In memory of Franklin Lee Weisner, First Lieutenant, Infantry, 05353583 (559-62-4266). Lee (as
he was commonly known) and I were classmates in flight school, class number
OFWAC 69-6. We received our wings and aero designation 6 May 1969, in accordance
with Special Order number 95, Headquarters, United States Army Aviation
School, Fort Rucker, Alabama.
The night before graduation, Lee invited me to meet his parents who had come
to Fort Rucker to attend their son's graduation. He had a very nice family,
and this good looking, single young man had a bright future ahead of him.
I stayed behind to attend an advanced transition course at Fort Rucker,
and Lee went ahead to an assignment to Vietnam. Our parting at Fort Rucker
during graduation was the last time I saw Lee.
I arrived in Vietnam in October 1969 and initially flew the same type of airplane
(my handle was "CatKiller 49") that Lee piloted when shot down. Lee and
his observer are missing after their crash in such an aircraft during October
1969.
I'm hurt, angry, and very sad that he remains in the category of Missing In
Action. Here is what I know about his circumstances and fate [from George
``Gunny'' Fallon, Operation
Just Cause]:
Name: Franklin Lee Weisner
Rank/Branch: O2/US Army
Unit: 219th Aviation Company
"Headhunters", 17th Aviation Group, 223rd Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation
Brigade
Date of Birth: 21 March 1945
(Oakland, CA)
Home City of Record: Ft. Benning,
GA (or Long Beach, CA)
Date of Loss: 10 October 1969
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 1500554N 1074835E
(ZB043728)
Status (in 1973): Missing In
Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: O-1G [Army
airplane used for observation]
Other Personnel In Incident:
Calvin Maxwell (missing)
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS
The Cessna
O1 Bird Dog was an indispensable craft for forward air controllers in the
early years of the war in Indochina. The aircraft, cruising at highway
speeds, could fly close enough and slow enough to detect things a higher
and faster flying aircraft could not. When the targets were found, they
were marked with rockets and air strikes called in. Smoke from carefully
placed rockets brought swift destruction upon the enemy and also prevented
accidental bombing of friendly troops.
In the
early years of the conflict, the O-1 patrolled the roads over which friendly
truck convoys passed, searching for ambush sites. For a time, the mere
presence of one of these planes served as a deterrent, since the enemy
was reluctant to open fire, reveal his location, and invite fighters controlled
by the slowly circling Bird Dog. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soon
grew bolder, however, and any group that believed it had been sighted would
open fire, trying to bring down the forward air controller and reduce the
accuracy of the impending strike.
By October
10, 1969, the Vietnamese were trying to knock the vulnerable Bird Dog out
of the air. On that day, they successfully downed the craft flown by Franklin
L. Weisner and Calvin Maxwell in Quang Nam Province. Capt. Weisner was
the pilot and Capt. Maxwell the observer in the "high aircraft" (serial
#51-11942) in a flight of two O-1G aircraft on a high/low search mission
on that day in Military Region 2 (MR2), South Vietnam. The aircraft flew
from the "Headhunters" 219th Aviation Company, 17th Aviation Group, while
the observer was an artillery man from 14th Artillery, 6th Battalion. A
high/low search involved a "low" aircraft moving slower and close to the
ground doing the looking for target locations (in this case, undoubtedly
for artillery targets), and a "high" aircraft doing the location identification
andconfirmation.
The
low aircraft made radio contact with Capt. Weisner as they were proceeding
down a valley. About 10 or 15 seconds after this radio contact, the low
aircraft picked up a radio transmission in which, after a few minutes,they
heard screams and moans. No further radio contact could be made with the
high aircraft. (Note:
there are discrepancies in the records of Weisner and Maxwell - on some
records, they are coded as a helicopter crew lost in KontumProvince [Lee
was not a helicopter pilot, DMR]. All records indicate the aircraft type
as O-1G. Additionally, various records place the loss in Kontum, Quang
Nam, or Binh Dinh provinces, but coordinates are in Kontum Province, about
five mile northeast of the city of Dak Pek. In
addition to location and aircraft type discrepancies, each man has two
home cities of record listed in different records.)
On October
13, search aircraft found the wreckage of the Weisner/Maxwell aircraft
lying inverted in a fast-flowing river. Ground search teams were brought
into the area the next day and confirmed the tail number as that of Weisner
and Maxwell. They reported that the aircraft had hit a cliff above the
river and had slid into its present position.
Barefoot
tracks of four people were found in the area, but no bodies were located.
A scuba team was brought in [probably at the direction of Lee's father,
a high-rakming naval officer], and reported that both seat belts and shoulder
harnesses were still hooked together in the cockpit, but no seat pads remained
in the aircraft. One seat pad and an aviator's helmet were
located about 100 meters downstream
of the crash. An 8 inch thick tree had been carried
to the site for unknown reasons.
Two 30-calliber holes were found in the aircraft, but they would not have
caused the malfunction and would not have wounded either crew member. All
searches were terminated on October 18 with no remains recovered, and no
further information as to the fate of Maxwell and Weisner.
Weisner
and Maxwell were classified Missing In Action, with a strong probability
that the enemy know their fates. Whether they survived to be captured is
unknown. When 591 Americans were released from prisons at the end of the
war, they were not among them. But, as thousands of reports have indicated,
neither were hundreds of others who survived and were
captured. Many of them, according
to many authorities, are still alive and held captive
today. Weisner and Maxwell could
be among them. It's time these men were brought
home.
