Col. Armstrong was not accounted for during Operation Homecoming and returning US POWs had no information on his precise fate. In June 1974 he was declared dead/body not recovered, based on a presumptive finding of death.
In February 1978, the Joint Casualty Resolution Center in Thailand received a report from a refugee in Thailand about four US POWs captured in Sam Neua,Laos, and last seen alive in 1977. The source supplied Col. Armstrong's name and stated he was one of the POWs. The individual was removed from the refugee camp by Thai authorities and JCRC was unable to reestablish contact with the source.
In October 1983, a US citizen reported he had obtained personal effect of Lt. Sijan from a former Lao Army Colonel operating with a self claimed Lao resistance force from the area of Nakhon Phanon, Thailand. In November 1984 another US citizen and POW/MIA hunter provided the US government with information about case 0833 and the recovery of a personal ring which was allegedly passed to the National Security Council officer responsible for the POW/MIA issue. In November 1991, US investigators in Vietnam obtained access to an 84 page listing of US aircraft losses in People's Army Military Region 4. Page 48 contained an aircraft shoot down correlating to this incident.
Sources: All biographical and loss information on Vietnam Era POW/MIAs provided by Operation Just Cause.
Then Lt. Col. John W. Armstrong was the Commander of the 480th Tactical Fighter Squadron based at DaNang Airbase, South Vietnam. On November 9,1967, Lt. Col. Armstrong, pilot, and Capt. Lance P. Sijan, co-pilot, comprised the crew of an F4C, call sign AWOL 01, "that departed their base as the lead aircraft in a flight of two. They were on a Forward Air Control (FAC) strike mission against the enemy targets along a portion of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail located in extremely rugged jungle covered in mountains approximately 35 miles southwest of Dong Hoi, North Vietnam; 3 miles northwest of Ban Loboy and 5 miles southwest of the Lao/North Vietnamese border, Khammouan Province, Lao.
This area of eastern Laos was considered a major artery of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. When North Vietnam began to increase its military strength in South Vietnam, NVA and Viet Cong troops again intruded on neutral Laos for sanctuary, as the Viet Minh had done during the war with the French some years before. This border road was used by the Communists to transport weapons,supplies and troops from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, and was frequently no more than a path cut through the jungle covered mountains. US forces used all assets available to them to stop this flow of men and supplies from moving south into the war zone.
At 2045 hours, on the second pass over the target, the aircraft was hit by hostile fire, was seen to burst into flames and begain to climb approximately 10,000 feet, then rapidly descend and crash into the dense jungle below. No parachutes were seen in the darkness and no emergency beepers heard. Search and Rescue (SAR) efforts were immediately initiated and voice contact was established with Lance Sijan almost immediately. No contact could be established with Lt.Col. Armstrong. Because of heavy enemy activity around the crash site, SAR personell were unable to reach Capt. Sijan and were unable to locate any sign of Lt. Col. Armstrong. At the time formal search efforts were terminated, both John Armstrong and Lance Sijan were listed Missing In Action.
Lance Sijan was badly injured in his low-level bailout from the damaged Phantom. Even with his extensive injuries he was able to evade capture for 45 days. North Vietnamese troops found him on Christmas Day lying unconscious next to the road that had been their target and only 3 miles from where he had been shot down. He died in captivity on January 22,1968, approximately 8 days after reaching Hanoi and two weeks after being captured.
On March 13,1974, Lance Sijan's remains, along with the headstone used to mark his grave in North Vietnam, were returned to the US. Further, Lance Peter Sijan was awarded this nation's highest decoration for valor, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his fierce resistance during interrogation and determination to resist his captures and escape captivity in spite of his emaciated and crippled condition. Before his death, Capt. Sijan was held in a cell with two other Americans. He recounted the circumstances surrounding their shootdown to them, but unfortunately he could shed no light on the fat of Lt. Col. John Armstrong before he died.
The National Security Agency (NSA) however, intercepted enemy readio transmissions and correlated information which confirmed that John Armstrong, who would be a prize catch for the communists because of his background and postion, was known captured alive in Laos. According to these reports, NSA documented that he was interviewed by a Soviet war correspondent. Much later, a Pathet Lao defector, who claimed to have been a prison camp guard, stated that in 1977 he had been guarding several Americans. According to his report, one was named "Armstrong". However, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) states they place no validity in this report.
While the fat of Lance Sijan is resolved and his family and friends have the peace of mind of knowing where their loved one now lies, for John Armstrong his fate could be quite different. He is one of nearly 600 Americans who disappeared in Laos. Many of these men were known to be alive on the ground. The Laotians admitted holding "tens of tens" of American Prisoners of War, but these men were never negotiated for etiher by direct negotions between our countries or through the Paris Peace Accords which ended the War in Vietnam since Laos was not a party to that agreement. Since the end of the Vietnam War well over 21,000 reports of American prisoners, missing and otherwise unaccounted for have been received by our government. Many of these reports document LIVE American Prisoners of War remaining captive throughout Southeast Asia TODAY! Fighter pilots were called upon to fly in many dangerous circumstances, and they were prepared to be wounded, killed, or captured. It probably never occurred to them that they could be abandoned by the country they so proudly served.
Dear Senator Hensarling,
I am writing on behalf Lt.Col. John William Armstrong who has been missing in action since November 9,1967 in Laos. I am writing to determine if anyting is being done to bring Lt.Col. Armstrong home whether dead or alive. He and 1Lt.Lance P. Sijan were on a mission over the Ho Chi Minh Trail when their aircraft was brought down by defective fuses on the bombs that they were carrying. It has been 37 years and that is long enough. In the event that nothing is being done, can you please explain why not and tell me how you personally plan to correct this and prevent it from ever happening again? Myself along with many many other Americans find this to be an outrage and completely unacceptable. I demand that you take a bit of time to look into matter...to help us find the Colonel and if not to return himsafely to his family, then to put this issue to rest once and for all. It is appalling to think the US Government has turned it back on all the reports that have come in regarding American POW/MIAs still alive in Vietnam. There are reports that there are some still being held and there is info on the whereabouts of the bodies of those reported missing, yet MY government chooses to ignore these reports. How can a nation who sent these boys to war turn their backs and act as if nothing has happened and act like they are not getting reports of Americans still in Vietnam? What if it were your son or daughter, wouldn't you do everything in your power, till the day you drawed your last breath to find out one way or another? The French can pay an unspecified amount of money to the Vietnamese and their POWs who were captured in 1954 were released from 1970-1976!! We can send money to foreign countries to finance their terrorist acts against us and we can let people sit on welfare and draw more money than the average fireman, school teacher, paramedic does! And I'm recalling a recent article in the Dallas Morning News of a young woman who had quads just a year ago and three weeks ago gave birth to another child..shes barely 18 years old! And I might add the man who fathered these babies is married and yet our government does not go after him for support? This girl makes $42,000 a year sitting on her butt having babies and she receives it from whom? The US Government thats who. That amount of money could have been used to start finding out what has happened to our soldiers and bring them home. It's time something was done..and we will not stop communicating with our elected officials in Washington even the President until we get some answers and closure.
Thank you for your time. I really hope this letter and the millions of others that will surely come and have been received by our government doesnt get thrown in the trash and forgotten. This is a serious issue and we as voters demand that you take time to start asking questions. There are many reports out there that back up what I'm saying...public records anyone can get. The internet is a great place to start....hell for that matter talk to the President... he knows.
Sincerely
Rebecca Raley
Texas
This letter will be going out shortly to my congressman who represents Texas and anyone else who I can find who will listen and attempt to do something!
President George [email protected]
VP Dick [email protected]
Laura Bush......................................firstlady@whitehouse.gov
Mrs Cheney.....................................mrscheney@whitehouse.gov
Write your elected officials; for more info go to: www.ojc/ring/contact.htm
Join the yellow ribbon campaign: www.ojc/yribbon.htm
Join Operation Just Cause Web Ring: www.ojc.org/ring/index.htm
Official Operation Just Cause Listserv: www.ojc/ring/listserv.html
To contact family member or find more info: www.nationalalliance.org/home1.htm
To adopt a POW/MIA in your state or anywhere: www.ojc.org/adopt
