MANSKE, CHARLES JEROME

Name: Charles Jerome Manske
Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force
Unit: 355th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Tuy Hoa AB SV
Date of Birth: 14 October 1939
Home City of Record: El Campo TX
Date of Loss: 24 May 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam/Over Water
Loss Coordinates: 133158N 1093200E (CQ413964)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 3
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F100D
Refno: 1448
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 May 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 1998.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: The North American F100 "Super Sabre" first saw action in
Southeast Asia in northwest Laos in May 1962. F100 operations in Vietnam
began in 1965, and took part in Operation Flaming Dart, the first U.S. Air
Force strike against North Vietnam in February of that year. Further
deployments of the aircraft to the area left just five F100 squadrons in the
United States.

Capt. Charles J. Manske was an F100 pilot assigned to the 355th Tactical
Fighter Squadron at Tuy Hoa, South Vietnam. On May 24, 1969, Manske was
assigned a combat mission in Phu Yen Province, South Vietnam. During the
mission, Manske's aircraft was hit by enemy ground fire. His aircraft
crashed in the South China Sea approximately 25 miles southeast of the city
of Qui Nhon. Manske was thought to have died in the incident.

Charles J. Manske is listed among the missing because his remains were never
found to send home to the country he served. For his family, the case seems
clear that he died on that day. The fact that they have no body to bury with
honor is not of great significance.

For other who are missing, however, the evidence leads not to death, but to
survival. Since the war ended, nearly 10,000 reports received relating to
Americans still held captive in Indochina have convinced experts that
hundreds of men are still alive, waiting for their country to rescue them.
The notion that Americans are dying without hope in the hands of a long-ago
enemy belies the idea that we left Vietnam with honor. It also signals that
tens of thousands of lost lives were a frivolous waste of our best men.