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Recover Lost American Service Members

World War II 1941-45	Korean War 1950-53	Vietnam War 1963-73	Gulf War 1990-91
More than 86,000 missing	More than 8,000 missing	Nearly 2,000 missing	One missing

For 35 years, Oklahoma City resident Patricia Slattery sought information about her brother's death, but the details seemed to have vanished when he did. All Slattery knew was that his U.S. Army helicopter, struck by ground fire, crashed in Vietnam in April 1969 — and while others onboard escaped, her brother, William Konyu, didn't.

July 31, though, Slattery attended a meeting at the Westin Hotel in downtown Oklahoma City. The meeting, sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department and agencies under its umbrella, brought families of missing service members together with those who are trying to bring them home. Suddenly, Slattery had more information than she ever expected. In one document, all the details emerged — not only of her brother's death, but of government efforts to find him.

With the document came a realization. "They're here for us," the New Jersey native said. "They're here for the people who lost loved ones." And they're still looking.

The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) has the responsibility of trying to recover lost American service members from the Persian Gulf War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Korean War and World War II. "It's a great job," said Johnnie Webb, senior adviser to JPAC. "I think it is important."

Formed in 2003 from the union of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory and the Joint Task Force — Full Accounting, JPAC boasts 425 civilian and military personnel and an impressive array of resources, equipment and laboratories. Six investigative teams, working on information gathered by historians and analysts, seek information leading to promising sites, and 18 recovery teams launch painstaking searches under often-arduous conditions. "It's especially difficult working in an environment like North Korea," Webb said. "We're relying on technology, relying on capabilities that didn't exist before. We're doing recoveries in places where they couldn't get to back in World War II."

Since reclamation efforts started in 1973, recoveries include the remains of more than 775 service members in Korea and Vietnam and the excavation of a World War II plane — with an Oklahoman among its crew — that crashed into a mountain in Tibet. Webb, like others involved in the search, travels to a different city each month to participate in a briefing — called a "Family Update" - for relatives of the lost. The regional gathering last weekend attracted families living within 300 miles of Oklahoma City. About 100 people attended. National meetings are held each summer, usually in Washington, D.C., and draw about 1,000 people.

Deanna Klenda is usually among them. "I started in 1983, started going to the National League of Families meetings with my parents," said Klenda, a Kansas resident who attended the Oklahoma City meeting. "I've been going ever since." In 1965, Klenda's brother, an F-105 pilot in the Air Force, ejected from his plane after ground fire struck it over North Vietnam. His parachute failed to open and he plunged into the jungle. His remains have not been found.

The day he left for Vietnam, Deanna Klenda gave her brother a going-away present: a bouquet of weeds. "He was my best friend," Klenda said, "and it just seemed funny. A bouquet of Kansas weeds. That was fun." Months later, her only sibling went missing.

Sept. 17, 1965, Air Force Maj. Dean Klenda, an F-105 Thunderchief pilot, was flying a bombing mission over North Vietnam when his plane was hit by enemy fire. Amid the flying debris, another pilot watched as Klenda ejected. The parachute failed to deploy, and Klenda, 25, disappeared. "This happened around noon," Deanna Klenda said. "They looked for him with helicopters until midnight. They couldn't find signals."

In the years that followed, government recovery teams continued to seek Dean Klenda's remains. "They've gone in to look for him on several occasions and excavated three times," Deanna Klenda said. "We've had witnesses actually find what they think are his remains and bury them." Attempts have been complicated by the changing land, which has been farmed, burned and overturned in the past 39 years. Now a farmer has found bone fragments and another expedition is planned, Deanna Klenda said.

Klenda said the situation is difficult to deal with — the waiting, the uncertainty, the still painful feelings of loss. But it's worth it. "I would be overjoyed if my brother's remains would be found and returned for burial next to my other family members," Klenda said. Then Klenda could give him a real bouquet — flowers, this time. And maybe just a few more weeds.

Klenda said she has little hope her brother survived, but in a way, the family updates and the JPAC staff help her keep his memory alive. "They're like a part of him," Klenda said, crying. "They just are a part of him, and I've looked forward to this meeting, even though I just saw everyone at the national meeting in June, and it's going to be really sad leaving today because I won't see these people again until next June, and it just fills a void for me. I don't think they realize how much they give me. It's a warm fuzzy that I can only get from these people."

Something from nothing

The Oklahoma City briefing was Slattery's first. If she has her way, it won't be the last. For decades, Slattery knew only the roughest outline of her brother's death. She didn't even know anyone was trying to find him. Now she knows more.

A summary of her brother's case was provided to her at the briefing. According to that document:

• About 1:30 p.m. on April 16, 1969, her brother — William Konyu, 22 — was piloting a UH-1H helicopter on a combat insertion mission into a landing zone. Three other crew members and some passengers were aboard.
• As the helicopter neared the landing spot, enemy fire erupted from the front and left.
• "The windshield on the right side shattered," the summary indicates, "and ... Konyu screamed and threw his hands up to his face as he slumped forward over the controls. He lost control of the aircraft, and it crashed ... rolling on its left side and burning."
• The others on board were rescued, but Konyu could not be reached amid the fire. When searchers returned four days later, his body was gone.

Since 1991, developments have been made in Konyu's case, the summary shows. Among them are "credible" reports that a Vietnamese man found one of Konyu's dog tags, a St. Christopher medallion and two bones near the crash site in 1990.

For Slattery, the news is simultaneously painful, welcome and overwhelming. "For 35 years, I didn't hear anything," Slattery said. "The first couple of years, I thought he was still alive. Then after that, I thought if he was alive, he'd somehow let me know, but there was nothing. "And now there's something."

Cpl. John Hanlon

About two weeks before his death, Cpl. John Hanlon wrote a letter from India to his parents back home in Arnett. In this letter, written 13 days before his plane crashed, Cpl. John Hanlon commented on the impending weather. "It will rain practically every day," he wrote. "Sure will hate to see it come, for it is so nice here now."

The 22-year-old wrote,

Say, Mom, do you think you could get my baptism certificate sent to me right away so ... I could receive communion right before Easter."

Hanlon's brother, Tom, said he still gets goose pimples when he reads that. "I stop and think, just a few days before his plane goes down and he starts thinking about God," he said.

March 27, 1944, John Hanlon and the others aboard his twin-engine C-46 transport plane vanished on the return leg of a cargo-hauling trip from India to China. The plane was flying the dangerous course later known as "the aluminum trail" — so named because debris from crashed planes littered the ground below. "They got in a bad storm," said Tom Hanlon. "And because navigation back then wasn't anything like it is today, we know the plane wandered off course and got over Tibet." The plane crashed into a Himalayan mountain, about 14,000 feet high. The aircraft remained there 58 years.

In 2002, the Chinese government notified U.S. authorities that Tibetan hunters had found the plane.

"The fuselage of the plane was still pretty much intact," Tom Hanlon said. "But the wings had been tore off. Of course, the old tires were long gone. ... If it hadn't been so high, there might've been somebody survived." Reports showed the recovery team found remains of four fliers. Tom Hanlon said two have been identified, but their names won't be released until all four are identified.

The wait has been long — a long time to wonder with little to cling to but an old photo and an aging letter. "Good-nite," John Hanlon wrote all those years ago. "And God bless you all."

James Kelly

Sept. 13, 1952, a Russian fighter over North Korea shot down James W. Kelly, a left gunner on a Boeing B-29 bomber, Raymond Kelly said. The bodies of some of the crewmen were recovered, and one person survived. He and his brother were just two years apart, and they had grown even closer in the years leading up to the war. Then war came. James Kelly was sent to Korea, his brother to Iceland. "I got a telephone call from somebody with the war department," Kelly said. "They just said the plane didn't come back."

Two years later, Kelly's brother was declared dead. Proof would be comforting, Kelly said. Then he'd know for sure his brother is with their parents in the afterlife. "I guess you could say that's kind of what's carried me over the time," Kelly said. "Even though I didn't know where he was or what happened to him, I knew that the Lord knew."

More Information

To learn more about Family Updates, contact the service casualty office for the military department.

Air Force: (800) 531-5501.

Army: (800) 892-2490.

Marine Corps: (800) 847-1597.

Navy: (800) 443-9298.

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