WALLACE, MICHAEL JOHN
Name: Michael John Wallace Rank/Branch: E5/US Army Unit: B Company, 228th Aviation Battalion (Assault Support Helicopter), 11th Aviation Group, 1st Cavalry Division Date of Birth: 21 November 1939 Home City of Record: Ann Arbor MI Date of Loss: 19 April 1968 Country of Loss: South Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 161918N 1070923E (YD291087) Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 4 Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: CH47A Refno: 1135
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 2002.
Additional information: http://www.virtualwall.org/dw/WallaceMJ01a.htm
Other Personnel In Incident: Anthony F. Housh; (missing from CH47, coordinates YD291087-LZ Tiger; pilot, co-pilot and gunner survived); Douglas R. Blodgett; William Dennis; Jesus Gonzales (missing from CH47A, coordinates YD290105; pilot and co-pilot survived); Arthur J. Lord; Charles W. Millard; Philip R. Shafer; Michael R. Werdehoff (missing on CH54, coordinates YD255095-LZ Tiger)
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: On April 19, 1968 three Army helicopters were shot down in the A Shau Valley of South Vietnam. All three were making supply runs to Landing Zone Tiger in Quang Tri Province. Five men survived the three crashes, and nine men remain missing.
The CH47A on which Douglas Blodgett was a crewman, William Dennis was flight engineer, and Jesus Gonzales was crewchief was resupplying ammunition at the LZ when it received small arms fire from the ground and crashed. The pilot and co-pilot were able to crawl away, but the rest of the crew was never found. They were declared Missing In Action.
The CH47 on which Anthony Housh was flight engineer and Michael Wallace was crewchief was hit by 50 calibre and 37 mm ground fire on its approach to the LZ. Housh and Wallace jumped from the aircraft from an altitude of 50-100 feet above the jungle canopy. The others were rescued. No trace of Housh and Wallace was ever found. They were declared Missing In Action.
The CH54 "Flying Crane" on which Arthur Lord was aircraft commander, Charles Millard pilot, Arthur J. Lord co-pilot, Michael Werdehoff flight engineer, and Philip Shafer crewchief was carrying a bulldozer into the recently resecured LZ Tiger when the aircraft was hit and crashed. All the crew were classified Missing In Action.
Thorough searches for the 3 helicopters were not immediately possible because of the enemy situation. A refugee later reported that he had found the wreckage of two U.S. helicopters, one with 3 sets of skeletal remains, in Quang Tri Province. The U.S. Army believes this could correlate with any of the three helicopters lost on April 19, 1968, but no firm evidence has been secured that would reveal the fate of the nine missing servicemen.
Some 250,000 interviews and "millions of documents" have been analyzed relating to Americans who may still be alive, captive, in Southeast Asia. Many experts believe there are hundreds of men still alive, waiting for their country to rescue them. Whether any of the nine missing from near LZ Tiger is among them is unknown, but it is clearly past time for us to bring our men home.
=============== 11/23/02 http://www.detnews.com/2002/metro/0211/23/metro-18106.htm
Missing GI forges bond between teacher, student
By Associated Press
JACKSON -- A U.S. soldier missing in the Vietnam War has forged a bond between a teacher and a student, though neither ever met the man.
Susan Berridge, 43, a teacher at the Jackson County Career Center, wore Army Sgt. Michael Wallace's name on a bracelet when she was younger, as a reminder of the hundreds of soldiers in the Vietnam War who were missing in action.
Unknown to her, Wallace was the uncle of one of her students, Julie Bouchard, The Jackson Citizen Patriot reported in a Friday story.
As a middle school student in Clinton during the Vietn! am War, Berridge put together $3.50 with her baby-sitting money and sent away for an MIA bracelet after she saw a friend wearing one.
The silver bracelet arrived with the name of Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Wallace, and she wore it faithfully. Berridge watched the newspapers for Wallace's name whenever war casualties were listed. Months after the war ended, she learned he'd been declared killed in action.
"There was an article in the Ann Arbor newspaper about him. I didn't know he was from Ann Arbor," Berridge said.
She got the address of Wallace's family, and in keeping with MIA bracelet tradition, broke the bracelet in half and sent it to the family.
That was the last she heard about Wallace until Nov. 8, when she noticed Bouchard's ring. "Julie showed me a little compartment in it and said it was for a cyanide pill -- in case th! ey got captured and taken as a prisoner of war, they'd have the option of taking the pill," Berridge said. "She told me her uncle was killed in the war."
Berridge told her student that she'd worn Wallace's MIA bracelet until he was declared dead. "She said, aYou sent us the bracelet in a green box. My mother still has it,"' Berridge said. The two cried and hugged.
Berridge called Bouchard's mother, Wallace's sister, and talked more about the coincidence. "She said it really touched her mother's heart when I sent the bracelet," Berridge said. "She was too grieved to write back."
Julie's mother, Kathryn Bouchard of Napoleon, was a child when her big brother disappeared in April 1968 over Vietnam. He was in the rear of a helicopter that broke in half under enemy fire. His body was never recovered.