HAMILTON, EUGENE DAVID

Remains Identified - see text

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File.  2018

REMARKS:

CACCF/CRASH/PILOT

No further information available at this time.

-----------------
National League of Families
POW/MIA UPDATE:  November 17, 2005

AMERICAN ACCOUNTED FOR: Initially listed as MIA on January 31, 1966, Captain
Eugene D. Hamilton, USAF, of Alabama, the remains of this officer were
repatriated March 4, 2005 and identified October 10th.  There are now 1,814
Americans listed by the Defense Department as missing and unaccounted for
from the Vietnam War - 1,380 in Vietnam, 372 in Laos, 55 in Cambodia and 7
in PRC territorial waters.  Though others have been identified and not yet
announced, over 90% of these US personnel were lost in Vietnam or in areas
of Laos and Cambodia controlled by Vietnam.

No. 094-06
February 3, 2006
Air Force Officer MIA from Vietnam War is Identified

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

He is Col. Eugene D. Hamilton of Opelika, Ala.  Final arrangements for his
funeral have not been set.

On Jan. 31, 1966, Hamilton was flying an armed reconnaissance mission over
North Vietnam when his F-105D `Thunderchief' was hit by enemy ground fire
over Ha Tinh province.  His mission was part of a larger operation, known as
Operation Rolling Thunder, which attacked air defense systems and the flow
of supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Airborne searches for his crash site that day were unsuccessful. A radio
broadcast from Hanoi reported an F-105 had been shot down but did not
provide any details.

Between July 1993 and November 2000, joint U.S.-Vietnam teams, led by the
Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), conducted four investigations and
one excavation searching for the pilot and his plane.

An investigation team in March 2000 learned from a Vietnamese villager that
an area excavated in 1997 was not the location of the pilot's burial.  A
second location was then excavated in August and September 2000, which did
yield aircraft wreckage, personal effects and human remains.

In 2004, three Vietnamese citizens turned over to a JPAC team remains they
had found at the same crash site a year earlier.

In late May 2005, the JPAC team recovered fragments of possible human
remains and life support equipment from the 2000 crash site.  Personal
effects found there also included a leather nametag with the name "HAMILTON"
partially visible on it.

JPAC scientists and Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory specialists
used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to help identify the
remains.  Laboratory analysis of dental remains also confirmed his identity.

Of those Americans unaccounted-for from all conflicts, 1,807 are from the
Vietnam War, with 1,382 of those within the country of Vietnam.  Another 839
Americans have been accounted-for in Southeast Asia since the end of the
war, with 599 from Vietnam.

            For additional information on the Defense Department's mission
            to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at
            http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

======

From: Gaskin William MSGT CRTC MAF <William.Gaskin@gacrtc.ang.af.mil>
Subject: LOVELETTERS - Col. Eugene D. Hamilton
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 12:38:13 -0400

Welcome Home, Sir. We've been waiting for you.
I hope to be among the Patriot Guard members who will be honored to give you
your hero's welcome.
Your mission is finally complete. Well done, Sir.

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