EVERT, LAWRENCE GERALD Remains Identified 02/08/02 see below.
Name: Lawrence Gerald Evert Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force Unit: Date of Birth: 15 March 1938 Home City of Record: Cody WY Date of Loss: 08 November 1967 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 211500N 1054100E (WJ721508) Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 2 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F105 Refno: 0897 Other Personnel In Incident: (none missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 October 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK 2002.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: The F105 Thunderchief (or "Thud") performed yoeman service on many diversified missions in Southeast Asia. F105s flew more combat missions over North Vietnam than any other USAF aircraft and consequently suffered the heaviest losses in action. They dropped bombs by day and occasionally by night from high or low altitude and some later versions (F105D in Wild Weasel guise) attacked SAM sites with their radar tracking air-to-ground missiles. This versatile aircraft was also credited with downing 25 Russian MiGs.
Capt. Lawrence G. Evert was the pilot of an F105 aircraft assigned a combat mission over North Vietnam on November 8, 1967. As his aircraft was just northwest of the city of Lang Tao (about 50 miles north of Hanoi), it was hit by enemy fire and crashed. It was not determined if Evert survived. He was declared Missing In Action, and the U.S. believes there is a good chance that the enemy forces knew his fate.
Lawrence G. Evert was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel during the period he was maintained missing.
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Wednesday, November 15 6:21 AM SGT
Clinton to pay homage to war dead at 1967 crash site near Hanoi
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (AFP) -
Air Force Captain Lawrence Evert was attacking a railroad bridge northwest of Hanoi November 8, 1967, when his F-105 Thunderchief was hit by anti-aircraft fire.
"I'm hit hard," Evert radioed, the last words recorded before his plane crashed near a small village northwest of Hanoi.
Because Evert went down so deep in enemy territory and no parachute was seen by other US aircraft, a search and rescue was never attempted, Larry Greer, spokesman for a Pentagon office that handles the cases of prisoners of war and those listed as missing in action, said Tuesday.
But this week, more than 33 years later, the first US president to visit Vietnam since the war ended in 1975 will go to the rice paddy where Evert's plane is believed to have gone down.
Evert's sons, Dan and Dave, will join President Bill Clinton at the site to pay homage to the 50,000 Americans killed in Indochina, Greer said.
The president's visit highlights the extraordinary lengths to which the United States has gone to account for and recover the remains of US missing in action in conflicts from Vietnam to Korea to World War II,
Just this year, US forensic teams from the US Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii worked to recover US remains in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, China and Russia.
Among other exploits US forensic teams located the wreckage of a World War II bomber in the Russia's Far East and sent home the remains of six marines killed in Cambodia while trying to rescue the crew of the USS Mayaguez in 1975.
In Vietnam, they have accounted for 591 American dead since the joint recovery operations began in 1988. By the Pentagon's count, 1,992 US servicemen from the Vietnam War are still missing in action in Southeast Asia.
The search for Evert began in 1993, with US teams returning to the country again in 1995, 1998 and this year as they zeroed in on his crash site, Greer said.
"Eventually they narrowed it down to a small village where they interviewed local residents who recalled the shoot down and the crash," he said.
"They took investigators to a crash site where wreckage was strewn in their rice paddies," he said.
Using metal detectors and other equipment, investigators were able to pinpoint what they believe is the impact site -- the base of a berm on which runs the railroad tracks that Evert lost his life trying to bomb, he said.
Excavation of the site began this week and is expected to last about 30 days, Greer said.
Special care has been taken to ensure that the excavation doesn't impede train traffic on the railroad, Greer said.
"Recovery of debris will help investigators be absolutely certain this is the right aircraft," Greer said.
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Sons of Downed Pilot Share Emotions
By WALTER R. MEARS .c The Associated Press
TIEN CHAU, Vietnam (AP) - By a rice paddy where their father was shot down and killed during the Vietnam War 33 years ago, the sons of pilot Lawrence G. Evert watched as Vietnamese workers dug and sifted through mud in hopes of finding his remains.
``It's very touching to see the Vietnamese people working to push the mud through, to find the little pieces,'' David Evert of Chandler, Ariz., told reporters. ``We want them to know that we love them and we don't hold any animosity toward them at all.''
``We feel it's a time for healing for everybody,'' Evert said after touring the site Saturday with his brother, Daniel, also of suburban Phoenix, and with President Clinton.
On Friday, they spent four hours at the dig site helping workers look for traces of their father or his F-105 fighter bomber that was shot down on Nov. 8, 1967 by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft fire.
``We put on some gear and got out and worked the screens and got out in the mud and just tried to help a little bit as a healing process for us,'' Daniel Evert said. ``It helps us to understand really how hard that work is. That clay is very, very tough to work through - to push that mud through the screens and to find the smallest of pieces.''
``And they do that six days a week,'' his brother, David, added.
David was 6 and Daniel was 7 when they got their final glimpse of their father as he was leaving for the Vietnam War from old Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix.
``As he walked up the stairs to get on the plane, he turned and waved at us,'' David Evert said. ``That was the last time we saw our father.''
Their sister was 4 then, and another sister was born five days after Evert was killed.
``My dad was a great American,'' David Evert said. ``He loved the service, he loved to fly planes. He died in honor of his country. I'm sure that he's grateful that his sons are here to help bring him home.''
The Air Force approached the brothers about three weeks ago with the offer to tour the recovery site with Clinton.
``There's a lot more families other than ours, and we hope this opens up doors for their famililies, too,'' David Evert said.
``We're absolutely grateful that President Clinton came here,'' said Daniel Evert. ``The political part of that, I know that there's reasons people don't like that, but ... we're not trying to make any political statements out of this.''
``This is a very private moment for us, in some ways, in a very public way,'' he said. ``We need to heal in our own family and understand what we've gone through for the past 33 years.''
Their mother, Wanda Allen, now 62, raised the four children not knowing whether Evert was dead or captured. Daniel Evert said she went on ``hoping every day and wondering for the 11, 11 1/2 years or so before they declared him dead.''
``We hope that by being here today that we can honor our father and we can honor our mother,'' he said. ``We just want to make them proud.''
========================= Christian Science Monitor Friday, November 17, 2000
MIA relatives come in search of 'healing'
Ilene R. Prusher
Just over 33 years ago, a young Air Force pilot from Cody, Wyo., swooped down somewhere near this village 17 miles west of Hanoi in attempt to bomb his target: a railway bridge used to carry cargo from China and the USSR.
Capt. Lawrence G. Evert, it seems, became the target instead. On Nov. 8, 1967, anti-aircraft fire knocked his F-105D Thunderchief out of the sky and into the Vietnamese countryside, still a stretch of fertile red earth, covered with rice paddies and yam fields. "I'm hit hard," he said in his last transmission. His comrades didn't know how hard until he failed to report again.
Tomorrow, two of his sons will join President Clinton in visiting an excavation site here in the hope they might soon know the fate of a father who never came home from the Vietnam War. Lt. Col. Evert, promoted posthumously, is one of 1,992 unaccounted- for US military personnel who went missing in action here, in Laos, and in Cambodia.
Their visit to the excavation site, one of 570 recovery operations since the US Joint Task Force-Full Accounting started looking for the remains of MIAs (Missing in Action) in 1992, is one of the more emotional aspects of Mr. Clinton's historic trip to Vietnam. US officials in Hanoi say Vietnamese cooperation on the matter, treated mostly as a humanitarian issue, was one of the key factors that paved the way for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the US in 1995.
Dan and David Evert, now residents of suburban Phoenix, Ariz., were eight and six years old when their father, then 29, disappeared. As boys, they used to hatch plans of going to Vietnam to rescue their dad.
The brothers have come here in search of "a little bit of healing," says Dan Evert. "You always have hope that he was still alive." But as they watched other prisoners of war coming home from Vietnam, their hopes were dashed. "Our family sat together as we watched the prisoners get off one by one, and to see the last of the planes emptied and for him not to be there was very, very tough."
Villagers sift through buckets of mud and pluck out mangled metal fragments for analysis. Their findings are sent to the US for analysis in repatriation ceremonies - such as one that will be attended by Clinton and the Evert sons on Saturday. So far, what appears to be a piece of bone and a data plate from the plane are the most specific shards that could determine whether the crash remains belong to Colonel Evert.
The muddy mire of this rice field was pinpointed by a witness who, upon hearing that this operation was under way, came here from Ho Chi Minh City to tell investigators that he saw the plane shot down. Another man and his wife attested to having filled in the crater created by the crash.
The US spends about $19 million a year to carry out excavations like this one, and says it will continue as long as there are still leads. "There is a tradition in the US military that says we don't leave our dead on the battlefield," say Lt. Col. Franklin F. Childress, Chief of Public Affairs for the task force. "Unfortunately, in the case of the Vietnam War, we didn't have any choice."
Some veterans groups feel that the US military should have acted more quickly to find the MIAs. All, indeed, will be listening to Clinton's comments closely, concerned that he might issue some sort of apology for the US role in the war. In recent weeks, senior Vietnamese officials suggested that the US should offer war reparations, or at least additional support for victims of Agent Orange, a defoliant used by US forces that has been blamed for causing birth defects.
Among those groups that turned down an invitation to come on the trip was the National League of POW-MIA Families. "We declined to participate in the current visit, mainly because you don't get much done in such large groups," says Ann Milles-Griffiths, whose brother disappeared 34 years ago. "There are a lot of people who think this should have been saved for the next president. It's problematic and controversial because it carries a lot of baggage for him."
For those working on the site, however, it is a difficult and meaningful mission. US Army anthropologist Dennis Danielson was here as a marine in 1966 and lost friends during the war. "It's wet, muddy, slow, and dirty," he says. Adds Senior Mast-Sargeant Gina Noland, in her 19th year in the Army: "This is the best job I've ever had," she says. "It makes me feel good that if something happens to me, they won't leave me behind."
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Remains returned a year after family learns about father's fate in Vietnam War
By JANIS L. MAGIN The Associated Press
10/6/01 4:39 AM
HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii (AP) -- A military official turned up at Danny Evert's home in Arizona last fall with a request: Would the family mind if then-President Clinton visited the site where his father, Capt. Lawrence Evert, crashed in Vietnam? Until that day, the family had no idea where Evert's plane went down. They had held no funeral, no memorial service for Evert, listed as missing in action and declared dead in 1978. On Friday, a joint military honor guard carried a flag-wrapped casket containing what is believed to be Evert's remains off a C-141 cargo plane. A ceremony was then held. "From the very beginning I had this feeling it was going to be a long time. We just waited," said his wife Wanda Allen, who waited 15 years before she remarried. The remains of Evert and five others believed to be American servicemen recovered from Vietnam and Laos were returned to U.S. soil for the ceremony. Remains believed to be those of 17 U.S. soldiers from the Korean War also were carried off the plane. Forensics experts at the Army's Central Identification Laboratory will attempt to identify them. After the visit from the Defense Department, Danny Evert, 42, and his brother, David, traveled to Vietnam last November with Clinton and viewed the recovery site in the Me Linh district in Vinh Phu province, a 40-minute drive north of Hanoi. "He said people like my brother and I should be able to bring our fathers home," Danny Evert said, quoting Clinton. Danny Evert was 8 on Nov. 8, 1967, when his father's plane disappeared. He returned to the site in February, this time with their sisters. "It was so important for me to go," said Elizabeth Dempsey, 33, born five days after her 29-year-old father was lost. "That was the closest I was going to come to my father." Officials showed the siblings what they believed to be their father's remains, pieces from his flight suit and a large sole from a boot -- their 6-foot-5 father wore a size 13 shoe. Several days later they were told that their father's wallet and dogtags were found, along with a tag indicating he was a member of the Mormon church. Capt. Lawrence Evert was piloting an F-105 Thunderchief when he disappeared. "One of the crew members from another flight observed an explosion in the area," said Ginger Couden, a spokeswoman for the Army laboratory. "At the time no search and rescue was conducted due to the hostile threat." The area was first surveyed in 1993 and, after subsequent visits and interviews, the excavation began in October 2000. Evert's remains should be identified within three months but the others may take longer. Three sets of remains returned to the United States from Vietnamese villages are not part of any known mission. Since 1973, the remains of 629 American servicemen from the Vietnam War have been identified; 1,956 are still unaccounted for, including 1,473 in Vietnam. The rest are in Laos, Cambodia and China.
========================================== 02/08/02 National League of Familie Update
AMERICAN ACCOUNTED FOR: According to the Department of Defense, there are now 1,945 Americans still missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. The remains of LtCol Lawrence G. Evert, USAF, from Wyoming, missing since November 8, 1967, were jointly recovered during successive field operations beginning February 9, 2000. The remains of LT Gene R. Gollahon, USN, from Ohio, missing since August 13, 1965, were jointly recovered April 26, 2000. In addition, one Air Force officer, previously missing in North Vietnam, was accounted for through identification of remains recovered during several field operations beginning in 1997. No public announcement has yet been made, though it is hoped that will soon occur. Of the total unaccounted for, 1,466 are in Vietnam, 411 in Laos, 60 in Cambodia and 8 in the territorial waters of the PRC. Over 90% of all Vietnam War missing were lost in Vietnam or areas under its wartime control.
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The Honolulu Advertiser.com Tuesday, July 2, 2002
Sons close book on mystery of father lost at war
By William Cole Advertiser Military Writer
HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE - When he was 5, David Evert watched his father get on a TWA flight in Phoenix and leave for the war in Vietnam.
Air Force Capt. Lawrence Evert turned, waved goodbye to his pregnant wife and three young children, and never returned.
The F-105D Thunderchief pilot was shot down about three months later, on Nov. 8, 1967, while on a combat mission in North Vietnam to bomb the Phuc Yen rail bridge north of Hanoi.
His family waited 33 years to find that out.
Yesterday, David, now 40, and Dan, 42, helped wrap their father's remains in a blanket at the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory, Hawai'i, and today - with his Air Force full dress uniform in the casket - will take their father home.
"People ask us if this is a somber or sad time. It's not, it's a happy time - we are excited this has come to this point," said David Evert, who lives in Woodland, Calif.
End to mystery
For the Evert family, the investigation mounted by the central identification laboratory and Joint Task ForceiFull Accounting led to the answers they had long searched for, several trips by family members to the recovery site in Vietnam - which then-President Clinton visited in November 2000 - and the ability to bury their father back in Arizona.
A funeral for Capt. Lawrence Evert, who was promoted to lieutenant colonel while he was missing, is scheduled for Friday at Mesa Cemetery.
"It's unbelievable," David Evert said yesterday. "Thirty-three years of not knowing anything - not knowing how he died, where he might have died - to actually going to experience it, see where he crashed, to see where the plane finally went in."
On that November day, 29-year-old Lawrence Evert, flying as wingman, gave the thumbs-up to a fellow F-105 flier and swooped down to bomb the main rail line running from North Vietnam through China and into Russia.
"My father was flying behind him," said Dan Evert, who lives in Chandler, Ariz., "so none of them actually saw him get shot. As they came up out of the bombing run, he didn't report in."
The 6-foot-5 bear of a man whom Dan Evert remembers as a "gentle giant" was gone. The Air Force passed along what information it had, but the family knew only that he had been shot down somewhere over North Vietnam.
Crash site found
In 1993, the central identification laboratory at Hickam and Joint Task Force at Camp Smith began investigating the loss. Search personnel found the crash site in June 2000, and by October the Defense Department was providing the details - and asking if it was all right for Clinton to visit.
The crash site was in rice fields near the base of the railroad track, and remains were found 16 to 18 feet underground. Three recovery missions were conducted, and the last team brought Evert's remains to Hawai'i for positive identification in October of 2001.
On the last trip, Evert's wallet containing his ID was found - including a still-identifiable picture - along with his dog tags and "LDS" (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) tags, and his service pistol.
"Everything that would tell us it was him was there," David Evert said.
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
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MIA story has ending -- 35 years later
Local woman's brother's plane was shot down in Vietnam War
Wed, July 17, 2002
By ANTONE CLARK Standard-Examiner correspondent
SYRACUSE -- A Syracuse woman who has had almost 35 years to find closure in regard to her older brother"s fate was unprepared when finality came to the odyssey last week.
The remains of Lt. Col. Lawrence Gerald Evert, shot down on Nov. 8, 1967, just 17 miles from Hanoi, Vietnam, were buried on July 6 in the City of Mesa Cemetery in Arizona with full military honors. The ceremony brought finality to a search and mystery that has hung over Marianne Stamm and her family for more than three decades.
The remains of the MIA Air Force pilot were excavated after two of the deceased pilot"s sons personally went to Vietnam with former President Bill Clinton in November 2000 spurring a series of digs that finally resulted in portions of the pilot"s bones and things being found.
"It felt like he died yesterday," Stamm said of the funeral.
That coupled with the death earlier this year of her mother -- who never did know the complete story of her son"s disappearance -- have added a real sense of loss to the Davis County woman.
"Three weeks ago I thought I was prepared to deal with this, but now I"m not sure," she said.
The deceased pilot has Utah links beyond his sister in Syracuse. He and his wife met at Brigham Young University, where he graduated as an ROTC officer.
Raised in Cody, Wyo., Evert flew 40 missions in Vietnam and was preparing to come home to be with his nine-months pregnant wife and three children in November 1967. But a pilot scheduled to fly a support mission did not make it, and Evert tried to fly one more mission. His F-105 was shot down. Five days later his youngest daughter was born.
Evert"s family was notified the same day he was shot down, but that simply opened a mystery that never had resolution for Marianne, her parents and siblings.
She said she used to watch film footage of soldiers coming home from Vietnam and cry, just hoping that someone was wrong about her brother. Even an official declaration in 1978 by former President Jimmy Carter that her brother was dead did not bring any closure to the issue.
Evert"s two eldest sons, driven to resolve the mystery of their father, personally petitioned the president in 2000 when they heard Clinton was going to visit Vietnam. They accompanied the president to Asia. With Clinton"s assistance, the boys were able to work closely with the Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii in three different site excavations, where some bones, a dog tag, a wallet and other remains were found.
The remains were brought back to U.S. soil late last year, but final burial was postponed until this month in Arizona when all of Evert"s children could attend. Evert"s family was offered the chance to bury their father in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., but declined, opting to have his remains closer to home.
Her brother"s funeral so close to July 4 added a special sense of patriotism to the holiday for Stamm.
"We made sure we went to the parade and saluted every flag that went by," she said.