Name: Philip Bradford Terrill
Rank/Branch: E4/US Army
Unit: HHB, 1st Battalion, 92nd Artillery
Date of Birth: 24 September 1947 (Utica NY)
Home City of Record: Hartford NY
Date of Loss: 31 March 1971
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 143740N 1074329E (YB935188)
Status (in 1973): Prisoner of War
Category: 1
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Refno: 1737
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 1998.
Other Personnel in Incident: James Salley, Jr. (missing)
REMARKS: 7104 DIED TRI-BORDER AREA
SYNOSIS: SP4 Philip Terrill, a rifleman from HHB, 1st Battalion, 92nd Artillery and SFC James Salley, Jr., an advisor from Advance Team 22, MACV, were part of an integrated observation systems team and were taken captive together on March 31, 1971 after fire support base Number 6 on Hill 1001 was overrun by elements of the 66th NVA Regiment. The support base, including an ARVN camp, was located in Kontum Province, South Vietnam.
Liberation Radio and Hanoi Radio broadcasts in early April 1971 and a Quan Doi Nhan Dan article appearing in July 1972 referred to this battle and the capture of the American advisors.
In 1973, 591 American prisoners were released, but Terrell and Salley were not among them. Sgt. David F. Allwine, who was released, stated that he had been held with SFC Salley in captivity when Salley died on July 15, 1971. He also said that he had helped to bury SFC Salley in Laos. (The loss site and the location of the POW camp was in the tri-border area of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.) Sgt David F. Allwine didn't know what became of Terrell.
There is no question that the Vietnamese have certain knowledge of Terrill and Salley. By any standard, the two are prisoners of war until their bodies are returned home. Even more tragically, thousands of reports have been received convincing many authorities that scores of Americans remain alive in captivity in Southeast Asia. It's time we brought these prisoners home.
