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The
Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced
today that the remains of two U.S. servicemen, missing in action from
the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to their
families for burial with full military honors.
They are Col. Norman D. Eaton, of Weatherford, Okla., and Lt. Col. Paul
E. Getchell, of Portland, Maine, both U.S. Air Force. Eaton will
be buried April 25 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington,
D.C., and Getchell will be buried later this spring at Arlington.
On Jan. 13, 1969, Eaton and Getchell crewed a B-57B Canberra bomber
participating in a nighttime attack on targets in Salavan Province,
Laos. The target area was illuminated by flares from a C-130
aircraft; however, the flares dimmed as the B-57 began its third
bombing run on the target. The crew was low on fuel, but decided
to continue the attack run without illumination. The C-130 crew
received a radio transmission indicating that the B-57 was off target
and seconds later, the plane crashed. Eaton and Getchell could not
be recovered at the time of the incident.
In 1995, a joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) team,
led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), investigated the
incident and interviewed a Laotian citizen who recalled the
crash. Another joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. team surveyed the site and
found wreckage and crew-related materials consistent with the citizens
report.
In 2003, a joint U.S.-L.P.D.R. team excavated the crash site and
recovered Eatons identification tag. The team was unable to
complete the recovery and subsequent teams re-visited the site five
more times between 2004 and 2005 before the recovery was
complete. As a result, the teams found Getchells identification
tag, human remains and additional crew-related
items.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence,
scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory
also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains.
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