ASSOCIATED PRESS Vietnamese workers in November 2000 dug for remains from an American fighter plane that crashed 35 years ago at a site at Trung Vuong village in Phu Tho province.

ID of remains gives
family closure after 35 years

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Nearly four decades ago, Air Force Capt. Lawrence Evert was within hours of leaving Thailand to go home to Arizona to see his eldest son baptized and his fourth child born.

COURTESY PHOTO Lawrence Evert: Declared missing in action in 1973 after he was lost in Vietnam

"He was packed and coming home," said son David Evert, 40, reliving some of the events that have haunted his family for nearly 35 years.

But Lawrence Evert never made it home. His F-105 Thunderchief jet was shot down on a bombing run on a railroad bridge outside Hanoi. His youngest daughter was born five days later.

Saturday, during the Fourth of July weekend, Evert, who was promoted posthumously to lieutenant colonel, will finally return home to Chandler, Ariz. He will be buried in nearby Mesa, outside Phoenix.

On Nov. 8, 1967, Evert, 29, was asked to fill in when the engine of another Thunderchief assigned to the 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron failed.

He joined a flight of four Thunderchiefs that took off from Takhli Airbase in Thailand bound for North Vietnam. Evert's call sign was "Bison 04."

Their target was a railroad bridge located 15 miles from Hanoi. The bridge was in an open and densely populated region laced with rivers, waterways and roads. Rice paddies dotted the farms in the area.

As Evert's family later learned from the Bisons' flight leader, the F-105s began their bomb run shortly after 9 a.m.

"There was a thumbs-up signal, and then the planes rolled over and headed down," said son Dan Evert, who still lives in Chandler. "My dad's plane was the last in the flight, and no one ever saw him after that. They didn't know he was missing until he failed to make the rendezvous."

At least one pilot saw a mushroom cloud that could have been the aircraft impact. One pilot reported hearing Evert radio, "I'm hit!"

It is believed that Evert's jet was struck by enemy anti-aircraft artillery fire.

He was declared missing in action in 1973.

Over the years, the family had been presented with at least seven different scenarios, including some that had him taken as a prisoner of war.

But in October 2000, Department of Defense and Air Force casualty officials presented Evert's family with specific information about his whereabouts: color photos of the crash site. The family also was told that President Clinton wanted to visit the excavation being done outside Hanoi.

That led Dan Evert to make three visits to the crash site, beginning with Clinton's visit in November 2000.

It was on the third trip, in July 2001, that "we really got to see all the evidence come together," Dan Evert said.

Personnel from Hawaii's U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory and Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, which had been working in the area since 1993, had recovered Evert's wallet with his ID card, his dog tags, a religious symbol and his .38-caliber pistol. "The only thing that was missing was his wedding ring," said David Evert, who lives in Woodland, Calif.

In June 2000, investigators believed they had pinpointed the area where the Thunderchief crashed. Located in rice fields at the base of a railroad track, a reinforced structure had to be built to prevent the collapse of the rail line, and electric poles were relocated.

"The landowner had filled in the crater where the jet had crashed," said David Evert, who accompanied his brother on the November 2000 visit.

But the area had been marked by seepage of jet fuel over the years, which had killed many plants in the area.

"The jet fuel was still seeping to the surface," David said.

Evert's remains were brought to the Army lab at Hickam Air Force Base last October where forensic anthropologists made a positive identification.

David Evert said the most difficult part over the past four decades has simply been "not knowing what happened."

Today, the two brothers were to wrap their father's remains in an Army blanket and place them in a metal casket, accompanied by a set of full-dress Air Force blues, for the final flight to Phoenix, where he left nearly 35 years ago.

"I still remember Dad walking up the steps to the TWA jet at the Phoenix airport," Dan Evert said. "He turned and waved.

"That was on July 31, 1967. It was my sister Tammy's third birthday."