Name: Robert Graham Nopp
Rank/Branch: O3/US Army
Unit: 131st Aviation Company (see note in text)
Date of Birth: 19 September 1934 (Velva ND)
Home City of Record: Salem OR
Loss Date: 14 July 1966
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 144000N 1063700E (XB740219)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 4
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: OV1C
Refno: 0393
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: Marshall F. Kipina (missing)
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS:
On July 14, 1966, PFC Marshall Kipina, observer/airborne sensor
operator; and Capt. Robert G. Nopp,
pilot flew out of hu Bai Airbase at Hue
in an OV1C aircraft
(serial #612675) on a classified surveillance mission
over Laos.
The company flew under code names "Steel Tiger" and "Tiger
Hound". Their call sign was "Iron Spud" that night.
The Grumman
OV1C maintained surveillance using infrared detection
equipment and a forward-aimed camera, making it a valuable night
surveillance
plane able to detect enemy movement and designated
targets.It
was on such a mission that Kipina's plane vanished with no trace.
Although
the official data listing loss coordinates is located in Laos,
about
25 miles southwest of the city of Attopeu, there is considerable
doubt
as to the exact location of the crash. The target area was in a
region
of Laos code name "Golf", east of Attopue, Laos. Source data
seems to indicate that the crash may have occurred east of that point,
in the mountain. During the searches for the missing aircraft, a
parachute was sighted, hanging
from a tree, containing a decapitated
body. No attempts were made
to recover the body, beacuse the fear of
booby traps,
and the hostile environment. JCRC later determined to be,
in fact, a dummy, and not one of the missing crew members.
In April
1969, CIA compiled a very detailed description of the Viet Cong
Huong Thuy District
committee headquarters together with details of a
prison camp about 20 miles away. The document included maps of the facility
as well as information on many of the communist staff, including
names, backgrounds and jobs performed. Also in the document were
lists of 22 American POWs who were positively identified from pre-capture
photographs and a list of 32 Americans tentatively identified. The
source stated that following the Tet offensive, prisoners were transferred
either to North Vietnam or to an agricultural camp at an unknown location
near the border of Laos. On the list of positive identification was the
name of Marshall Kipina.
This report is among many received by the U.S. concerning American
POWs.
Since the end of the war, the U.S. has received nearly 6000 of them.
Defense
Intelligence Agency debunked this information, saying the source
couldn't
know the information. The families of those listed were never told
of the
report until it surfaced in the private sector, having been declassified,
in report
1985.
It is not known whether Nopp and Kipina may be among the
hundreds who are
still alive as prisoners in Southeast Asia, or if they are dead. Their
families deserve to know every detail of their loss, and every detail that
surfaces that relates to them, however remote. And, as long as even one
man is alive, we must do everything possible to secure his freedom and
bring him home
NOTE:
The 20th Aviation Detachment existed until reassigned as the 131st
Aviation Company, 223rd Aviation Battalion (Combat Support).
The 131st Aviation Company had been assigned to
I Corps Aviation Battalion since June 1966, when it arrived in Vietnam.
In August 1967, the 131st Aviation Company was reassigned
to the 212th Aviation Battalion where it remained until July 1971,
whereupon it transferred out of Vietnam.
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