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| Donald Lynn Wann | |
| ON THE WALL: | Panel W3 Line 63 |
| PERSONAL DATA: | |
| Home of Record: | Shawnee, OK |
| Date of birth: | 05/31/1937 |
| MILITARY DATA: | |
| Service Branch: | Army of the United States |
| Grade at loss: | W2 |
| Rank: | Chief Warrant Officer |
| Promotion Note: | None |
| ID No: | 441385627 |
| MOS or Specialty: | 100E: Attack Helicopter Pilot |
| Length Service: | ** |
| Unit: | D CO, 158TH ASLT HELO BN, 101ST AVN GROUP, 101ST ABN DIV, USARV |
| CASUALTY DATA: | |
| Start Tour: | Not Recorded |
| Incident Date: | 06/01/1971 |
| Casualty Date: | 06/01/1971 |
| Age at Loss: | 34 |
| Location: | Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam |
| Remains: | 1971 status: Body Not Recovered. Found later. |
| Casualty Type: | Hostile, died while missing |
| Casualty Reason: | Helicopter - Pilot |
| Casualty Detail: | Air loss or crash over land |
| Status Date: | Not Applicable; was not MIA |
| Status Change: | Not Applicable; was not MIA |
| Repatriated: | 07/29/2008 (Returned to US soil) |
| Identified: | 03/22/2010 |
The family of a U.S. Army helicopter pilot missing for nearly four decades in Vietnam says his remains have been recovered and will be returned to Oklahoma.
Shannon Wann Plaster told The Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle that the remains of her father, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Donald Wann, were found in 2008 and the military recently confirmed the identification. She says Wann's remains will be returned to his hometown of Muskogee in August and will be buried at Fort Gibson National Cemetery.
Wann was one of two soldiers, along with 1st Lt. Paul Magers of Sidney, Neb., deployed in a Cobra gunship on June 1, 1971, to extract a group of Army Rangers under attack, then destroy left behind ammunition and mines near Hill 1015, or Dong Tri Mountain. Wann and Magers were hit with anti-aircraft fire, causing the helicopter to crash somewhere around the hill, about six miles southwest of Thon Khe Xeng. Six radio calls were made to Wann and Magers. None were answered.
Wann and Magers were both members of the 158th Aviation Battalion, 160th Aviation Group, 101st Airborne Division, now based at Fort Campbell, Ky. Their remains were never found after their helicopter crashed.
Decades later, another recovery effort was aided by a lead from an unexpected source: a North Vietnamese soldier whose unit had shot down Wann and Magers' helicopter. The former soldier, Pham Thiet Hung, told searchers that he had approached the wreckage the day after the crash in 1971. About 20 meters from the crash, he found the burned body of an aviator, and placed it in a nearby shallow mortar crater. With Hung's help, Vietnamese and American search teams located the remains of Wann and Magers in July of 2008. Using DNA and dental records, Wann and Magers were identified at JPAC's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.
Last March in San Antonio, Plaster finally received the answer to the question she had asked in her letter to the Pentagon 20 years before.
Wann and Magers were both members of the 158th Aviation Battalion, 160th Aviation Group, 101st Airborne Division, now based at Fort Campbell, Ky.
Wann was a career soldier, though his distinguished military career began in the Navy, where he served from 1955-66. He was a photographer in the Navy, journaling top-secret missions he could never tell his wife, Ruth, about or even where he had been. He deployed to Antarctica as part of Operation Deep Freeze, one of just a handful of soldiers and sailors to do so in their careers.
Wann's funeral will be held at Southeast Baptist Church at 10 a.m. Aug. 21.
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