"Alone Again-Naturally" by Gilbert O'Sullivan




Captain Harold J. Hellbach




Name: Harold James Hellbach
Rank/Branch: O3/US Marine Corps
Home City of Record: New Orleans LA
Date of Loss: 19 May 1967
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 170403N 1070255E (YD180880)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F8E
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 April 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.

REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: The Vought F8 "Crusader" saw action early in U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Its fighter models participated both in the first Gulf of Tonkin reprisal in August 1964 and in the myriad attacks against North Vietnam during Operation Rolling Thunder. The Crusader was used exclusively by the Navy and Marine air wings (although there is one U.S. Air Force pilot reported shot down on an F8) and represented half or more of the carrier fighters in the Gulf of Tonkin during the first four years of the war. The aircraft was credited with nearly 53% of MiG kills in Vietnam.
The most frequently used fighter versions of the Crusader in Vietnam were the C, D, and E models although the H and J were also used. The Charlie carried only Sidewinders on fuselage racks, and were assigned such missions as CAP (Combat Air Patrol), flying at higher altitudes. The Echo model had a heavier reinforced wing able to carry extra Sidewinders or bombs, and were used to attack ground targets, giving it increased vulnerability. The Echo version launched with less fuel, to accommodate the larger bomb store, and frequently arrived back at ship low on fuel. The RF models were equipped for photo reconnaissance.
The combat attrition rate of the Crusader was comparable to similar fighters. Between 1964 to 1972, eighty-three Crusaders were either lost or destroyed by enemy fire. Another 109 required major rebuilding. 145 Crusader pilots were recovered; 57 were not. Twenty of these pilots were captured and released. The other 43 remained missing at the end of the war.
Capt. Harold J. Hellbach was the pilot of an F8E. On May 19, 1967, Hellbach's aircraft crashed near the city of Vinh Linh in Quang Binh Province in South Vietnam. Little hope was held that Hellbach survived, and he was declared Killed/Body Not Recovered. Defense Department records list Hellbach's loss as hostile, so it is presumed that it was related to a combat mission.


Since the war ended, nearly 10,000 reports relating to Americans missing, prisoner or unaccounted for in Southeast Asia have been received by the U.S. Government. Many authorities who have examined this largely classified information are convinced that hundreds of Americans are still held captive today.
Fighter pilots in Vietnam were called upon to fly in many dangerous circumstances, and were prepared to be wounded, killed, or captured. It probably never occurred to them that they could be abandoned by the country they proudly served.

(UPDATE ON CAPTAIN HELLBACH!!!!!From the American Services Press Service:

The remains of a Marine Corps pilot shot down over Vietnam in 1967 have been identified and will be buried July 16, 1998 in Arlington National Cemetery. Captain Harold J. Hellbach was 24 when his F-8E Crusader aircraft was hit May 19, 1967 by enemy fire during a mission over Quang Binh province. He radioed his wingman that he was losing hydraulic power and was heading for the coast, but as the wingman watched, Hellbach's jet rolled, inverted and crashed. No one saw a parachute or picked up emergency beeper signals, and a later search-and-rescue mission came up empty-handed, a DoD POW/Missing Personnel Affairs Office spokesman said. During two 1993 visits to Vietnamese military museums of aircraft wreckage, researchers from the U.S. Joint Task Force-Full Accounting found photographs corresponding to Hellbach's crash. Four years later, a U.S.-Vietnamese team visited the area in the photographs and were led by villagers to a crash site in a cultivated field. The team found parts of an aircraft engine and cockpit glass, the spokesman said. An excavation team went to the crash site in August 1997 and recovered human remains along with numerous pieces of wreckage and personal equipment. The U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii analyzed the evidence and confirmed the remains to be Hellbach's. Hellbach's son, Harold Jr., of New Orleans, and other family members are scheduled to attend the military funeral at Arlington. The remains of 494 missing Americans have been identified since the end of the Vietnam War; 2,089 Americans are still unaccounted-for.


photos courtesy of Carol Hellbach Schlottman and M.R. Patterson





"All Biographical and loss information on POWs provided by Operation Just Cause have been supplied by Chuck and Mary Schantag of POWNET.
Please check with POWNET regularly for updates." 1