MAPE, JOHN CLEMENT Remains identified 03/17/99
Name: John Clement Mape Branch/Rank: United States Navy/O5 Unit: Date of Birth: 24 September 1925 Home City of Record: DUBLIN CA Date of Loss: 13 April 1966 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 182759 North 1053258 East Status (in 1973): Killed In Action/Body Not Recovered Category: 2 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A1H #139692 Missions: Other Personnel in Incident: Refno: 0301
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.
REMARKS:
CACCF/CRASH/PILOT/16 YRS United States Navy
No further information available at this time.
No. 019-M MEMORANDUM FOR CORRESPONDENTS March 17, 1999
The remains of three American servicemen previously unaccounted-for from Southeast Asia have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial in the United States.
They are identified as Navy Cmdr. John C. Mape, San Francisco, Calif.; Air Force Maj. John E. Bailey, Minneapolis, Minn.; and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class John F. Hartzheim, Appleton, Wis.
On April 13, 1966, Mape was flying an armed reconnaissance mission over Nghe Tinh Province North Vietnam when an enemy surface-to air missile struck his A-1H Skyraider, destroying it. Other pilots in the flight made a visual inspection of the crash site and concluded there were no survivors.
In May 1991 a joint U.S./Vietnamese team, led by the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, traveled to Nghe Tinh Province and interviewed several local witnesses who recalled the crash of a U.S. aircraft in April or May 1966. The witnesses also indicated that the site had been heavily scavenged for metal in the early 1990s. The initial visit to the crash site in 1991 and a subsequent visit in July 1993 provided little material evidence.
In August 1994 a U.S./Vietnamese team learned that a group of men had been arrested in Dong Nai Province in late 1992 for illegally excavating and taking remains from the crash site. Vietnamese authorities confiscated the remains and turned them over to U.S. anthropologists.
On May 10, 1966, Bailey was leading a combat strike mission over Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam. Shortly after expending his ordnance, Bailey's F-105D Thunderchief was seen to tumble end-over-end into the ground with its canopy in place. Other members of the flight circled the impact area but observed no survivor.
In 1990 a joint U.S./Vietnamese team interviewed several local villagers in Quang Binh Province who provided information including an F-105 aircraft data plate that appeared to correlate with Bailey's loss. The team visited the recorded crash site but saw no indication of wreckage. A second visit to that site in 1993 confirmed the absence of evidence there.
In July 1995 another joint team performed a preliminary survey of the crash site which led to an excavation a month later. The team located aircraft fragments, pilot-related personal equipment as well as human remains.
On Feb. 27, 1968, Hartzheim was on board an OP-2E Neptune flying a reconnaissance mission over Khammouan Province, Laos. While over the target area the aircraft was struck by an enemy 37mm antiaircraft round, causing the radar well and bomb bay to catch fire. Shrapnel from the explosion struck Hartzheim. He collapsed at the rear of the aircraft during evacuation and was presumed dead. The crew parachuted out of the aircraft as it entered a steep climb before crashing. A subsequent search and rescue tea m succeeded in rescuing only seven of the nine crew members.
In January 1985 a unilateral turnover from a Laotian source to the Joint Casualty Resolution Center Liaison Office in Bangkok consisted of several bone fragments, a compass and a plastic E-and-E (Escape and Evasion) map. The source indicated that the items were recovered near a 1968 crash site of an U.S. aircraft in Khammouan Province.
In October and December 1994 joint U.S./Lao teams traveled to the Khammouan Province to interview several villagers with information about the crash. While surveying the crash site the team found aircraft wreckage, a fragment of a possible knife sheath and human remains. Successive visits in 1995 and 1996 recovered more remains, life support equipment and other crew-related items.
Anthropological analysis of the remains and other evidence by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii confirmed the identification of Mape, Bailey and Hartzheim. With the accounting of these three servicemen, 2,069 Americans are listed as unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.
The U.S. government welcomes and appreciates the cooperation of the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Lao People's Democratic Republic, which resulted in the accounting of these servicemen. We hope that such cooperation will bring increased results in the future. Achieving the fullest possible accounting for these Americans is of the highest national priority.
-END-
Published Tuesday, March 30, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
U.S. pilot 'coming home'
Ex-Dublin resident shot down in Vietnam identified with DNA
BY MICHAEL PENA Valley Times
A Navy commander who was shot down in the Vietnam War 33 years ago is finally coming home to the Bay Area.
The remains of John Clement Mape, a former Dublin resident, will be flown home next month. He will be buried April 30 at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno.
"It is a closure, because we weren't sure for such a long time," said his only living sibling, Mary Mape Sarris. "He could have been a prisoner of war -- that went through my mind many, many times. But we think he died right away, and that was a comfort for us."
Mape is one of 520 Vietnam War military members and civilians listed as missing in action who have been accounted for. Some 2,063 people still remain classified as MIAs.
The remains of the 40-year-old fallen pilot and two other former Vietnam War soldiers were identified by the Pentagon Wednesday after U.S. scientists compared Mape's DNA with that of Sarris. His remains were confiscated by the Vietnamese government in 1994 from a group of Vietnamese men who planned to sell them for profit. Six more MIAs will be announced in a few days. About 500 employees from the Department of Defense work with government counterparts in Bangkok, Hanoi, Laos and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to search for and retrieve American remains. "We take their sons and daughters and send them into harm's way," said the Washington office's spokesman, Larry Greer. "We have a responsibility to bring them home."
For Sarris the return of her brother's remains is a mixed blessing. The sense of loss for the younger brother she adored -- and from whom she learned the value of compassion and sacrifice -- has never gone away.
"His one wish was that he got all his boys home, and he got his wish," said Sarris, 76, of Santa Rosa. "Everyone came home but him."
"Jack", as his family called him, was leading a reconnaissance mission of fighter planes over North Vietnam when he was shot out of the air on April 13, 1966.
Mape was leading three fighter planes when his A-1H Skyraider was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. He went down in the cloud cover over Nghe Tinh Province, and the other pilots didn't see him eject.
He crashed in a field and was buried by a farmer.
His remains ended up in the hands of Vietnamese men who were arrested in 1992 for illegally excavating the crash site. In an unusual recovery, Vietnamese authorities confiscated the remains and turned them over to the United States. In April 1998, family members learned there was a "50-50 chance" the remains were Mape's. Sarris gave a DNA sample for analysis at the Naval pathology laboratories in Maryland. In December, the family was told the DNA matched.
"It awakens so many memories," said his sister-in-law, Barbara Mape of Menlo Park, "because (his being shot down) came as such a shock to the family. We were expecting him home, and the next thing we heard was that he had been killed."
Two of Mape's daughters will go to Honolulu to accompany their father's remains on the final flight home in mid-April. Mape will be buried in San Bruno following services at St. Matthew's Catholic Church in San Mateo, where he grew up.
Mape joined the Navy in 1948 after leaving St. Patrick's seminary in Mountain View, where he was preparing for the priesthood. He was the father of seven children.
Mape was described as a deeply religious family man. He was born in Holland, Mich.
"He was just one of the best people to walk the face of this earth," Sarris said. "He was not a disciplinarian or a tyrant, but he demanded respect."
He was assigned to the USS Ticonderoga in September 1965. When he left for Vietnam, he was stationed at the Alameda Naval Air Station and had lived in Dublin for several years.
The city of Dublin named a neighborhood park in his honor when it opened in May 1967. The park, on Plata Way, was renovated in 1997 and renamed Mape Memorial Park.
"We're just thrilled for the whole family," said Dublin Mayor Guy Houston. "The city will probably have a delegation at the services."
The Pentagon last week also announced that it had identified the remains of Air Force Major John E. Bailey of Minneapolis and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class John F. Hartzheim of Appleton, Wis. Both were killed in Vietnam.
The U.S. Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office identifies the remains of MIAs every month. About 78,750 people are listed as missing in action from World War II; more than 8,200 from the Korean War; and 123 from the Cold War of the 1950s and '60s.
-------------------------------------------------- Staff writer Sam Richards contributed to this story.