd Newell, from the Parachute Regiment, was killed in a gun battle with insurgent forces during an operation in Helmand province, Afghanistan on Thursday 16th June 2011.

British newspaper, The Sun, claim that Cpl. Newell was serving with the Special Air Service (SAS). However, the British MoD are remaining tight-lipped about his unit and his mission.

Cpl. Newell was married with a nine-week-old daughter.

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England

British Army Craftsman Andrew Found, was killed by the blast of a roadside bomb on Thursday 16th June 2011 in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Craftsman Found, from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, was serving with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.

The incident happened near Adinza’i in the Gereshk Valley area, within the northern Nahr-e Saraj District of Helmand Province. His squadron were targeting insurgents in that area. During the operation, an armoured patrol vehicle struck a road mine which disabled the vehicle and injured its crew. As the Recovery Mechanic, Craftsman Found was assessing the damage to the vehicle when he was caught in a secondary explosion in which he was fatally wounded.

Craftsman Found was married to Samantha and they had one son, Jaxson. He was also father to Michael from a previous relationship.

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16 June 2011

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation New Dawn.

Spc. Marcos A. Cintron, 32, of Orlando, Fla., died June 16 at a medical facility in Boston, Mass., of wounds suffered June 6 at Baghdad, Iraq, when insurgents attacked his unit with indirect fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

This soldier was one of the group who were killed in that early morning attack on 6 June 2011 - five others were killed instantly.

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France

French Paratrooper Florian Morillon was killed in action on Saturday 18th June 2011 while on foot patrol in the Tagab valley, Kapisa province. His unit was attacked by enemy forces and 1re-classe Morillon was critically injured in an exchange of fire.

He was evacuated by helicopter to the French Military hospital in Kabul, where he later died from his wounds.

Prior to serving in Afghanistan, he served in Gabon and the Central African Republic. He deployed to Afghanistan mid-May 2011.

1re-classe Morillon served with the 1st Parachute Regiment.

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England

British Army Private Gareth Leslie William Bellingham, serving with 3rd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Staffords), was killed by enemy gunfire in the Gereshk Valley, Helmand province, Afghanistan on Saturday 18th June 2011.

His unit was conducting a patrol to assess the situation on the ground and meet with the local population who had recently returned to compounds in the area. During the patrol, a local Afghan was injured by an Improvised Explosive Device (homemade bomb). As Private Bellingham's unit was providing security, insurgents fired upon the patrol and he was fatally wounded.

He had been in Afghanistan since April 2011.

His parents, Leslie and Suzanne said of their son: “Gareth died doing the job he loved and we are all proud of the job he did. He will be sadly missed by family, friends and all those who knew him. Rest in peace”

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World War II

Airman Missing in Action From WWII Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Army Staff Sgt. Marvin J. Steinford, of Keystone, Iowa, will be buried on June 21 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. On March 24, 1945, Steinford, along with nine other crew members, bailed out of their B-17G Flying Fortress bomber over Gic, Hungary. It had been hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire while on a bombing mission over Germany. Steinford and another crew member were struck by small arms fire while parachuting into a firefight between Soviet and German forces. The remains of the other crew member were found after the war where they had been buried by Hungarian villagers. The remaining eight members of the aircrew were captured by the Germans, held as POWs, and released at the end of the war.

According to accounts gathered by U.S. Army Graves Registration Service personnel in the late 1940s, Steinford’s body was seen beside a German tank near Gic, but no further details about his exact whereabouts were recorded. Growing tensions in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe closed off further U.S. access to Hungary.

In January 2003, in an effort to develop archival leads in Hungary from the Vietnam War, Korean and Cold Wars and World War II, a U.S. commissioner with the U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs met with Hungarian officials in Budapest. Additional follow-up in Hungary by a DPMO researcher began to uncover specific information related to Steinford’s loss. A second DPMO staff member, assisted by Hungarian academics and researchers, discovered archives and interviewed villagers who related first-hand information about the B-17G crash. Shortly thereafter the U.S. Embassy in Budapest notified DPMO that a local cemetery director had information directly related to Steinford.

He related that during a 2004 excavation and transfer of Soviet soldiers’ remains at a war memorial and grave site in the city of Zirc, Hungarian workers discovered remains with a set of identification tags that bore Steinford’s name. The dog tags were removed and all remains were transferred to another site on the outskirts of Zirc. What was believed to be Steinford’s remains were marked with the Hungarian word “Cedulas,” [translation: the one with the tags] and reburied. The dog tags were returned to U.S. officials in March 2005.

From 2005 through late 2007, DPMO facilitated negotiations between U.S., Hungarian and Russian officials. Finally, in December 2007, the U.S. chairman of the commission secured agreement with the Russian first deputy minister of defense to allow a July 2009 exhumation from the war memorial site by specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC used dental comparisons in the identification of Steinford’s remains.

At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more than 73,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.