10 MIAs Identified; Hanoi to Let U.S. Dig at Crash Site

The Defense Department said today that it has identified 10 more sets of remains from the Vietnam War and that Vietnam has agreed in principle for the first time to allow a joint excavation of a B-52 crash site.

Commodore James D. Cossey, the acting deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said the tentative agreement to allow a group of Americans to join Vietnamese in excavating the crash site was worked out during a technical meeting in Hanoi last month.

Cossey said the crash site was located in the Hanoi area and that he hoped the excavation could begin “in the near future.” He added that the United States was encouraged by Vietnam’s willingness to allow the excavation.

Cossey said the 10 new identifications had been confirmed by an Army laboratory in Hawaii.

Among those identified was Navy Lt. (j.g.) Donald H. Brown Jr. of Berkeley, Calif. He was lost in North Vietnam on Aug. 12, 1965.

Also on the list was was a civilian, Jean Claud Lecornec, a man with dual French and American citizenship who had voluntarily returned to Vietnam in May or June of 1975 in an attempt to find his family there. Lecornec, of Clear Lake Oaks, Calif., was taken prisoner and apparently died of dysentery in May or June of 1976 while in captivity.

Part of Larger Group

The 10 remains identified today were among 26 turned over by the Vietnamese to a U.S. delegation on Aug. 14. The Pentagon had identified the first nine of those 26 remains on Oct. 8. Those nine were subsequently flown to California and returned to their families on Oct. 10.

Cossey said the latest group of 10 remains will be flown to California next Tuesday.

Cossey added the Army lab hopes to resolve the status of the other seven sets of remains within the next two weeks.