Missing In Action Serviceman Identified

[Shortdawg]

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

No. 289-05
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mar 25, 2005
Media Contact: (703)697-5131
Public/Industry Contact: (703)428-0711

Missing In Action Serviceman Identified


The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced
today that the remains of a U.S. Navy pilot, missing in action from the Vietnam
War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full
military honors.



Navy Lieutenant Commander J. Forrest G. Trembley of Spokane, Wash.,
will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery on April 1.



On August 21, 1967, Trembley and his fellow crewman took off in their
A-6A *Intruder* from the U.S.S. Constellation on a strike mission against the Duc
Noi rail yards near Hanoi, North Vietnam. On leaving the target area, their
aircraft and another one in the flight were attacked by enemy MiGs. When last
seen, the two aircraft were disappearing into the clouds near the
Vietnamese-Chinese border. The last radio message from Trembley indicated the MiGs
were in hot pursuit, but no further communications were heard.



Later that day, the Chinese government reported that two U.S. A-6s had
been shot down over the People's Republic of China (PRC). The broadcast noted that
one of the four crewmen had been captured but the other three died in the shoot
down. The Chinese released the surviving crewman in March 1973.



With the assistance of the Chinese government, a joint U.S.-PRC team
interviewed witnesses to the shoot down and crash in 1993 and 1999. U.S.
specialists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) interviewed a Chinese
citizen near the crash site. He turned over Trembley's identification tag and
fragmentary human remains alleged to be those of American pilots. The team
recovered some pilot's gear from a burial site, but found no additional human
remains.



Scientists of the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification
Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA as one of the forensic tools to identify the
remains as those of Trembley.



Of the 88,000 Americans missing in action from all conflicts, 1,836 are
from the Vietnam War, with 1,399 of those within the country of Vietnam. Another
747 Americans have been accounted for since the end of the Vietnam War.



For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to
account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at www.dtic.mil/dpmo, or
call 703-699-1169.