HANNA, KENNETH Remains Identified 09/2004, buried 2005
Name: Kenneth Hanna Rank/Branch: E7/US Army Special Forces Unit: Company C, Detachment A-101, 5th Special Forces Group Date of Birth: 28 April 1933 Home City of Record: Scranton SC Loss Date: 07 February 1968 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 163602N 1064058E (XD795360) Status (In 1973): Missing In Action Category: 1 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground Refno: 1040
Source: Compiled 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 in 1998.
Personnel In Incident: Dennis L. Thompson; William G. McMurry; Harvey G. Brande; (all released 1973). Kenneth Hanna; Daniel R. Phillips; James W. Holt; James Moreland; Charles Lindewald; (all missing); Eugene Ashley Jr. (killed)
REMARKS: OVERRUN AT SF CAMP
SYNOPSIS: The Lang Vei Special Forces camp in the northwestern corner of South Vietnam along Route 9, a mile and a half from the Laotian border.had been established in late December 1966 as a result of the Special Forces Detachment A101 having been moved out of its former Khe Sanh location. It seemed ill fated from the beginning.
In March 1967, one of the worst tragedies to befall the Special Forces CIDG program during the war occurred. U.S. Air Force released napalm ordnance on the nearby village which spewed exploding fire over the camp, landing zone, minefield and village. 135 CIDG and native civilians were killed, and 213 were horribly wounded, burned or disfigured.
Only two months later, on May 4, a Viet Cong night attack on the camp wiped out the Special Forces command group, all in one bunker, and killed the detachment commander and his executive officer, as well as seriously wounding the team sergeant. This attack was a prelude to the larger siege of Khe Sanh, and was a grim reminder of the dangerous neighborhood Special Forces had moved into.
By January 1968, several North Vietnamese Army divisions had encircled the Marine combat base at Khe Sanh, placing the more westerly Lang Vei Special Forces frontier surveillance camp in imminent danger. The camp was occupied by Detachment A101 commanded by Capt. Frank C. Willoughby. Willoughby was rebuilding and reinforcing the camp at the time, while soldiers and dependants from the Kha tribal 33rd Laotian Volunteer Battalion streamed into the camp after being overrun by NVA tanks across the border.
On the evening of January 24, the camp was pounded by mortars in conjunction with a heavy shelling of the Marine Khe Sanh base, which prevented any effective artillery support for Lang Vei. 1Lt. Paul R. Longgrear had only recently arrived with his Hre tribal 12th Mobile Strike Force Company to help shore up defensive firepower.
The influx of the Laotians caused some problems. For example, the Lao battalion commander refused to take orders from the American captain, forcing the Company C commander, LtCol. Daniel F. Schungel, to come to Lang Vei on his first Special Forces assignment on February 6 to provide an officer of equal rank.
Camp strength on February 6 totalled 24 Special Forces, 14 LLDB, 161 mobile strike force, 282 CIDG (Bru and Vietnamese), 6 interpreters and 520 Laotian soldiers, plus a number of civilians.
Shortly after midnight on February 7, 1968, a combined NVA infantry-tank assault drove into Lang Vei. Two PT-76 tanks threatened the outer perimeter of the camp as infantry rushed behind them. SFC James W. Holt destroyed both tanks with shots from his 106mm recoilless rifle. More tanks came around the burning hulks of the first two tanks and began to roll over the 104th CIDG Company's defensive positions. SSgt. Peter Tiroch, the assistant intelligence sergeant, ran over to Holt's position and helped load the weapon. Holt quickly lined up a third tank in his sights and destroyed it with a direct hit. After a second shot at the tank, Holt and Tiroch left the weapons pit just before it was demolished by return cannon fire. Tiroch watched Holt run over to the ammunition bunker to look for some hand-held Light Anti-tank Weapons (LAWs). It was the last time Holt was ever seen.
LtCol. Schungel, 1Lt. Longgrear, SSgt. Arthur Brooks, Sgt. Nikolas Fragos, SP4 William G. McMurry, Jr., and LLDB Lt. Quy desperately tried to stop the tanks with LAWs and grenades. They even climbed on the plated engine decks, trying to pry open hatches to blast out the crews. NVA infantrymen followed the vehicles closely, dusting their sides with automatic rifle fire. One tank was stopped by five direct hits, and the crew killed as they tried to abandon the vehicle. 1Lt. Miles R. Wilkins, the detachment executive officer, left the mortar pit with several LAWs and fought a running engagement with one tank beside the team house without much success.
Along the outer perimeters, the mobile strike force outpost was receiving fire. Both Kenneth Hanna, a heavy weapons specialist, and Charles W. Lindewald, 12th Mobile Strike Force platoon leader, were wounded. Hanna, wounded in the scalp, left shoulder and arm tried to administer first aid to Lindewald. The two were last seen just before their position was overrun. Harvey Brande spoke with them by radio and Hanna indicated that Lindewald was then dead, and that he himself was badly wounded. Daniel R. Phillips, a demolitions specialist, was wounded in the face and was last seen trying to evade North Vietnamese armor by going through the northern perimeter wire. . NVA sappers armed with satchel charges, tear gas grenades and flamethrowers fought through the 101st, 102nd and 103rd CIDG perimeter trenches and captured both ends of the compound by 2:30 a.m. Spearheaded by tanks, they stormed the inner compound. LtCol. Schungel and his tank-killer personnel moved back to the command bunker for more LAWs. They were pinned behind a row of dirt and rock filled drums by a tank that had just destroyed one of the mortar pits. A LAW was fired against the tank with no effect. The cannon swung around and blasted the barrels in front of the bunker entrance. The explosion temporarily blinded McMurry and mangled his hands, pitched a heavy drum on top of Lt. Wilkins and knocked Schungel flat. Lt. Quy managed to escape to another section of the camp, but the approach of yet another tank prevented Schungel and Wilkins from following. At some point during this period, McMurry, a radioman, disappeared.
The tank, which was shooting at the camp observation post, was destroyed with a LAW. Schungel helped Wilkins over to the team house, where he left both doors ajar and watched for approaching NVA soldiers. Wilkins was incapacitated and weaponless, and Schungel had only two grenades and two magazines of ammunition left. He used one magazine to kill a closely huddled five-man sapper squad coming toward the building. He fed his last magazine into his rifle as the team house was rocked with explosions and bullets. The two limped over to the dispensary, which was occupied by NVA soldiers, and hid underneath it, behind a wall of sandbags.
At some point, Brande, Thompson and at least one Vietnamese interpreter were captured by the North Vietnamese. Thompson was uninjured, but Brande had taken shrapnel in his leg. Brande and Thompson were held separately for a week, then rejoined in Laos. Joined with them was McMurry, who had also been captured from the camp. The three were moved up the Ho Chi Minh trail to North Vietnam and held until 1973. The U.S. did not immediately realize they had been captured, and carried them in Missing in Action status thoughout the rest of the war, although Brande's photo was positively identified by a defector in April 1969 as being a Prisoner of War. A Vietnamese interpreter captured from the camp told Brande later that he had seen both Lindewald and Hanna, and that they both were dead.
Several personnel, including Capt. Willoughby, SP4 James L. Moreland, the medic for the mobile strike force, and Lt. Quan, the LLDB camp commander, were trapped in the underground level of the command bunker. Lt. Longgrear had also retreated to the command bunker. Satchel charges, thermite grenades and gas grenades were shoved down the bunker air vents, and breathing was very difficult. Some soldiers had gas masks, but others had only handkerchiefs or gauze from their first aid packets.
The NVA announced they were going to blow up the bunker, and the LLDB personnel walked up the stairs to surrender, and were summarily executed. At dawn, two large charges were put down the vent shaft and detonated, partially demolishing the north wall and creating a large hole through which grenades were pitched. The bunker defenders used upturned furniture and debris to shield themselves. Willoughby was badly wounded by grenade fragments and passed out at 8:30 a.m. Moreland had been wounded and became delirious after receiving a head injury in the final bunker explosion. Incredibly, the battle was still going on in other parts of the camp.
Aircraft had been strafing the ravines and roads since 1:00 a.m. Throughout the battle, the Laotians refused to participate, saying they would attack at first light. Sfc. Eugene Ashley, Jr., the intelligence sergeant, led two assistant medical specialists, Sgt. Richard H. Allen and SP4 Joel Johnson as they mustered 60 of the Laotian soldiers and counterattacked into Lang Vei. The Laotians bolted when a NVA machine gun crew opened fire on them, forcing the three Americans to withdraw.
Team Sfc. William T. Craig and SSgt. Tiroch had chased tanks throughout the night with everything from M-79 grenade launchers to a .50 caliber machine gun. After it had become apparent that the camp had been overrun, they escaped outside the wire and took temporary refuge in a creek bed. After daylight, they saw Ashley's counterattack force and joined him. The Special Forces sergeants persuaded more defenders fleeing down Route 9 to assist them and tried second, third and fourth assaults. Between each assault, Ashley directed airstrikes on the NVA defensive line, while the other Special Forces soldiers gathered tribal warriors for yet another attempt. On the fifth counterattack, Ashley was mortally wounded only thirty yards from the command bunker.
Capt. Willoughby had regained consciousness in the bunker about 10:00 a.m. and established radio contact with the counterattacking Americans. The continual American airstrikes had forced the North Vietnamese to begin withdrawing from the camp. Col. Schungel and Lt. Wilkins emerged from under the dispensary after it was vacated by the North Vietnamese and hobbled out of the camp.
The personnel in the bunker also left in response to orders to immediately evacuate the camp. They carried Sgt. John D. Early, who had been badly wounded by shrapnel while manning the tower, but were forced to leave SP4 Moreland inside the bunker. 1Lt. Thomas D. Todd, an engineer officer in charge of upgrading Lang Vei's airstrip, held out in the medical bunker throughout the battle. That afternoon, he was the last American to pass through the ruined command bunker. He saw Moreland, who appeared to be dead, covered with debris.
Maj. George Quamo gathered a few dozen Special Forces commando volunteers from the MACV-SOG base at Khe Sanh (FOB #3) and led a heroic reinforcing mission into Lang Vei. His arrival enabled the Lang Vei defenders to evacuate the area, many by Marine helicopters in the late afternoon.
Sgt. Richard H. Allen - Survivor Sfc Eugene Ashley, Jr. - Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for Lang Vei Harvey Gordon Brande - Captured - released POW in 1973 SSgt. Arthur Brooks - Survivor Sfc. William T. Craig - Survivor Sgt. John D. Early - Survivor Sgt. Nikolas Fragos - Survivor Kenneth Hanna - Missing In Action James William Holt - Missing In Action SP4 Joel Johnson - Survivor Charles Wesley Lindewald, Jr. - Missing In Action 1Lt. Paul R. Longgrear - Survivor SP4 William G. McMurry - Captured - released POW in 1973 James Leslie Moreland - Missing In Action Daniel Raymond Phillips - Missing In Action Maj. George Quamo - Killed in Action April 14, 1968 Lt. Quy - Survivor LtCol. Daniel F. Schungel - appointed deputy commander of the 5th Special Forces Dennis L. Thompson - Captured - released POW in 1973 SSgt. Peter Tiroch - Survivor 1Lt. Thomas D. Todd - Survivor 1Lt. Miles R. Wilkins - Survivor Capt. Frank C. Willoughby - Survivor
Dec 29 1998 -- William Phillips, cousin to Daniel Phillips of refno 1040, has written a book: Night of the Silver Stars. He has spent many years researching the loss of his cousin. He states that all 8 men of the 1040 incident were awarded the Silver Star. In fact he claims: There was one Medal of Honor, 2 DSCs, 21 Silver Stars and 3 Bronze Stars with "V" for valor awarded. Some were to the MACV-SOG SF rescuers from Khe Sanh. It is an interesting book for anyone interested in the Battle of Lang Vei.
The Khe Sanh vets have made 7 return trips -- mostly to bring aid to the Bru people. They were witness to the excavation of the Lang Vei Battleground by a backhoe and a team of diggers and sifters. Our missing are not there.
Daniel Phillips' mother tried to contact one of the returnees. She got a letter back from the AG stating he did not wish to communicate with anyone.
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SMaj Kenneth Hanna was interred at Fayetteville on 15 January 2005; and SMaj Charles Wesley Lindewald, Jr. will be interred at Arlington on 04 February 2005.
Services for MSgt Kenneth Hanna will be 11:00 AM, 15 January at 1st Baptist Church, 302 Moore St, Fayetteville, NC, 28301. MSgt Hanna's daughter will be in attendance.
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http://www.fayettevillenc.com/story.php?Template=local&Story=6787553
Finding Sgt. Hanna's remains touches his survivors
By Justin Willett Staff writer
Enhanced Fort Bragg unit photo from the mid-1960s Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Hanna, center, was listed as missing in action in 1968 in Lang Vei, Vietnam. His remains were found in 2003. The Army casualty officer knocked on Mary Hanna's door in February 1968.
He told her that Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Hanna had been missing since Feb. 7, 1968, when he was last seen giving first aid to a fellow Green Beret while their Special Forces camp in Vietnam's Quan Tri province was being overrun by North Vietnamese tanks.
Mary Hanna's husband of 13 years was missing in action.
"For months all I did was cry," she said Tuesday during an interview at her daughter's home near Fort Bragg.
For the next decade, Mary Hanna lived with uncertainty. In 1978, Kenneth Hanna was declared killed in action, and members of Fort Bragg's Special Forces held a memorial service.
"I figured then that he was dead," Mary Hanna said. "I came to live with that. I got by day to day."
Her grief resurfaced in November when Mary Hanna's daughter, Kenetha Garcia, received a call from a man informing her that her father's remains had been found in Vietnam in 2003 and positively identified Sept. 8. The man wanted to come to Fayetteville to talk to her and Mary Hanna.
"It was like I heard him, and I really didn't," Garcia said. "My father had laid in that bunker for 35 years. It was buried for a very, very long time."
Mary Hanna didn't want to upset the delicate emotional balance she had established over the past three decades.
"I really didn't want to talk to him, but I did," she said.
Battle of Lang Vei
Kenneth and Mary Hanna married in 1955. They moved to Fort Bragg in 1964 after 3 years in Germany.
Mary Hanna said her husband liked the Fayetteville area. He was originally from Scranton, S.C., and she was from Lake City, S.C.
"He said, 'If anything happens to me, stay here,'" Mary Hanna remembered.
In February 1968 Kenneth Hanna was weapons sergeant for Charlie Company, Detachment A-101 of the 5th Special Forces Group, based at the Lang Vei Special Forces camp near the Laos border.
According to an Army history of the battle, the Lang Vei Special Forces Camp was completed in September 1967, less than four months after a previous camp - 1,000 meters to the east - had been infiltrated by North Vietnamese soldiers.
The new camp housed about 500 Vietnamese and Laotian fighters and two dozen Americans, mostly Special Forces.
On Feb. 6, 1968, signs of an impending battle were everywhere. Mortars and artillery fire slammed into the camp throughout the day. As dusk approached, soldiers at the camp's defensive positions reported strange noises - including idling engines - and trip-flare booby traps going off on the perimeter.
Shortly after midnight, five Soviet-made PT-76 medium tanks rumbled toward the camp from the south, accompanied by two platoons of North Vietnamese infantrymen.
The fight was on.
As tanks breached the camp's eastern end, Sgts. 1st Class Kenneth Hanna and Charles W. Lindewald were in an observation post 800 meters west of the camp.
Lindewald called for artillery fire and moments later was hit in the stomach by a machine-gun bullet. Hanna began performing first aid as the enemy encircled their position.
It is unclear what happened next, but Lindewald and Hanna died together in that bunker.
Staff photo by Marc Hall Kenetha Garcia, left, holds a picture of her father, Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Hanna, with her mother Mary Hanna. By 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 7, all known survivors from the camp had been evacuated to Khe Sanh. Nearly half of the camp's Vietnamese and Laotian fighters were killed. Ten of the 24 Americans were killed or missing and 11 wounded.
Years later, a few of the soldiers who had been held as captives were released. Hanna, Lindewald and three other American soldiers were never found.
Kenneth Hanna was awarded a Silver Star and a Purple Heart and promoted twice, first to master sergeant and then to sergeant major.
Search and rescue
A military search-and-rescue task force traveled to the area in 1993 to interview residents and try to find the remains of the five missing Green Berets.
Robert Mann was part of that initial search. He is now the deputy scientific director for the Central Identification Laboratory at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.
Mann said those early searches were hampered by development in the area. Much of the landscape around the former Lang Vei camp had been altered by highway projects.
The team stepped up its efforts in 1995. Searchers enlisted the help of Frank C. Willoughby, the retired commander of Charlie Company, Detachment A-101.
Willoughby had designed and overseen the building of the Lang Vei Special Forces camp, and searchers hoped he would succeed where they had failed.
But Willoughby was also stumped by the changed landscape. The team eventually found the camp's tactical operations center but no remains.
Mann said searches often start and stop as leads appear and then go cold.
In September 2003 officials got the break they were looking for when they learned that a couple of Vietnamese had found dog tags and other items in a village near the site of the Lang Vei camp.
While scrounging for scrap metal, the Vietnamese had stumbled upon boots, identification cards, poncho liners, dog tags and what later proved to be the remains of Hanna and Lindewald.
A recovery team searched the area in November 2003 and recovered the remains and artifacts. They were flown to JPAC's lab in Hawaii.
"Finding these guys was really a matter of blood, sweat and tears," Mann said.
Positive identification of Hanna's remains was made on Sept. 8 through dental records.
Searchers also recovered his identification card, dog tag and pocketknife among other items.
Officials provided the family with a thick book that includes pictures of all the remains and artifacts and an explanation of the recovery.
Mann holds out hope that the remaining three missing Green Berets will be found.
"Nobody here is giving up hope," he said. "Every case is a story."
Notification
About a month after the remains were positively identified, Kenetha Garcia received the call.
"I just thought they were going to deliver the dog tag," Garcia said. "It just didn't sink in until they came to the house and asked to sit at the table."
Rafael Garcia, Kenetha's husband, said he was excited at the news. "I always sensed that there was something missing," he said. "My wife wouldn't talk about her father, and Mary Hanna wouldn't tell me anything."
Garcia said that during holidays the family would pause awkwardly when it was time to say the blessing before dinner.
"It was something that was reserved for the head of the household, which was Kenneth," he said.
Garcia took it upon himself to research information about his father-in-law. He bought books about the battle of Lang Vei and memorized the story.
Garcia said family members were hurt that they never knew why Hanna was left behind. Accounts of the battle say that the Marine leaders at nearby Khe Sanh sent air support but refused to send infantrymen.
"I think that when they received the full story they were hurt by it," he said.
"They tuned themselves out of it. They wanted to live with the memories they had."
Mary Hanna said she won't look at her husband's remains. She has also so far avoided the book provided by JPAC. It all brings up too many memories.
"I might (read it) before I pass away myself," she said.
Kenetha said she has talked to Lindewald's sister. She said the sister is Lindewald's only living relative and was happy to hear that her brother had been found with Kenneth Hanna.
Mary Hanna said she feels the same way she has always felt - sad. The family will bury Kenneth Hanna on Saturday in Sandhills Veterans Cemetery. The funeral will be in the First Baptist Church on Moore Street.
The final step of the journey will be a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Feb. 4.
"Maybe after that I'll feel some closure," Mary Hanna said.
Staff writer Justin Willett can be reached at willettj@fayettevillenc.com or 323-4848, ext. 370.
====================================== The News & Observer Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Goodbye, at last, to real hero Dennis Rogers
FAYETTEVILLE--The stark black and white POW/MIA flags that promise "You are not forgotten" have become such a part of the visual clutter of our world, I sometimes wonder if anyone even sees them anymore. I have on occasion had doubts about the quest for those killed in action whose bodies were not recovered. Is it worth it to work so hard and spend so much money to bring home such long-missing remains? There are still 1,842 unaccounted for in Southeast Asia alone. More than 8,000 remain missing in Korea, and 70,000 from World War II.
On Saturday, I got my answer at Fayetteville's First Baptist Church. Many in the sanctuary had tears in their eyes and lumps in their throats when Rafael Garcia looked at the silver casket holding the remains of his father-in-law, Special Forces Sgt. Maj. Kenneth Hanna. Garcia said, on behalf of a family who last saw Hanna 36 years ago, "Welcome home, Dad." That's why we honor the pledge. If we are to send our young people to war, we have an obligation to move heaven and earth, tons of it if necessary, to bring them home.
Hanna died Feb. 7, 1968, near Lang Vei, Vietnam. It was a battle known in Special Forces lore as "the night of the Silver Stars" for the many medals of valor that were earned there.
On that night, a small and outnumbered detachment of Special Forces soldiers repeatedly fought off a determined assault by tanks and infantry of the North Vietnamese Army. It was the first time the North Vietnamese had used tanks in the war, and what should have been an easy conquest was long and costly for the enemy. The Americans fought with such tenacity and courage that almost every man there was awarded the Silver Star. One sergeant who led repeated attempts to come to their aid earned the Medal of Honor. Hanna was on the perimeter with Master Sgt. Charles Lindewald when the enemy struck. His last radio message said he had been wounded three times and that Lindewald was in bad shape. Witnesses said Hanna was mortally wounded trying to save his friend's life.
The North Vietnamese eventually overran the camp. A handful of Americans escaped, and the rest were killed or taken prisoner. Hanna and Lindewald's remains were apparently buried where they fell.
They were there until Jan. 15, 2004, when a recovery team located their graves. They were identified late last year.
On Saturday, with a bitterly cold wind snapping flags at Sandhills Veterans Cemetery, relatives of this genuine American hero were finally able to say goodbye. They were joined by hundreds of active and retired Special Forces troopers and motorcycle riders from the Rolling Thunder and Veterans motorcycle clubs. Many of bikes in the mile-long funeral procession flew POW/MIA flags.
In the past two years, I have attended homecoming services for soldiers from World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Without exception, family members expressed gratitude that someone cared enough to keep looking for their loved ones and finally bring them home.
Garcia's "Welcome home, Dad," were the sweetest words I've heard in a long time.