LEONOR, LEONARDO CAPISTRANO Remains Identified 02/15/2002
Name: Leonardo Capistrano Leonor Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force Unit: 523rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, Udorn AF TH Date of Birth: 22 September 1940 Home City of Record: Astoria NY Date of Loss: 10 October 1972 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 174800N 1064000E (XE541685) Status (in 1973): Missing in Action Category: 4 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4E Refno: 1936 Other Personnel in Incident: Peter M. Cleary (missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 April 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 Phantom, used by Air Force, Marine and Navy air wings, served a multitude of functions including fighter-bomber and interceptor, photo and electronic surveillance. The two man aircraft was extremely fast (Mach 2), and had a long range (900 - 2300 miles, depending on stores and mission type). The F4 was also extremely maneuverable and handled well at low and high altitudes. The F4 was selected for a number of state-of-the-art electronics conversions, which improved radar intercept and computer bombing capabilities enormously. Most pilots considered it one of the "hottest" planes around.
Capt. Peter A. Cleary and Capt. Leonardo C. Leonor were pilots attached to the 523rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Udorn Airfield, Thailand. The aircraft they flew on the combat missions they were assigned was the F4E, an electronic version of the Phantom.
On October 10, 1972, Cleary was the pilot and Leonor the navigator onboard their F4E when it was assigned a mission over North Vietnam. The aircraft did not return to friendly control, and the crew was declared missing at the time of estimated fuel exhaustion. Their last known location was on the coastline of North Vietnam at Quang Binh Province, about 5 miles south of the city of Ron.
Cleary and Leonor were maintained missing in action for the next seven years. At that time, their status was administratively changed by the Department of the Air Force to killed in action, based on no specific evidence that they were alive.
When the last American troops left Southeast Asia in 1975, some 2500 Americans were unaccounted for. Reports received by the U.S. Government since that time build a strong case for belief that hundreds of these "unaccounted for" Americans are still alive and in captivity.
"Unaccounted for" is a term that should apply to numbers, not men. Nearly 600 men were left behind in Laos, and our government did not negotiate their release. We, as a nation, owe these men our best effort to find them and bring them home. Until the fates of men like Cleary and Leonor are known, their families will wonder if they are dead or alive - and why they were deserted.
A LONG-LOST BROTHER HEADS HOME ; OFFICIAL IDENTIFICATION OF VIETNAM WAR PILOT'S REMAINS ENDS NEARLY 30 YEARS OF UNCERTAINTY FOR COLCHESTER FAMILY TRACY GORDON FOX; Courant Staff Writer
In the 29 years since Maj. Peter Cleary's F-4 Phantom disappeared over North Vietnam, his family has lived with grief punctuated by occasional flickers of hope -- but never closure.
Over the years there were several reports, all untrue, that authorities had found his crash site. One time the family was told -- falsely -- that Cleary's remains and dog tags had been found by a North Vietnamese refugee. The worst thing was the middle-of-the- night phone call to his brother, Thomas, from a man who said he worked for a clandestine organization and that Peter Cleary was alive and being kept as a slave in Cambodia.
The forced optimism and trampled hopes are now at an end. The Cleary family was told by the military last week that remains recovered from a crash site in the mountains of North Vietnam near the Laotian border have been positively identified as Air Force Maj. Peter Cleary of Colchester.
"None of us had peace on this, ever," Thomas Cleary, 49, said Thursday, sitting in the living room of his Colchester home. It was the first time he has spoken publicly since he learned that his brother's remains had been identified.
"This is a gift to us. After 29 years of uncertainty, we finally know Pete's fate and all the questions are gone."
The Clearys now know that Peter Cleary died on Oct. 10, 1972, when his fighter crashed into the mountains, probably at such high speed that death came instantly. But they question why the Air Force took so long to identify his remains.
"We're frustrated. They could have done better; they should have done better. The pilots deserved it," Thomas Cleary said.
Johnie Webb, deputy director of the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, said final DNA tests on the remains of both Cleary and his navigator, Capt. Leonardo Leonor, who was from the Philippines, were completed last year. But he said officials wanted to be absolutely sure they were correct.
"The worst thing we could do is give the family the wrong identification," Webb said.
Cleary's mother, Helen, died last March never knowing whether her son was dead or alive. Day and night, for 20 years, she wore a silver missing-in-action bracelet with her first-born son's name on it. She finally took it off in 1992, carefully storing it with the rest of her jewelry. Thomas Cleary found the bracelet when he was going through his mother's belongings after her death. It was so worn, it broke in half when he picked it up.
"My mom kept her sanity by just believing he was dead, yet she wore that bracelet," Thomas Cleary said.
The major's children were toddlers when he disappeared and they grew up knowing him only from photographs. They had always dreamed of seeing him again, but hope faded with time, even if memory didn't. His daughter, Paige, went to St. Michael's College in Vermont because her father did, and named her first child after him.
"It broke my heart one day when she was 3 and she asked me if I was her daddy," Thomas Cleary said.
Thomas Cleary has spoken to dozens of audiences over the years about the feelings of families with relatives missing in action in Vietnam. The MIA issue, a raw scar on the American psyche, has been slowly subsiding with time and with the efforts of teams from the military's Joint Task Force -- Full Accounting and the Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii. The task force has made several missions to Vietnam over the past few years to search for the remains of U.S. servicemen.
Since 1992, when the task force was established, 537 sets of remains have been returned to the United States. Nearly 2,000 Americans are still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, including 31 Connecticut residents.
Peter Cleary was on temporary duty at Udorn Royal Thai Air Base, Thailand, when he left on his last fighter mission. He was over the coast of North Vietnam in Quang Binh Province, about 5 miles south of the city of Ron, when his jet disappeared.
With him was his best friend, Leonor -- nicknamed Lenny -- who had finished his tour of duty and had even gone home to the Philippines, but who returned to fly one last mission with Cleary. The Air Force searched for the men for two days, but did not find the crash site.
The last time Peter Cleary spoke to his mother, he told her he was coming home for Thanksgiving. He told her to "get out the turkey." The peace treaty was signed at the end of January 1973, just a few months after he was shot down.
"The war was almost over," Thomas Cleary said. "Pete was one of the last casualties."
The family gathered in early 1973 after the treaty was signed and waited for a telephone call from the military, which was releasing the identities of prisoners of war who were being released. They wept when they learned Peter Cleary's name was not on the list.
A few years later, in July 1979, Peter Cleary was declared killed in action after several investigations failed to find any evidence that he might still be alive. His wife, Barbara, remarried and tried to move on with her life.
A picture frame in Thomas Cleary's living room holds the three Distinguished Flying Crosses and the Purple Heart awarded to Peter Cleary, the oldest of four children.
Peter Cleary's remains will be buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery sometime in April, fulfilling a wish he expressed to his family when he went to war. After that, veterans in Colchester will hold a special ceremony for him in front of the Vietnam Memorial in the town center.
"I was just blown away that they actually found his remains," said Colchester veteran Charles Savitsky. "Any time we can get one of our own back, it's just a great day."
Thomas Cleary said that for the first time, he can no longer say he's the relative of an MIA. And for the first time in 29 years, members of the Cleary family talk openly about Peter Cleary and can reconcile their grief.
Thomas Cleary wrote a letter and posted it on a website. He wrote: "My brother, Peter Cleary, is coming home."