This page is dedicated to a fellow US Army Veteran and native Californian who was reported as a possible POW. David Stanley Demmon, E5/US Army. Serving at the time with the 73rd Aviation Company, 765th Transportation Battalion. DOB: 30 November 1940 (Santa Monica, CA) Home of record: Venice, CA.. Date of Loss: 09 June 1965 in South Vietnam. Loss Coordinates: 093514N 1062201E (XR035296) Status (in 1973): Prisoner of War Category: 1 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: OV1C
Other personnel in incident: Charles Alva Dale (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.
Synopsis: At 0317 hours on June 9, 1965 1Lt.Charles A. Dale, pilot; and SP4David S. Demmon, electronic sensor operator, departed Vung Tau in an OV1C (serial #61-2687) on a mission. The nature of the mission is not included in public record, but was undoubtedly a standard battlefield surveillance mission, or as the 765th Transporttation Battalion was primarily aircraft maintenance and support, it might have been a test of equipment onboard the aircraft.
The OV1C maintained surveillance using infrared detection equipment and a forward-aimed camera (which proved especially useful since the Viet Cong relied heavily on darkness to conceal their activities). Standard procedure for the OV1C was to periodically fly over a known location to update the navigation computer. One such update, about 87 minutes after takeoff placed Dale and Demmon over Vung Tau. At this time, he was headed to a second mission area in Vinh Binh Province, South Vietnam.
Somewhere over the U Minh forest, the aircraft was shot down. Search and rescue forces sighted two men wading out of the water and the Viet Cong capturing them, but positive identification was prevented by weather. However, Demmon and Dale were the only two Americans shot down that day. Dale was declared Missing in Action, while Demmon was classified Prisoner of War. It was felt that the enemy knew the fates of both men, alive or dead.
Reports relating to Dale and Demmon were received as late as 1970, both together and separately. Both men were seen alive by intelligence sources in the hands of the Viet Cong. One defector provided the phoenetic name "Phyan De Mann", which translates to "Family name of De Manh" (possibly meaning "Demmon" ). In 1971, Demmon was seen alive in captivity. A Viet Cong guard, who stated that he had guarded American POW's from September to December 1965, stated he saw two men he believed to be Demmon and Dale in his camp. The families of both men believed they were captured, and eagerly awaited their release at the end of the war. When the war ended, however, and 591 Americans were released from communist prisons in Southeast Asia, Dale and Demmon were not among them. The Vietnamese never acknowledged their existence, nor did their names appear on lists provided by the Vietnamese of prisoners who had died in captivity.
In 1987, evidence of a large number of Americans being held in China began to surface in the private sector. It was said that these Americans were the "property" of a number of pro-China Vietnamese officials who had fled Vietnam in the wake of a stronger national sympathy to the Soviet Union. Charles Alva Dale, it was said, was serving as a houseboy to one of these officials. The reports could not be verified. Dale and Demmon's families still wonder where they are. They don't know whether to hope they died that day in June 1965, or to hope they survived, and are alive still. If they survived, what must they have gone through? And what must they think of the country they so proudly served? Charles A. Dale was promoted to the rank of Major and David S. Demmon to the rank of Staff Sergeant during the period they were maintained Missing and Prisoner.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to keep pushing this issue inside the Beltway. The need to get specific answers is more important now than ever before. If still alive, some MIA's are now in their 70's. They don't have much time left. We have to demand the answers from the bureaucrats and keep standing on their necks (figuratively speaking) until they get the message that THEY work for US and that we are serious about getting these long overdue responses. Diplomatic considerations aside. We can no longer allow questionable protocols established by pseudo-aristocratic armchair strategists, to determine or influence the fate of the men who were in the trenches while the diplomats were sharing sherry and canapes and talking about "Their Plans" for the future of SE Asia.
Please do your part in the fight to bring home our loved ones. Please write the President and your congressmen and Senators and let them know that this fight is not over till ALL of our Men and Women are accounted for.
"Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own". Woodrow Wilson--War Address to Congress, 1917.
I was in the 82nd Airborne Division and Rigger in 1970. Fort Ord, Fort Benning, Fort Lee and Fort Bragg. Any fellow Airborne/Riggers/Pathfinders/AirAssault Team Members out there from the years 1969-1972 drop me a email. Who knows, we may have crossed paths. Below you will find my Book of Dreams. Please add your dreams. And I only ask one favor. Keep them within the theme of this page. Poems, muse, quotes, etc.. are all welcome. And all Military personnel have the green light to vent. Yours truly, BeachRat
President