| MAJOR JOHN FRANCIS O'GRADY USAF Name: John Francis O'Grady Rank/Branch: O4/US Air Force Home City of Record: New Hyde Park NY Date of Loss: 10 April 1967 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 175000N 1054600E (WE795662) Status (in 1973): Missing In Action Category: 2 Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing) REMARKS: EJECTED - NO RADIO CONTACT 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. |
| SYNOPSIS: Between April 17, 1965 and December 31, 1971, 43 American airmenwere lost and listed as MIA in a 33.3 mile square window of the world known as the MuGia Pass on the North Vietnam/Lao border. Yet, over 13 years after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords and almost 13 years after the Department of Defense announced that no American POWs remained in Southeast Asia, not one of these men has been officially accounted for by either the Vietnamese or Lao governments, or officially recovered through US/Vietnamese/Lao negotiations. John O'Grady is one of those men. On April 10, 1967, Maj. John F. O'Grady led his element of F105D fighter/bombers through the Mu Gia Pass on the border of Laos and North Vietnam. Upon reaching the Vietnam side of the Pass, they turned back to initiate bombing attacks on selected targets. Upon reaching his target, O'Grady began his bombing run without opposition with his wingman 20 seconds to his rear. Approaching the target, he did not like his alignment. Rather than "drop and run", he aborted his first run and rolled in behind his wingman for a second attack, and his third exposure to enemy gunners. This time, O'Grady's aircraft was hit and he radioed, "Losing control, got to get out." The wingman at first could not locate O'Grady's plane or parachute, but did witness his bombs land directly on target. Scanning the skies, the wingman finally saw O'Grady's parachute in the air southwest of the target. However, the wind was blowing O'Grady back to the area of the strike. According to the senior officer in the air, they could have rescued him except for the wind. O'Grady's parachute disappeared the instant it touched down. The exact spot was pinpointed but rescue planes found to trace of him when they searched the area minutes later while under intense ground fire. Later intelligence indicated that O'Grady's target had been a well-organized, heavily armed battalion of enemy troops moving south through the Pass. The next day, two radio broadcasts out of Hanoi and Peking detailed the capture of American pilots, identifying one of the provinces as the one where O'Grady went down. He was the only many shot down in that province that day, and the only pilot lost that week over all of North Vietnam. Although the Air Force concluded that O'Grady was "in all probability taken captive", he was listed Missing in Action, and his status was never changed to Prisoner of War. It seems improbable that in one of the most heavily traveled sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, all 43 men lost went unnoticed by the other side. Although there is ample evidence to show otherwise, the governments of Laos and Vietnam claim no knowledge of the fates of these men |
| This is my contribution to OPERATION JUST CAUSE. It is the story of a hero that never made it home from Vietnam. |
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