The Patriot Post® · In Memoriam: The Loss of Flight 739
Memorial Day was the week before last. In that sense, this column is 10 days late — it recounts an incident that took the lives of 93 U.S. Army personnel in service to our nation, a topic that would normally be resurrected on that special day. But while that episode took place nearly 65 years ago, as we look at it now, we find that serious questions about it remain unanswered and that there is legitimate concern about whether the sacrifice of those American soldiers has been fully and fairly recognized.
That’s the beauty of Memorial Day: It reawakens our memory and refreshes our appreciation for those who gave all to our nation. Every day should be Memorial Day, so I’m not particularly bothered by the 10-day delay in addressing this one.
On March 16, 1962, MATS Flying Tiger flight 739, transporting a contingent of Ranger-trained communications specialists to South Vietnam, disappeared without a trace somewhere in the Western Pacific. The aircraft, a military charter Super Constellation carrying the 93 American soldiers, three South Vietnamese soldiers, and a crew of 11, had left Guam en route to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines on the fourth leg of that long journey. The weather was good, radio communications were normal, and there were no indications of any problems — and then Flight 739 vanished.
An extensive eight-day search by the Navy found no wreckage or debris linked to the aircraft. The single but compelling piece of evidence regarding the fate of Flight 739 was the report by a Liberian tanker, the TL Lenzen, of a brilliant flash in the sky, bright enough to illuminate the ship’s deck, at a location and the approximate time that Flight 739 would have been overhead — information pointing to a violent high-altitude explosion.
But at no time, then or since, has there been any official finding about what happened to Flight 739. The incident is intriguing — and still historically significant — for several reasons:
The utter mystery of it all — the disappearance of a large airplane and with it the loss of 93 soldiers and 11 other Americans, quite possibly at the hands of one of our nation’s geopolitical foes. After all these years, our government still professes to have no idea what happened to Flight 739.
The incident occurred at a particularly tense and tumultuous time in the Cold War era, with President John Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev locking horns regularly, and only months before the Cuban Missile Crisis. It also occurred just as the U.S. began ramping up its military presence in Vietnam. Certainly, the USSR had an interest in seeing (and perhaps influencing) American failure in our military intervention in the Vietnam conflict. Much later, we learned of the Soviet Union’s direct wartime support to North Vietnam, such as in its installation and manning of the surface-to-air missile (SAM) defenses that downed many U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft.
While it is possible that an aircraft malfunction could have destroyed it in flight, it is hard to imagine one with explosive power violent enough to light up the night sky and disintegrate the aircraft, its contents, and passengers so completely that no identifiable debris remained. The single sighting that night by the TS Lenzen, along with the absence of any other plausible explanations, serves as a strong case that Flight 739 was downed by hostile action, such as a bomb secreted onto the aircraft.
There are indications that the mission of the 93 soldiers, highly proficient, Ranger-trained communications specialists, was cloaked in secrecy and hastily assembled. Evidently, the soldiers involved had been ordered not to disclose any information about their destinations or assignments, which added confusion to post-incident reporting.
Irrespective of mission details, it’s reasonable to assume that the selection, training, and transport of those particular troops to Vietnam was a significant step in the U.S. military build-up in Vietnam. And although all American military personnel in Vietnam at that time were nominally limited to “advisory” roles, there is no question that these soldiers would be providing military assistance to our South Vietnamese allies already locked into hot combat with North Vietnamese military and Vietcong forces.
In my view, the Flight 739 incident is still important, 75 years after the fact, primarily for two reasons:
1.) We still need to know what happened. How could we not take every step possible to fully understand the loss of 93 American soldiers? The dearth of information available even today suggests that our government either gave up the investigation too easily, or that we knew much more than has ever been revealed.
Was the investigation into the incident really a dry hole? Yes, searching several hundred thousand square miles of open ocean for physical evidence was a big part, but did we thoroughly drill down into all aspects of the mystery? As examples, do we know why those particular soldiers were selected, trained, and sent to Vietnam? Do we know what persons or entities (foreign or domestic) were knowledgeable about the mission and would have had access to 739’s flight plan? Do we know what security measures were in place in Guam as Flight 739 refueled and prepared for its fatal next leg of its journey to Saigon?
It’s time to declassify, reconstruct, and reveal everything about this entire episode. And — even at this late date — to dig further, if needed, to find answers to the still-unanswered questions.
2.) And perhaps even more important than setting the historical record straight, there is the matter of full and fair recognition of those U.S. Army victims of whatever and whoever caused their aircraft to disintegrate in flight.
Despite multiple appeals from the victims’ families and from various veterans groups, those 93 soldiers have thus far been excluded from recognition as casualties of the Vietnam War. Their names do not appear among the 58,318 currently inscribed on the wall commemorating each Vietnam War fatality at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.
The reasons for exclusion are understandable and consistent with Department of Defense (DOD) policy — their deaths were far away from the Vietnam War zone, they have never been officially attributed to enemy action, and they preceded the established timeline of U.S. engagement in the Vietnam War.
Nevertheless, many (count me in) maintain that the DOD position in this case is inherently unfair. Those soldiers, under orders by the U.S. Army, were on that flight for no reason other than direct participation in military action in Vietnam. They were part of the early vanguard of U.S. forces in that brutal conflict. It is very likely that they were killed by enemy action prompted by the growing and widely known U.S. involvement in that war, even if our engagement had not yet been officially declared at that point.
Other military personnel who lost their lives in those early stages of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict have been recognized as Vietnam War casualties, and their names appear on the wall; the names of the 93 Flight 739 victims should be there as well.
The decision about which names are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and for what reasons, is solely at the Pentagon’s discretion. Many believe, as I do, that the DOD should refine its policy as needed to ensure that all service members who lost their lives in our country’s valiant effort in that brutal conflict are included.
The 93 U.S. Army personnel lost with Flight 739 in early 1962 clearly fall in that category. Surely there are other deserving cases as well. The 74 U.S. Navy sailors lost at sea in the 1969 sinking of the USS Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea immediately come to mind. Although the collision at sea that took their lives occurred during a fleet exercise away from the war zone and unrelated to the ongoing conflict, the Evans was at that time in the midst of an extended deployment to Vietnam, providing gunnery support to troops on the ground.
The obvious bottom line. It is NEVER too late to render full and proper recognition to our military service members who gave their lives in service to our nation. For over six decades, that full recognition has not been accorded to those who perished on Flight 739. Their sacrifice, their memory, and closure for the surviving family, loved ones, and descendants deserve nothing less.
Moreover, the 58,318 souls whose names are already inscribed on that sacred wall won’t mind at all the late additions — their own legacies will not be diminished, and they would no doubt welcome their comrades in arms with enthusiasm.
It’s the right thing to do, DOD, and better late than never. Get with it, please!