TAYLOR, EDD DAVID
Remains Returned 09/2001

Name: Edd David Taylor
Branch/Rank: United States Navy/O3
Unit:
Date of Birth: 22 February 1939
Home City of Record: KENSETT AR
Date of Loss: 29 August 1965
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 211759N 1035557E UTM 48QUJ894555
Status (in 1973): Killed In Action/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A1H # 134619
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident:
Refno: 0131

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: FIRE CRASH NO PARA SEEN

CACCF/CRASH/PILOT/4 YRS UNITED STATES NAVY

No further information available at this time.

LEAGUE UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 10, 2001

Accountability:  According to the Department of Defense, there are now 1,956
Americans missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.  On August 21st,
the primary next-of-kin accepted the identification of LT Edd D. Taylor,
USNR, of Arkansas.  Listed as KIA/BNR on August 29, 1965, in North Vietnam,
it is believed LT Taylor's remains were jointly recovered earlier this year.
This brings the number still missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam
War

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

No. 467-01
(703)695-0192(media)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 28, 2001
(703)697-5737(public/industry)

VIETNAM WAR MIA IDENTIFIED

Remains of a U.S. Navy pilot missing in action for more than 36 years from
the Vietnam War have been identified and are being returned to his family.
Identified is Navy Lt. Edd D. Taylor of Heber Springs, Ark.

On August 29, 1965, Taylor flew off the Navy aircraft carrier USS Oriskany
on a search and rescue mission into Son La Province, North Vietnam.  While
on his third pass over an area from which an emergency beeper signal was
heard, his A-1H Skyraider was hit by enemy ground fire.  As the pilot of a
nearby A-1 aircraft watched, Taylor's aircraft struck a ridge and exploded
into flames.  No parachute was observed.

In October 1988, a joint U.S./Vietnam team, led by the Joint Task Force-Full
Accounting, investigated this case in Son La Province.  The team interviewed
a Vietnamese citizen who reported that he saw the crash of Taylor's aircraft
as well as the body of the pilot at the crash site.  The team visited the
crash site and a nearby village where they found small fragments of
wreckage, but no human remains. The serial number of one of the fragments
matched that of Taylor's aircraft.

A subsequent visit to the crash site in 1989 yielded no remains, but in
1993, a U.S. archives research team in Hanoi discovered a Vietnamese record
of a 1965 shootdown which appeared to document the circumstances of Taylor's
loss.  Other joint teams re-surveyed the crash site in 1996 and 1999, and
scheduled it for excavation.

In March 2000, a joint U.S./Vietnam team, led by the U.S. Army Central
Identification Laboratory Hawaii (CILHI), excavated the crash site in Son La
Province.  The team recovered remains and pilot-related artifacts from the
aircraft wreckage.

Among the forensic tools used by the CILHI to confirm the identification was
that of mitochondrial DNA, in which DNA from a skeletal fragment was matched
to that of a family member of Lt. Taylor.
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