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.