LUM, DAVID ANTHONY

Name: David Anthony Lum
Branch/Rank: United States Air Force/O2
Unit:
Date of Birth: 24 November 1940
Home City of Record: HONOLULU HI
Date of Loss: 20 December 1966
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 162000 North  1131543 East
Status (in 1973): Killed In Action/Body Not Recovered
Category: 5
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4C #0698
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident:
Refno: 0552

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. Updated 2004

REMARKS:

CACCF/CRASH AT SEA/PILOT/3 YRS USAF/OFFSHORE MR1

No further information available at this time.

======================

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM

Jeanette Chun, left, and her parents, David and Mary Lum, proudly hold a
picture of brother and son 1st Lt. David Lum in front of his F4-C Phantom
jet. David was shot down over the South China Sea on Dec. 20, 1966, and was
reported missing in action on his 83rd mission at the age of 26.

---------------------------------------------

The search for closure
Families of servicemen listed as
missing in action hear about
efforts to bring them home

By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Jeanette Chun shivers every time she thinks about that December afternoon 38
years ago when she saw two Air Force officers standing outside the screen
door of her McCully home.

"It was a chilling, chilling experience," said Chun, recalling the moment
just before she was told that her brother's F4-C Phantom jet went down in
the China Sea during the Vietnam War. "No words were spoken, but in that
split instant I knew. I just knew something terrible had happened."

Air Force 1st Lt. David Anthony Lum, 26, had "already completed 100
missions," Chun said, "but due to the shortage of pilots, his squadron was
asked to go back for one last tour."

Lum, a stellar varsity basketball player on Maryknoll School's 1958 team,
had earned a Distinguished Flying Cross and was supposed to be sent to
California to become an instructor pilot when he was reported missing on
Dec. 20, 1966.

Chun joined 27 other island families recently at a Department of Defense
Prisoner of War/POW Missing Personnel Office briefing. It was one of 10
sessions the Pentagon holds annually throughout the country to keep families
informed of what is being done to account for those still listed as missing
in action. The previous briefing in Hawaii was two years ago. The families
represented 12 MIA Hawaii cases from the Korean War and two from Vietnam.

About 8,100 servicemen are still missing from the Korean War, 78,000 from
World War II, 1,869 from the Vietnam War, and 126 from the Cold War.

=======================================

RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Francis Hapenney looked over letters from Cpl. Sidney K. Kaui after a
briefing by the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/POW Missing Personnel
Office at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Kaui's sister Elsie A. Pahia, center,
and her daughter Patsy Hapenney (Francis' wife) are at left.

====================================

Jerry Jennings, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the POW/MIA
Office, said the United States is planning five recovery operations in North
Korea this year.

Since 1996, U.S. and North Korean teams have conducted 27 recovery
operations in North Korea and found remains believed to be those of 180
servicemen. More recovery operations are planned in Unsan, about 60 miles
south of Pyongyang near the Chosin Reservoir, which was the scene of heavy
fighting when China entered the war in December 1950.

In another of America's wars, Army Cpl. Sidney Kealakai Kaui, who had been
drafted out of the taro fields of Kauai and survived the Pacific battles of
World War II, was in Japan and was planning to come home in November 1950.

However, Kaui, 26, was transferred to the 32nd Infantry Regiment, 7th
Division and on Dec. 2, 1950, at the battle of Chosin Reservoir he became
one of 73 Korean War soldiers from Hawaii listed as missing in action. He
was believed to have been killed as the elements of the 32nd Infantry were
withdrawing from the Chosin Reservoir.

Hawaii Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Francis Hapenney, a Vietnam War
veteran, acknowledged that even after 32 years of service he didn't realize
the effort to account for those missing in action from all of America's
conflicts beginning with World War II. He said he was impressed that the
Pentagon was still active pursuing the case of Kaui, his wife's uncle.

Patsy Hapenney, Kaui's niece, said she never knew her "Uncle Sidney," but
the briefing gave her and her family hope that his remains may be recovered.

"I didn't know it was possible," said Patsy Hapenney, who had never heard of
the Pentagon's MIA recovery efforts until last month and is now representing
the Kaui family. "Now there is hope that something might happen. Until now I
didn't know that so much was being done."

"They are requesting samples of our DNA," she said. Chun also has agreed to
be a DNA donor.

Since the mid-1980s, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has become an important
tool for the forensic investigators at the Central Identification
Laboratory, now called the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, at Hickam Air
Force Base, along with dental and fingerprint records to identify the
missing. Sometimes only small skeletal or dental remains are recovered.

Chun said when the 1991 Gulf War broke out, her brother's son, Stuart, had
already joined the Air Force like his father. Her brother's daughter,
Stephanie, who was only 8 months old when her father was reported missing,
also was an officer in the Army.

Even her son, David, who was named after her missing brother, also chose to
serve in the Gulf War as a Kiowa helicopter scout. "I didn't want him to
join the military," Chun said, "but that is something he always wanted to
do."

Ever since that December morning in 1966, Chun said: "My heart goes out to
all the world who have lost a loved one whether it is in battle, an
accident, kidnapping or whatever. The feelings of survivors are universal
... someone close to you is gone. We all grieve no matter what country we
belong to, no matter what color of skin we have ... we grieve."

Jennings said the U.S. government is still trying to get approval to use
Navy vessels to search for lost aircraft in waters off Vietnam.

Chun realizes the task of recovering her brother's remains may be slim. "I
know my brother is gone," she said. "But I support the program. So many
people forget, but they are not forgotten."

Elsie Kaui Pahida said there is no grave on Kauai for her brother, the
eldest son of family of 12 children who grew up helping their parents, David
and Wilhelmina Kaui, tending taro patches at Keahapana near Kapaa.

"But his name is among those listed as missing in action at Punchbowl and
the state Korean and Vietnam War Memorial," she added, "and we did hold a
memorial service for him at the Mormon Church in Kapaa in September 1953.

"He was a very good boy. He worked until he was drafted along with his
brother. He was always worried about his family and always talked about
sending money home to them."

But even as Francis and Patsy Hapenney found comfort that the remains of her
uncle may possibly be returned, their thoughts are on another war.

As early as this month they will send three family members to Iraq -- a son,
Sgt. Ernest Hapenney and nephew, Pfc. Lowen Cabuag with the Hawaii Army
National Guard's 193rd Aviation Regiment and a niece, Staff Sgt. Tricia
Champagne with the Army Reserve's 411th Engineer Combat Battalion.

http://starbulletin.com/2004/03/07/news/story6.html