COURTESY OF THE FAMILY OF JAMES ATLEE WHEELER This photo of Air Force Capt. James Wheeler was taken in 1965 just before he was shot down in South Vietnam.

Pilot’s sons find
closure after 37 years

Military teams locate a Vietnam
crash site linked to a U.S.
officer missing since 1965

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

On Easter Sunday, April 18, 1965, Air Force Capt. James Atlee Wheeler was flying a strike mission in South Vietnam near the Cambodian border when shrapnel from one of his bombs may have struck his aircraft.

As the pilots of other aircraft in his flight watched, Wheeler's A-1E Skyraider began trailing smoke and then dived, crashed and exploded.

"There was an explosion, no parachute was ever seen and an emergency beacon was never activated," said his son, Ray, 45.

"I was only 7 at time. I had hoped that he had been captured and was a POW and that someday he would come home. Yet deep in my heart I knew that wasn't true."

It seems like only yesterday when his father was reported missing, he said. "It was heart-wrenching and hard to deal with the loss."

Nearly four decades later, James Wheeler will be brought home. His remains will be taken to his hometown of Tucson, Ariz., where he will be given a burial with full military honors on June 8.

"He has a headstone at Arlington," his son said, "but we thought it would be more appropriate to be buried next to his father and mother."

James Wheeler, one of Arizona's first casualties of the Vietnam War, was 32 when he was listed as missing in action. He remained on the MIA list for nearly 37 years because his remains were never recovered or identified.

Last year just before Christmas, Ray Wheeler received a phone call at his home in Texas.

"I never thought anyone would find his remains. Then I heard the news; it blew me out of my chair."

Capt. James Wheeler, a member of the 1st Air Commando Squadron, was conducting an interdiction mission against the Viet Cong just south of the South Vietnamese-Cambodian border.

The area was laced with rivers, canals and waterways of all sizes and flowing in all directions. Villages and hamlets surrounded by rice fields dotted the landscape. The VC had several strongholds in this sector, including one in the village of Ba Chuc in the Tri Ton district, in what is now called An Giang province.

Wheeler was piloting a Skyraider, which was brought into service by the Navy in World War II as a propellor-driven dive bomber and saw service over the skies in Korea. In 1963 the U.S. Air Force modified the AD-5 Skyraider for service in Vietnam and re-designated it the A-1E. Because of its ability to carry large bomb loads, absorb heavy ground fire and fly for long periods at low altitude, the A-1E was particularly suited for close-support missions.

As the Skyraiders from the 1st Air Commando Squadron flew low over Ba Chuc, enemy gunners fired at them. Wheeler and the other pilots immediately turned around to attack the enemy position. Other pilots watched Wheeler as he made his dive-bombing attack on the village, releasing a fragmentation bomb that detonated immediately after leaving the aircraft.

They watched in horror as the plane dived straight into the ground, trailing fuel and smoke, and exploding upon impact. None of the pilots saw the canopy or ejection seat leave the aircraft before impact.

In 1994 a joint team of investigators from the U.S. Joint Task Force-Full Accounting and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam excavated a crash site in Ba Chuc. The team discovered that the village no longer exists today. What remains is a flat and grassy area with bamboo, small trees and shrubs.

The team found no signs of an aircraft and no sign of a burial site.

Four years later, another task force team conducted an excavation at the site. In addition to small pieces of wreckage that confirmed that a Skyraider crashed there, the team recovered extremely small bits of glove and flight suit material, helmet shell pieces, parts from a camera, a safety buckle and a piece of cord from the communications system. They also found and recovered 12 small bone fragments but no teeth.

The bone fragments were transported to the Army's Central Identification Laboratory for a thorough forensic examination. Because of the size and condition of the bones, mitochondrial DNA testing to establish a conclusive identification was not possible.

The identification of James Wheeler's remains was determined by the location of the crash site and type of aircraft identified during the excavation.

"I can't wait to bring my dad home," said Ray Wheeler, who works as a project manager for a concrete company in Fort Worth. "It helps bring closure to the whole situation."

"We did everything when I was a kid. He was a great dad. He took my brothers and I camping."

Ray Wheeler and his two brothers, James and Stewart, will fly to Hawaii June 3 to pick up their father's remains and escort them back to Arizona.

In Lake Havasu City in Arizona, there is already a park dedicated to James Wheeler, his son said. "It's in the middle on the city."

It was dedicated in 1965 and has been site of numerous veterans ceremonies.