NEWTON, CHARLES VERNON REMAINS IDENTIFIED 2011 Name: Charles Vernon Newton Rank/Branch: E6/US Army Special Forces Unit: Recon Team 5, Detachment B-52 DELTA, 5th Special Forces Date of Birth: 10 May 1940 Home City of Record: Canadian TX Date of Loss: 17 April 1969 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 160126N 1073546E (YC778732) Status (In 1973): Missing In Action Category: 2 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground Refno: 1428 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 2011. Other Personnel In Incident: Douglas E. Dahill; Charles F. Prevedel; three South Vietnamese Special Forces personnel REMARKS: SYNOPSIS: SSgt. Charles V. Newton, Sgt. Charles F. Prevedel, SP4 Douglas E. Dahill and 3 unidentified Vietnamese were inserted into Quang Nam Province in South Vietnam as part of Detachment B52 Delta's Reconnaissance Team 6 on April 14, 1969. On April 16, the team reported making contact with the enemy, but radioed that it was continuing the patrol. On April 17, the team made its scheduled morning radio contact and reported the team's position. At 206 hours, the team reported to Control and Command that they were in a stream bed and had been hit hard, and requested air strikes. Their location was then in Thua Thien Province, 9 miles from Laos. A Forward Air Controller (FAC) sent into the area was unable to make radio contact with the team. At 1400 hours, thunderstorms in the area prevented the insertion of a relief force. The next day, a BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment) team was inserted to search for Team 6. They encountered Viet Cong personnel wearing tiger striped fatigues and bearing rifles and grenades of the type used by Team 6. A thorough search of the stream bed and surrounding area yielded no trace of Team 6. Numerous air and ground searches of Team 6 evasion route were conducted with no positive result. A Viet Cong reported that in mid-May, 1969, he had seen two U.S. POWs in Quang Nam province, exact location unspecified. The report was correlated to SSgt. Newton and Sgt. Prevedel on the basis of time, location and compatability of the physical descriptions. Four photos from a Christmas, 1969 film of POWs were correlated by CIA to Charles Newton, and one to Charles Prevedel. There has been no further information to surface about Dahill. The Vietnamese deny having any knowledge of any of the members of Team 6. By mid-1989, nearly 10,000 reports had been received by the U.S. Government relating to Americans still missing in Southeast Asia. Many authorities believe there are still several hundred Americans still alive in captivity. Charles Prevedel's father died in 1988, never knowing if the faces in the Christmas film were his son and his partner, or an uncanny coincidence. The Vietnamese aren't talking, and unfortunately, neither is the U.S. Government. It's time we brought our men home. ------------------------------------------
Special Forces vets Delta Team 6 members Douglas Dahill, Charles Newton, and Charles Prevedel, lost on 15 April 69 in Thua Thien Province have been recovered and identified. Visitation with family to share stories is scheduled for 4 Oct 2011, 6 - 8 PM at Murphy's Funeral Home in Arlington. Team burial with full military honors on 5 Oct 2011, at Arlington National Cemetery. Service at 10:45 AM in the Fort Myer Post Chapel. The public is invited.
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IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 849-11
October 03, 2011
Missing Vietnam War Soldiers Identified
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
Master Sgt. Charles V. Newton of Canadian, Texas; Sgt. 1st Class Douglas E. Dahill of Lima, Ohio; and Sgt. 1st Class Charles F. Prevedel of St. Louis, Mo., all U.S. Army, will be buried as a group on Oct. 5 at Arlington National Cemetery. Newton was also individually identified and will be interred individually at Arlington on the same day as the group interment. On April 17, 1969, the men and three Vietnamese soldiers were on a long-range reconnaissance patrol operating in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, near the border of Laos. That afternoon the patrol was ambushed by enemy forces and radioed for air support but thunderstorms in the area prevented rescue attempts. Search and rescue teams reached the site the next day but over the next week found no signs of the men.
Between 1990 and 1993,joint U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, led by Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), interviewed witnesses, investigated leads and excavated the site associated with the ambush. The teams recovered human remains, personal effects and military equipment. In 2003, some of the recovered remains were identified as those of Prevedel. In 2006 and 2007, joint U.S./S.R.V. teams returned to the site and recovered additional remains and military equipment.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used dental comparisons and mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains.
For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.