Governor
By the Governor:
________________________
DOUGLAS LA FOLLETTE
Secretary of State
FISCHER, RICHARD W.
Burial 11/19/2007
Name: Richard W. Fischer
Rank/Branch: USMC E3
Unit: M 3/5 1ST MAR DIV
Date of Birth: 15 June 47
Home City of Record: Madison, WI
Date of Loss: 08 January 68
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 155456N 1081058E
Status (in 1973): Missing
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Other Personnel In Incident:
Source: Compiled by THE P.O.W. NETWORK 02 February 93 from the
following published sources - POW/MIA's -- Report of the Select Committee
on POW/MIA Affairs United States Senate -- January 13, 1993. "The Senate
Select Committee staff has prepared case summaries for the priority cases
that the Administration is now investigating. These provide the facts about
each case, describe the circumstances under which the individual was lost,
and detail the information learned since the date of loss. Information in
the case summaries is limited to information from casualty files, does not
include any judgments by Committee staff, and attempts to relate essential
facts. The Committee acknowledges that POW/MIAs' primary next-of- kin know
their family members' cases in more comprehensive detail than summarized
here and recognizes the limitations that the report format imposes on these
summaries." 2020
On January 8, 1968, Lance Corporal Fisher was with an ambush team
in Dien Ban District, south of Da Nang City, Quang Nam Province.
He left his ambush site with a one-legged girl and was never seen
again. A search and rescue party attempting to locate him was
fired upon. A later search failed to locate any trace of him but
an older local resident did say that an American had been taken
prisoner. The non-commissioned officer in charge of the ambush was
recommended for court-martial for permitting a member of the team
to leave the site. In 1970, a former Vietnam People's Army
Lieutenant Colonel provided information, possibly hearsay, that
Corporal Fisher had been killed and buried.
Corporal Fisher was initially declared missing. In December 1978,
he was declared dead/body not recovered. Returning U.S. POWs were
unable to provide any information about him being alive in the
Vietnamese prison system.
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01/2020
https://dpaa.secure.force.com/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt000000oyVFEEA2
On October 26, 2007, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC,
now DPAA) identified the remains of Gunnery Sergeant Richard
William Fischer, missing from the Vietnam War.
Gunnery Sergeant Fischer joined the U.S. Marine Corps from
Wisconsin and was a member of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 5th
Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division. On January 8, 1968, he was
a member of an ambush patrol south of Da Nang, Quang Nam
Province, South Vietnam. Gunnery Sergeant Fischer became
separated from his unit during the patrol, and was killed by
Viet Cong and buried in a nearby field. Attempts by the patrol
to locate GySgt Fischer were thwarted by enemy action. In 1992
and 1993, joint U.S. and Vietnamese search teams conducted
interviews with Vietnamese locals that revealed GySgt Fischer's
fate and the location of his burial. An excavation of the site
in 1994 recovered human remains. In 2007, modern advances in
forensic techniques allowed for the recovered remains to be
identified as those of Gunnery Sergeant Fischer.
Gunnery Sergeant Fischer is memorialized on the Courts of the
Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
If you are a family member of this serviceman, you may contact your casualty office representative to learn more about your service member.