WASHINGTON (AP) – Nearly four decades after 11 American servicemen were killed by North Vietnamese commandos at a secret radar site in Laos, U.S. investigators have made the first identification of remains – with the help of two of the commandos.

The breakthrough is one of the most remarkable achievements in the U.S. military’s decades-long effort to find and identify the remains of hundreds of U.S. serviceman missing in action from the Vietnam War.

Yet the recovery and identification of the remains of Air Force Tech. Sgt. Patrick L. Shannon, of Owasso, Okla., also created a new mystery. On the mountain ledge where his remains were found, U.S. investigators discovered boots, clothing fragments and other personal items that indicated that some of the other missing Americans had been on the same ledge. None has been seen or heard from since the attack.

Eight of the 19 Americans at the radar site when it was attacked in the early morning of March 11, 1968, were rescued several hours later by CIA helicopters. One of the eight died en route to a base in Thailand.

The capture of the mountain facility marked the start of a major communist offensive in then-neutral Laos. The CIA said in a 1995 study of the episode that it was the beginning of the end for the noncommunist forces in Laos, which today is one of the world’s last communist countries – and one of its poorest.

Larry Greer, a spokesman for the Defense POW-MIA Office, said U.S. investigators plan to return to the area, although no date has been set.

The area is in Houaphan Province, about 25 miles from the provincial capital of Samneua, then a stronghold of the communist Pathet Lao and a gateway between Laos and North Vietnam.

In 1966, the U.S. installed a navigation radar atop Phou Pha Thi mountain, above a landing site known as Lima Site 85. In 1967, it was upgraded with a bombing-control radar to direct U.S. bombers to their targets in North Vietnam. The site was guarded by about 1,000 local Hmong troops advised by CIA paramilitary officers.

The Americans who operated the site were known as Circuit Riders, Air Force technicians operating under civilian cover. The 1995 CIA study said the men proved to be no match for the North Vietnamese commando team that attacked the site, apparently by scaling a 5,600-foot ridge line to reach the radar site.

With the help of the Vietnamese government, two of the commandos were located, interviewed and taken to Lima Site 85 with U.S. investigators in March 2003. The two showed the investigators three places atop the mountain where they said that after overrunning and killing the Americans, they threw the bodies off the cliff.

The investigators then threw mannequins off the cliff at each of those three locations and videotaped the path of the mannequins from a helicopter hovering nearby. That led them to the ledge, about 540 feet below the radar site, where they found human remains later identified as those of Shannon.

“It’s a miracle, it’s amazing news,” said Pamela Shannon, 48, of Oklahoma City, who regards her father as a hero – a 13-year Air Force veteran who was 30 years old at the time he was killed. She said her family was notified of the identification the day before Thanksgiving.

“It was a great holiday. It was shocking,” she said in a telephone interview.

Greer said the investigators also found several personal items on the ledge, including boots, survival vests, a canteen and clothing fragments that indicated the presence of all least three other Americans besides Shannon. It has not been possible to tell from those personal items which Americans they belonged to, Greer said.

DNA matching was used to identify Shannon’s remains, Greer said. The remains will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors.

Since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, 771 missing American servicemen have been accounted for, including 199 lost in Laos. There are 1,812 still listed as missing from the war.

—

On the Net:

Defense POW-MIA Office: http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/

Pentagon: http://www.defenselink.mil