The Department of Defense
POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of five U.S. servicemen, missing in action from the Vietnam
War, have been accounted-for and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are Lt. j.g. Norman
L. Roggow, of Aurelia, Iowa; Lt. j.g. Donald F. Wolfe, of Hardin, Mont.; Lt. j.g. Andrew G. Zissu, of Bronx, N.Y.; Chief Petty
Officer Roland R. Pineau, of Berkley, Mich.; and Petty Officer 3rd Class Raul A. Guerra, of Los Angeles, Calif.;
all U.S. Navy. Pineau was buried on Oct. 8 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. The dates and locations
of the funerals for the other servicemen are being set by their families.
On Oct. 8, 1967, Zissu
and Roggow were the pilots of an E-1B Tracer en route from Chu Lai Air Base, Vietnam, back to the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. Also
on board were Wolfe, Pineau and Guerra. Radar contact with the aircraft was lost approximately 10 miles northwest of
Da Nang, Vietnam. Adverse weather hampered immediate search efforts, but three days later, a search helicopter spotted
the wreckage of the aircraft on the face of a steep mountain in Da Nang Province. The location, terrain and hostile forces
in the area precluded a ground recovery.
In 1993 and 1994, human
remains were repatriated to the United States by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) with information that linked the
remains to unassociated losses in the same geographical area as this incident. Between 1993 and 2004, U.S/S.R.V. teams,
all led by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), investigated the incident more than 15 times in Da Nang city and Thua
Thien-Hue Province.
Between 2004 and 2005,
the joint teams surveyed and excavated the crash site where they recovered human remains and crew-related items. During
the excavation in 2005, the on-site team learned that human remains may have been removed previously from the site. S.R.V.
officials concluded that two Vietnamese citizens found and collected remains at the crash site, and possibly buried them near
their residence in Hoi Mit village in Thua Thein-Hue Province. In 2006, another joint U.S./S.R.V. team excavated the
suspected burial site in Hoi Mit village, but found no additional remains. In 2007, more remains associated with this
incident were repatriated to the United States by S.R.V. officials.
Among other forensic identification
tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial
DNA and dental comparisons in the identification of the remains.
For additional information
on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at
http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1169.
