TUCKER, JAMES HALE

Name: James Hale Tucker
Rank/Branch: O2/US Air Force
Unit: 377th Combat Support Group, Tan Son Nhut AB, South Vietnam
Date of Birth: 29 December 1941
Home City of Record: Pawnee OK
Date of Loss: 26 April 1966
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates:  174000N 1062900E (XE591538)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 4
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: RF4C
Refno: 0317

Other Personnel In Incident: Warren L. Anderson (missing)

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 2020.


REMARKS: ALL CONTACT LOST

SYNOPSIS: 1Lt. James H. Tucker was the pilot of an RF4C Phantom jet flying
on an unarmed night reconnaissance flight over a heavily defended North
Vietnamese anti-aircraft complex when all contact with their aircraft was
lost.  His backseater on the mission was Capt. Warren L. Anderson. It was
Anderson's third mission in Vietnam.

The mission was to photograph an anti-aircraft complex 15 miles north of
Dong Hoi, North Vietnam. The aircraft was being monitored by forward radar
units in South Vietnam. As the aircraft crossed a mountain range to
descended on the target, radio and radar contact was lost, and could not be
reestablished. An electronic search was begun immediately and a visual
search as soon as daylight permitted. Nothing was ever found of the aircraft
or its crew.

In 1973, 591 Americans were released from Vietnamese prisons; Anderson and
Tucker were not among them. They remained Missing In Action.

Following the war, as refugees began to flood the world from Vietnam,
thousands of reports of Americans still held captive began to accumulate. By
1988, over 6000 reports have been received by the U.S. Government. A
Pentagon panel, after a 5 month review of classified records concluded in
1986 that at least 100 Americans were still alive, held captive in Southeast
Asia.

Anderson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for obtaining vital
photos on an unarmed craft over the area where he later disappeared. Because
there has never been any word of James Tucker or Warren Anderson, their
families wonder if they are alive or dead. And, if alive, how much longer
much they wait for their country to bring them home?

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02/2020

https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000KY9SEAW

MAJ JAMES HALE TUCKER

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On April 26, 1966, an RF-4C Phantom II (tail number 64-1045) carrying two crew members took off on a photographic reconnaissance mission over North Vietnam. As expected, radar contact with the Phantom was lost as it moved toward its target; however, contact was not reestablished with the crew, and the aircraft failed to return from its mission. Search teams found no sign of the missing Phantom or its crew members.

First Lieutenant James Hale Tucker, who joined the U.S. Air Force from Oklahoma, was a member of the 16th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. He was a crew member aboard the Phantom when it went missing, and was lost along with the aircraft. His remains have not been recovered. Following the incident, the Air Force promoted 1LT Tucker to Major (Maj). Today, Major Tucker is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Based on all information available, DPAA assessed the individual's case to be in the analytical category of Active Pursuit.

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