POW/MIA Robert S. Griffith.

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Robert S. Griffith

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Name: Robert Smith Griffith

Rank/Branch: E5/US Army

Unit: 57th Aviation Co., 17th Aviation Group, 1st Aviation Brigade

Date of Birth: 26 December 1942

Home City of Record: Hapeville GA

Date of Loss: 19 February 1968

Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 145430N 1072800E (YB665498)

Status (in 1973): Missing in Action

Category: 4

Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: UH1H

Other Personnel in Incident: Douglas J. Glover; Melvin C. Dye (still missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project (919/527-8079) 01 April 1991 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Copyright 1991 Homecoming II Project. .

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: SSgt. Melvin C. Dye was the engineer and SSgt. Robert S. Griffith the door gunner onboard a UH1H helicopter performing an emergency extraction mission in Laos on February 19, 1968. They were extracting a reconnaissance patrol team consisting of three U.S. Army Special Forces and 3 indigenous personnel. The aircraft carried a crew of four. SFC Douglas Glover was one of the Special Forces personnel aboard.

As the helicopter picked up the team 4 miles inside Laos west of Dak Sut, it received a heavy volume of small arms fire. It is not known whether the aircraft was hit by hostile fire or hit a tree, but it nosed over, impacted the ground and exploded, bursting into flames.

The pilot, co-pilot and one passenger managed to leave the aircraft. Because of the fire and exploding small arms ammunition, rescue attempts for the others were futile.

There were six U.S. and 3 indigenous personnel aboard the helicopter. When search teams reached the site the same day, they could not account for the other U.S. personnel. Five were accounted for, but could not be recovered because of intense heat.

Dye, Glover and Griffith were classified as Missing In Action. They did not return when the general prisoner release occurred in 1973. Since the war ended, evidence mounts that Americans were left behind in enemy prison camps and that hundreds of them could be alive today. They deserve better than the abandonment they received from the country they proudly served.

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This page last updated on December 7, 1998

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