Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War by Bruce Henderson

Author:Bruce Henderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061571374
Amazon: 0061571377
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

8

“WE’LL RUN OUT OF PILOTS”

On the evening of February 7, 1966, a secret message was sent by Ranger CO Leo McCuddin to the secretary of the navy (SECNAV), the commander of naval aviation in the Pacific (COMNAVAIRPAC), the commander in chief in the Pacific (CINCPAC), and the commander of the Seventh Fleet (COMSEVENTHFLT), advising them that the search for Dieter Dengler had been terminated with negative results. “Evidence of death not conclusive. Status remains MIA,” the message said. McCuddin, the World War II ace who did not like giving up on a missing pilot, added, “Aircraft on Steel Tiger [Laos] missions will continue to monitor the area for signs of downed pilot.”

The first step in the bureaucratic process that followed involved Lieutenant Algimantas “Doc” Balciunas, twenty-nine, of Newark, New Jersey, one of two flight surgeons assigned to Ranger’s air wing. Balciunas had entered the navy in 1964 upon graduation from Georgetown Medical School and following a year of internship at Los Angeles County General Hospital. During the flight surgeon program at Pensacola, Balciunas soloed in a single-engine T-34 Mentor. He was also trained to handle the array of backseat duties in an F-4 Phantom as a radar intercept officer (RIO), and as such would fly twenty-four combat missions with the VF-142 Ghostriders aboard Ranger. His primary duty, however, was providing medical care to the pilots and other air wing personnel.

Balciunas knew Dieter from the extended time the squadrons spent at Alameda, Yuma, and Fallon preparing for their WestPac deployment, and the nights and weekends of liberty the aviators enjoyed in those locales. He had hoisted beers in honky-tonks and O clubs with Dieter, which made it all the more difficult when Balciunas received from a corpsman a copy of Dieter’s death certificate.

The typed form was considered a “rough copy” to be kept in the medical department’s files until higher-ups in Washington asked for a death certificate. Even though the document was left unsigned by the two parties whose signatures would be required—McCuddin and the ship’s senior medical officer—its factual declarations conveyed a finality that Balciunas hoped would prove to be unfounded:

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