FERGUSON, DOUGLAS DAVID
F061.jpg (10187 bytes)

Name: Douglas David Ferguson
Rank/Branch: O2/US Air Force
Unit: 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Udorn AB, Thailand
Date of Birth: 26 April 1945
Home City of Record: Tacoma WA
Date of Loss: 30 December 1969
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 195900N 1032900E (UH413101)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4D
Refno: 1541
Other Personnel In Incident: Fielding W. Featherston III (missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 April 1990 with the assistance
of 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 1998.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: The Plain of Jars region of Laos was long under the control of the
communist Pathet Lao and a continual effort had been made by the secret
CIA-directed force of some 30,000 indigenous tribesmen to strengthen
anti-communist strongholds there. The U.S. committed hundreds of millions of
dollars to the war effort in Laos, but details of this secret operation were
not released until August 1971.
Doug Ferguson and Fielding Featherston were aboard one of five F4D aircraft
on a mission into the Plaine des Jarres region of Laos on December 30, 1969.
Their ship was hit by enemy fire and exploded in a fireball. There were no
parachutes seen, nor were emergency radio "beeper" signals heard that day by
other aircraft.
On the following day, the crash site was photographed and two empty
parachutes were visible hanging in nearby trees. The area was too heavily
defended for a ground search to be possible.
Ferguson and Featherston may well have been captured. They are among the
nearly 600 Americans lost in Laos. Because Laos was "neutral", and because
the U.S. continued to state they were not at war with Laos (although we were
regularly bombing North Vietnamese traffic along the border and conducted
assaults against communist strongholds thoughout the country at the behest
of the anti-communist government of Laos), and did not recognize the Pathet
Lao as a government entity, the nearly 600 Americans lost in Laos were never
recovered.
The Pathet Lao stated that they would release the "tens of tens" of American
prisoners they held only from Laos. At war's end, no American held in Laos
was released - or negotiated for.
Voluminous evidence exists that Americans still survive, captive, in
Indochina. Until serious steps are taken to resolve the fate of these men,
the families of Ferguson and Featherston must wonder if their men are alive,
abandoned by their country.

Douglas D. Ferguson graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1967.
==========================================
Troy woman keeps her brother's memory alive by fighting for POWs

Web-posted Apr 15, 2007
By CAROL HOPKINS
Of The Oakland Press
Sue Scott was home in Southfield around Christmas 1969 when her
sister-in-law called her.
"She said my brother had been shot down," Scott said. "I said 'I don't
really believe it, I don't want to believe it.'"
Military officials eventually came to Scott's home to confirm that
24-year-old Douglas D. Ferguson, U.S. Air Force captain serving in the
Vietnam War, had been shot down.
"But they wouldn't even tell us where," she said.
No body was found. Scott - who was 26, the mother of two young children and
Ferguson's only sibling - was devastated.
"It was like there was a big hole in my heart," she said.
Scott turned her anguish into action, and became an active member of the
National League of POW/MIA Families in 1970. She also joined the Michigan
POW community.
"When I got a letter from the Air Force saying the photographs showed
parachutes hanging in a tree, I made a commitment to do something to help
find my brother," she said. "I've kept that commitment for 35 years."
Just this month, Scott, now a Troy resident, returned from her second trip
to Southeast Asia.
"It was a privilege to go," she said. Through the years, Scott learned her
brother was shot down in Na Khang, Laos.
"He was flying an F-4D aircraft," said Scott. "He was in the back seat, in
the navigator slot."
Government teams have been to the crash site, where they found a parachute
buckle, pieces of a harness and helmet. There is little more to go on, she
said.
In the 1970s, Scott became involved in the POW groups at the state level. By
the late 1970s, she was elected president of the POW committee for the
state.
She met members of Congress and even visited with a United Nations
ambassador.
She served six years as board chairman for the National League of POW/MIA
Families. In 1994, Scott made her first journey to Southeast Asia, as a
delegate of the league.
On her latest trip, which was 16 days long, Scott and three other delegates
met with government officials. The delegation asked for greater access to
archives from all wars. They visited sites where volunteers are searching
for missing military personnel.
"This trip was an opportunity," she said. "I didn't go for myself. I went
for all the (POW/ MIA) families."
They flew into Bangkok, Thailand, and then went to Hanoi in Vietnam. They
also visited Vientiane, the capital of Laos. They also went to sites where
workers were searching for remains - "one of the most humbling experiences
I've ever had," she said. "People are working so hard, sacrificing so much."
In a scene reminiscent of an archeological dig, workers take the excavated
earth and pass it along in buckets. The buckets are then taken to a
screening area.
"They save any kind of bone or piece of aircraft," she said. Anthropologists
head up each team. Everything is labeled and eventually sent to a lab in
Hawaii, Scott reported.
Scott is realistic about how much time has passed.
"We (families) all would like to get a full set of remains but we aren't
going to," she said. "The soil is very acidic and fragments are getting
smaller and smaller.
"Time is our enemy. That's the message we keep pushing."
Scott reflected back over the POW/MIA groups' missions.
"We started out to bring attention that there were POWs in Vietnam and to
get them home," she said.
The government then had a "very paternalistic attitude toward the families,
but we demanded answers," she said. Because of the POW/MIA supporters,
people who serve in the military today have the assurance "they will never
be left behind," Scott said. "Their loved ones won't have to wait 35 or 40
years." Scott, who works with an automotive training team, has a photo of
her brother at her home. At unexpected times, she said, she will be overcome
about him being gone. "I just tell people, OI'm crying,'" she said quietly.
Scott said she vows to "forever" be a member of the POW/ MIA groups. "Even
if I get answers, there are still people who haven't."
Contact Carol Hopkins at (248) 745-4645 or carol.hopkins@oakpress.com.
Click here to return to story:
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/041507/loc_2007041587.shtml