50 Years After This Airman Disappeared In Vietnam, Investigators Made An Astonishing Discovery

In 1968, three A-6 Intruder planes took off from USS Enterprise for a mission over Vietnam. For the two-man crew of one of those aircraft, this mission would not turn out well. Still, it would be more than 50 years before anyone know the story of navigator and bombardier Lieutenant Richard C. Lannom.

Resistance War Against America

When Lannom and Scheurich disappeared in March 1968, the U.S. was well and truly embroiled in the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese communists, with the support of their Chinese allies, called the conflict the “Resistance War Against America.” In fact, the fighting in Vietnam is seen by many as part of the Cold War, the decades-long dispute that pitched America and her allies against communist countries, led by the Soviet Union.

The game changes

A turning point in the war came in January 1968 when the North Vietnamese launched a massive assault, the Tet Offensive. This involved over 85,000 North Vietnamese fighters attacking more than 100 South Vietnamese cities. Fighters even attacked the American Embassy in the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon. Many towns fell to the communists and two more large-scale attacks quickly followed.

The Enterprise responds

After the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam on January 30. The Enterprise resumed its journey to the Tonkin Gulf on February 16. Her specific destination was Yankee Station, a mustering point at sea for U.S. Naval forces some 90 miles off the North Vietnamese coast.

Attack Squadron 35’s A-6 Intruders

Enterprise arrived at Yankee Station on February 21 and airborne combat missions commenced the very next day. On the 23rd, despite bad monsoon weather, Attack Squadron 35’s A-6 Intruders headed out on their first mission of the deployment. They attacked the North Vietnamese port at Hanoi, the country’s capital city.

Lannom and Sheurich

Attack Squadron 35 was Lannom and Sheurich’s unit and this first mission to Hanoi was judged a success. Concerning these types of A-6 missions, it’s worth noting the words of Admiral William F. Bringle, the vice commander of the Seventh Fleet, quoted on the P.O.W. Network website. They give a flavor of what men like Sheurich and Lannom were up against.

The most demanding mission

Admiral Bringle said, “The low-level night missions flown by the A-6 over Hanoi and Haiphong were among the most demanding we have ever asked our aircrews to fly. Fortunately, there is an abundance of talent, courage and aggressive leadership in these A-6 squadrons.” The missions Lannom and Sheurich undertook, then, were no cakewalk.

Concealment

And the A-6 crews continued to fly in the heavy rains and stormy weather that characterize the north-east Asian monsoon season. Indeed, it’s been said that the airmen actively welcomed these bad conditions which persisted through February and into March. Their aircraft were specially designed to cope with the conditions and the bad weather offered the planes a cloak of concealment from the enemy.

The rest of the crew

But let’s return to March 1, 1968. Three A-6s took off from the Enterprise at 6:00 p.m. that day. The lead aircraft, number one, was crewed by pilot and squadron commander Glenn Kollman. Navigating was Johnny Griffin. Lieutenant Commander Greg Young was flying the second plane, with Lieutenant Bill Siegel as navigator. And Lannom and Sheurich were in plane number three.

Attack on Thanh Hoa Bridge

Kollman’s plane was to attack the strategically important Thanh Hoa Bridge. Planes two and three, however, were heading for the Cam Pha barracks, about 90 miles from Hanoi. After the three planes had taken off from the Enterprise, they met up at pre-ordained point just off the North Vietnamese shores. After final weapons and communications checks, it was time to fly to their targets.

On to Cam Pha

Kollman headed west for the seemingly indestructible bridge, while the other two planes, led by Young, set a course northwards for Cam Pha. The approach to this target was fraught with difficulty. The sea was dotted with small islands by the hundred, many with jagged rock formations reaching to the sky. This made low-altitude flying particularly perilous.

The other duo at work

And the mission was made no easier by the fact that there was a heavy concentration of North Vietnamese anti-aircraft defenses in the very area the crews were flying into at low altitude. Young sped in for his attack at 1,500 feet. Sheurich came on the radio to say he was about to attack as well. Young’s plane then dropped its bombs.

The mistake

Meanwhile, Lannom’s plane turned its identification transmitter off. This was presumably to avoid detection by North Vietnamese anti-aircraft batteries. The plane also disappeared from radar as it was flying at a low altitude of 2,500 feet. For all intents and purposes, the A-6 was now undetectable except by the human eyes.

Missing in action

The three planes had a pre-arranged rendezvous point where they were to meet after completing their missions. That location was intended for a situation when one or more of the planes had lost radio contact or sustained damage. Two of the planes arrived on schedule. But there was no sign of Lannom and Scheurich’s aircraft.

Radio silence

The two crews that made it to the rendezvous searched the area for the missing craft, but found nothing. They then tried to raise their buddies on radio. When there was no response, they alerted search and rescue. They, too, drew a blank and no emergency signals from the Intruder were detected. Nor did they spot any wreckage. The mystery was complete. It seemed that Lannom and Scheurich had disappeared into thin air.

Waiting

The two A-6s waited as long as they could in the hope that Lannom and Sheurich would show up. But eventually, with fuel running low, they had no choice but to return to the Enterprise. As they made their way back to the carrier, they radioed the ship to report their comrades missing. The next group of planes due to make an attack from the aircraft carrier then jettisoned their bombs and instead went to search for the missing A-6.

Search and rescue

Lannom and Sheurich’s Navy comrades now made a thorough search for the pair. The Intruder Association website later carried an interview with Bob Benjamin who had been a member of Attack Squadron 35 at the same time as the two missing men. And he’d been flying in one of the planes that ditched their bombs to help with the search.

Covering the compass

“As I remember it was a clear, but dark, night,” Benjamin explained. “If there was a fire on the ground [from the wreckage] we should have been able to see it, but we didn’t. We found neither fire nor a survival radio signal. We searched the area near Cam Pha, the islands south, west and east of Cam Pha and even went north as far as the Chinese border looking for any sign of the wreckage. Nothing.”

A dark night in Cam Pha

Ominously, Benjamin also added, “Cam Pha on a dark night was almost impossible to find on radar; it was a place that was tailor-made to get disoriented; the [limestone] formations and the mountains behind Cam Pha made low-level flying deadly.” And, as a result of the fruitless search, Lannom and Sheurich were declared missing in action.

Getting desperate

The naval authorities then announced that Sheurich and Lannom’s plane must have gone down about 29 miles from Cam Pha in the Bay of Tonkin. But the truth was that nobody really knew where the plane had ditched – or even crashed. Perhaps the men had ejected near their target before being captured by the communists. But it was all speculation.

Could they be POWs?

Nobody knew for sure whether Lannom and Sheurich were dead or alive. But there was still the possibility that the pair had survived and were being held in a North Vietnamese P.O.W. camp somewhere. This, after all, had been the fate of many other U.S. airmen. But this, too, turned out to be a blind alley.

Not heading home

After the U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, just under 600 American prisoners of war were released. Sadly, neither Lannom nor Sheurich were among them. And even now, there are still men that haven’t been accounted for. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, in fact, 1,592 Americans remain missing as of December 2018.

Presumed dead

The years passed and the families of Lannom and Sheurich were left in limbo, not knowing what had happened to their loved ones. In 1978, however, the Navy declared that Sheurich was no longer missing in action. Instead, he was now presumed dead. But for both families, there was still no grave to grieve over.

What the witness saw

But that wasn’t the end of the story for Lannom’s family. Indeed, employees of the Office for Seeking Missing Persons, a Vietnamese state organization, tracked down some local witnesses to a 1968 incident. They’d seen a U.S. plane crash on the densely forested island of Tra Ban, just off the coast of the mainland.

Explosions

One witness gave a convincing account of visiting the site where an American plane had crashed. The location was a mountain top on Tra Ban, near a village called Na San. The man also said he’d found a helmet belonging to a pilot. Another local witness described hearing an explosion one night. These testimonies were compelling enough to prompt the Vietnamese authorities to take further action.

Office for missing persons

In 2017, a team from the Office for Missing Persons visited Tra Ban. There, they found plane wreckage and human remains. The following year, the remains underwent DNA analysis and a positive identification was made. It was Lannom. At last, after a 50-year wait, his family finally knew what had happened to him.

Burial

On March 2, 2019 Lannom was buried, 51 years and one day after his death. His final resting place is in his hometown of Union City, T.N. The airman’s wife, Charlotte, spoke to CBS News. “I just want him to know how proud I have been all of these years, to have been his wife… I would just like to be able to tell him,” she said. Sadly for Thomas Sheurich’s family, however, his remains are yet to be discovered.

Down in Pensacola

Thomas Edwin Scheurich was born in 1933 and brought up on his parents’ farm near Norfolk, Nebraska, along with his brother and two sisters. He was a student at Norfolk Junior College and graduated from there in 1953. After that, he attended pre-flight training at the Pensacola, Florida, Naval Air School.

A lotta bombs

Scheurich went on to become a qualified pilot of the Grumman A-6 Intruder. This was an assault plane specifically designed as an all-weather craft and was one of the main planes used by the U.S. Navy at the time of the Vietnam War. And it could carry up to 18,000 pounds of bombs, making it a highly effective attack plane.

Counting the losses

The A-6 often flew at low altitudes to deliver its deadly payload. And that is just what Sheurich and Lannom were doing on their mission to bomb Cam Pha barracks. Unfortunately, this low-flying meant the A-6 was a target for anti-aircraft weapons. And, in fact, the military lost 84 of the planes during the course of the conflict.

Volunteer

When the Vietnam War got under way, Sheurich actually volunteered for active service despite being 35 at the time. Towards the end of 1967, he deployed to the USS Enterprise. And that, of course, was the ship from which he and his navigator, Lieutenant Lannom, took off on their March 1 mission in 1968.

Tito

Sheurich’s flying partner, Richard Clive Lannom – who inherited the nickname “Tito” from his father – was born in Union City, Tennessee in 1941. A keen athlete at school, he went on to attend the University of Tennessee, where he studied business administration. And it was while at college that he met his future wife, Charlotte.

C-130 Hercules

Lannom graduated from college in 1965 and, from there, signed up for the Officer Candidate School, also in Pensacola. The young airman started out flying in C-130 Hercules planes but then transferred to the Intruders. He then received training for them at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington state. And, like Sheurich, he joined USS Enterprise at the end of 1967.

An authentic look at Vietnam

The Vietnam War was one of the longest, deadliest, and most significant conflicts in U.S. history, but if you were to flip open any old history textbook, the words within would just barely scratch the surface of its impact. Though nearly half a century has passed since the final shots were fired, these rare photos prove there was much more to the Vietnam War than what we learned in history class.

A job well done

The thrill of survival was a rare feeling for U.S. troops that crossed into the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. Here, a group of American soldiers are seen celebrating following their safe return from the Long Tom spiking raid near Con Tien in 1968.

Pups on patrol

Plenty of wars have seen dogs deployed on the battlefield, though not all of these pups were made for fighting. While some dogs were returned home if they proved unfit for duty, others were kept around as pets to help boost soldier morale.

First shots fired

On September 30, 1968, the USS New Jersey fired its first shells into the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. The New Jersey was the only U.S. battleship to provide gunfire support during the war.

Visiting troops

While Lyndon Johnson began his presidency with widespread approval, public support declined as he ramped up U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Here, LBJ is pictured greeting American troops overseas circa 1966.

From the skies

U.S. troops were woefully unprepared when it came to fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, leading most operations to be conducted by air toward the end of the war. Pictured here are over 800 soldiers parachuting into South Vietnam's Tay Ninh province as part of operation Phi Hoa II.

Lotto of life

Not many people know that the draft lottery for the war effort was a literal lottery. On December 1, 1969, young men from all across the country watched as 366 tiny blue capsules rattled around a plastic tube to ultimately decide their fate.

Soldiers against war

Along with most draft-eligible men, veterans of both the conflict in Vietnam as well as previous wars heavily opposed the fighting. Having witnessed the destruction and brutality of war firsthand, it came as no surprise that these men were among the most vocal in protesting U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Running for their lives

Soldiers weren't the only casualties of the Vietnam War, as it's believed more than 2,000,000 civilians also perished in the conflict. Many Vietnamese were forced to flee their homes and villages in the chaos, sometimes escaping with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.

Moments of humanity

Though a lot has been made of the brutality of American soldiers during the war, there were also many instances of humanity and compassion. Here, two G.I.s are seen carrying a young Vietnamese girl out of harm's way.

Praying for protection

With death being uncomfortably close at all times, it should come as no surprise that many soldiers turned to religion. Here, a priest performs a Christian faith service before a crowd of kneeling G.I.s.

A little help from my friends

Despite the U.S. being considered the driving force behind the war, a number of its allies also entered into the fray, including Australia. The country contributed approximately 7,672 combat troops and 50,190 military personnel to the war effort, some of which are pictured here.

Flying high

The might of the U.S.'s military arsenal was put on full display during the Vietnam War, especially when it came to aircrafts. Here, a squadron of eight F4 Phantom IIs are pictured flying over open water circa 1965.

An end to war

On January 27, 1973, the warring sides officially signed the Paris Peace Accords, finally putting an end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Also called the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet Nam, the treaty signing was attended by the governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the Republic of South Vietnam (indigenous South Vietnamese), and the U.S.

Black representation

Despite comprising a small percentage of the U.S.'s civilian population at the time, Black Americans made up 16.3 percent of draftees and 23 percent of combat troops by 1967. Many of these soldiers were poor men already disillusioned by the ongoing racial conflicts back home.

Nixon's telegrams

Richard Nixon was a polarizing president, to say the least, and his policy of "Vietnamization" was no different. Despite receiving a "phenomenal" number of telegrams (pictured here) supporting his plan to better train South Vietnamese soldiers while simultaneously withdrawing U.S. troops from the country, his position ultimately led to the fall of Saigon and the loss of the war.

Music to fill the silence

In the quiet moments when the bombs stopped falling and the gunfire ceased, soldiers turned to things like sports and music to restore even an ounce of normalcy. If we had to guess, this G.I. is probably playing a somber rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son."

Counter protests

While the Vietnam War is often associated with mass countercultural protests, there were also a good number of Americans that supported the war effort. Fearing the spread of communism, these individuals saw the war as just and necessary for the preservation of the American way of life.

A sense of humor

While religion worked for some, others used humor to cope with the grim realities of war. Let's just hope this soldier wasn't making a face at his commanding officer!

Mass protests

The anti-war protests of of the '60s and early '70s could get massive, with tens of thousands of people from all walks of life coming together to call for an end to the bloodshed. Pictured here is one such protest, which took place right at the turn of the decade on January 1, 1970.

Someone's gotta do it

Thirty years prior, during World War II, the images captured were no less incredible. Despite the devastation caused by German bombings just days earlier, this London milkman still made sure his customers would have something to pour on their cereal in the morning.