Remains of US special forces missing in Vietnam War return home

The suspected remains of two special forces soldiers listed as missing in the Vietnam War were among seven sets of remains sent to the US after a weekend ceremony, an army official said Sunday.

"It was the largest amount of remains in my memory," said Ron Ward, a long-time member of Hanoi-based Detachment 2 of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.

Most of the remains were recovered during recent US-led joint excavations in central and southern Vietnam.

In Quang Tri Province, investigators said they recovered the remains of at least one special forces soldier missing after his long-range patrol of the Ho Chi Minh Trail was caught in a firefight in 1970, Ward said.

Separately, in Quang Nam Province, they recovered the suspected remains of another special forces soldier missing after a 1965 helicopter crash.

In a surprising discovery, Vietnamese workers accidentally found the remnants of a parachute, boots, plane wreckage and human remains while they removed sand from a tributary of the Mekong River, Ward said.

Initial analysis indicates that they could be from an airman whose F-4 fighter-bomber went down in the river in 1968.

Ward cited the "great cooperation of the Vietnamese citizenry and the government" - as well as luck - for the find.

Four other sets of remains are believed to be linked to wartime aircraft crashes, he said.

US officials held a repatriation ceremony Saturday in Danang, central Vietnam, before the remains were flown to Hawaii for further analysis.

AFP