The remains of Air Force Maj. Thomas Barry Mitchell were not found in the crater that marked the spot where his C-130A crashed 42 years ago near the Laotian border.
But decades after the plane went down under heavy artillery fire, searchers located the wreckage and sifted his Air Force Academy ring from soil at the crash site.
It was enough to bring some sense of closure to Josephine Fitzpatrick, Mitchell’s stepsister. “It feels like a huge relief, it is a big burden lifted from my shoulders,” the Long Beach, Calif., woman said Monday.
A full military funeral was held last week at Arlington National Cemetery for Mitchell, who moved from New Jersey to Littleton in 1960, and eight other members of his crew.
Mitchell was 27 when he climbed into the cockpit to fly the lumbering, four-engine aircraft on a mission to drop flares near the Vietnam border. He was a young man who loved tinkering with engines, and who set his sights on the Air Force Academy because he wanted to fly.
“He was a really fun guy. Sometimes things happen and you turn the person into a plaster saint, but he wasn’t,” Fitzpatrick said. “He was constantly taking apart engines; he used to drive my mother crazy.”
The C-130A flew as Blind Bat 01, according to a website recounting the mission by Harold W. Lowe, who served with Mitchell.
The plane’s mission was to “find, illuminate and direct airstrikes against North Vietnamese truck convoys. We also struck river traffic (sampans), AAA sites, river fords, bridges and POL (petroleum, oil, lubricant) dumps. Occasionally we supported ground operations and rescue missions,” Lowe wrote.
Lowe, who couldn’t be reached for comment, wrote that he helped instruct Mitchell before Mitchell took over as one of two pilots on the aircraft. “As a result of my instructional rides and checkout of pilots Bill Mason and Tom Mitchell, I came to the conclusion that Tom was an exceptional C-130 pilot and a go-to guy for the Blind Bat mission.”
Mitchell’s plane went down over one of the most heavily defended areas of southern Laos, and crashed on the Vietnam side of the border, according to Lowe.
Stepsister Fitzpatrick was 26, one year younger than Mitchell, when he was reported missing. “My mother called and said two officers came with a telegram that said he was overdue from his mission. I think about 48 hours later we got another telegram saying he was officially missing.”
Mitchell’s parents died before his fate was known. “At first we thought that he would be found and he would come out, but time went on and he didn’t, so it was very difficult.”
Search teams from the U.S, Vietnam and Laos found the remains and personal items after a series of searches.
The wreckage was found in 2000, according to Lowe.
“I believe they found them somewhat accidentally,” said Fitzpatrick. “They were looking for another crash site and there was a local person who said a large plane had crashed in the mountains.”
Search teams went back to the site several times over four or five years, excavating and sifting through dirt, Fitzpatrick said.
The remains were sent to Hawaii, where DNA matches were used to identify some of the dead. “With some there was DNA evidence and in some cases there were only personal articles. In his case what they had found was his class ring from the Air Force Academy with his name inscribed in it,” said Mitchell’s half-brother, Ken Mitchell, 52, of Franktown, an information technology manager for the Cherry Creek School District.
Mitchell’s parents would have been relieved that he was found, said Fitzpatrick.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
