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BACK IN THE DAY - 09/14/2008
(by Bryan La Placa - Web Editor and Argus Managing Editor - September 17, 2008)
Soldiers
NORTH JERSEY –Here’s a look at what was published in Suburban Trends around mid-September over the years.
Sept. 11, 1968 – Navy SEAL awarded medal
Petty Officer John S. Fallon was presented the Bronze Star for meritorious actions while serving in Vietnam.
The man from Pompton Plains was a Navy SEAL, and awarded the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor, it was reported.
The medal was awarded by Admiral John J. Hyland, commander in chief of the U.S. Navy, Pacific Fleet, representing President Johnson.
The citation that came with the medal said that the president took pleasure in presenting it to Fallon because of his achievements in operations against the enemy while serving in the Republic of Vietnam from Aug. 26, 1967 to Feb. 17, 1968.
The citation:
“As squad machine gunner, Petty Officer Fallon participated in over 40 combat operations in the river and coastal areas of the heavily infested Viet Cong strongholds of the Mekong Delta.
“Petty Officer Fallon was often called upon to use his extra firepower provided by the machine gun. He always found himself placed in those positions in which his squad leader expected the heaviest contact. He was called upon many times to stay behind on the beach to cover the extraction of his squad. A known guerrilla tactic involved attacking the rear of an extracting squad and Petty Officer Fallon found himself responsible for the safety of his entire squad. Despite the extra weight of the machine gun and its extra load of ammunition, Petty Officer Fallon’s aggressiveness was typical of his outstanding performance.
“While on a patrol during the morning hours of 19 December, 1967, Petty Officer Fallon was narrowly missed by an enemy sniper round. His quick initial reaction wounded the sniper.
“Petty Officer Fallon located the blood trail and after tracking the guerilla for 100 meters, regained contact and killed him.
“Petty Officer Fallon’s devotion to duty, aggressiveness and willingness to place himself in the positions of extreme personal risk were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
“Petty Officer Fallon is authorized to wear the combat ‘V.’”
Sept. 11, 1968 – Armory guard
Queenie, a German shepherd watchdog, was on guard duty to protect the Riverdale Armory from saboteurs.
There were reports of a bombing at a California armory where one army truck was destroyed and several badly damaged by sabotage.
That bombing was attributed to “militant anti-war elements.”
We sent a reporter out to the Riverdale Armory to talk with the soldiers on duty there, but most of them didn’t even know about the California bombing until asked about it by our reporter.
Nevertheless, Queenie was on guard.
Sept. 10, 1978 – Peter Cressman
Veteran reporter Dorothy O’Connor wrote a great article about Peter Cressman, a Vietnam MIA whose family was struggling to find out what happened to him.
At 11:05 p.m. on Feb. 4, 1973, eight days after the Paris Peace Accords were signed to stop hostilities between the United States and North Vietnam, an Air Force EC-47 aircraft departed Ubon Airfield, Thailand, on an operational surveillance mission over Laos. The plane carried eight crewmen, including Sgt. Peter Cressman of Oakland.
Cressman was an Air Force sergeant who volunteered for Vietnam service in 1972. He worked on top-secret coding projects with some of the Air Force’s best language experts.
At approximately 1:25 a.m. on Feb. 5, the aircraft reported observing ground fire. Five minutes later flight crew members stated operations were normal, but after that, no one ever heard from the plane again.
A telegram on Feb. 5 notified Mr. and Mrs. Robert Cressman of St. Petersburg, Fla., former Oakland residents, that their son Peter was “missing in action.”
Three weeks later, their worry turned to grief when the Armed Services announced that the body of Sgt. Peter Cressman was recovered near the wreckage of his plane on Feb. 21.
As the grieving parents made funeral arrangements, the Air Force issued a contradictory communiqué that said that only one body had been recovered – that of the copilot, not of their son.
The Air Force said that it had only assumed that Peter Cressman, along with the other six crewmen, were dead because the plane crash was so severe.
The latter Air Force admission left a spark of hope for the Cressmans that their son was still alive.
The family went on a five-year emotional roller coaster as new information trickled out of the Pentagon and Vietnam.
“We are still very hopeful,” Evelyn Cressman had told Suburban Trends five years earlier after her son first went missing. “I refuse to concede him dead until they (the U.S. Air Force) give us more tangible evidence. There has been no consistency in the stories told us.”
In an attempt to try to resolve the parents’ questions, Sen. William Widnall was contacted, and he promised to get detailed information from the Pentagon. The families of the MIA were in limbo as to whether to accept that their sons were dead, or to continue hoping and praying for their safe return.
In April 1973, Colonel F.A. Humphreys, USAF commander, contacted the Cressmans to offer a “detailed and complete” report as to the why the Air Force classified their son as “killed in action” when his body still hadn’t been found.
Col. Humphreys reported that the crash site was found three days after the plane went down. A rescue team was hoisted down to the crash site from a hovering helicopter on Feb. 9 to search for survivors. The team reported that the aircraft was almost totally destroyed. The fuselage was gutted by what appeared to have been an extremely intense fire, and everything in the fuselage had been reduced to ashes or melted.
The aircraft had crashed upside down and there were no skid marks. Both wing tips had broken off and ended up a distance from the main wreckage.
The team found no survivors, but only the remains of one man, later identified as the first copilot. The report stated that the rescue team’s time on the ground was curtailed because of limited fuel in the hovering helicopter.
A few days later, the field commander declared the whole crew officially dead based on the circumstances of the crash and on the condition report of the aircraft made by the rescue team.
The colonel reasoned that “the severity of the crash, the total destruction of the aircraft, the intense fire, and many other factors were considered before we regretfully reached this decision.”
In closing the colonel said, “When the current intense hostility in the area subsides, hopefully other rescue crews will be sent in. Please be assured that you will be notified immediately of any new findings.”
New evidence
Neither the Cressmans nor the other MIAs’ families were told, however, of an intelligence report received a few days after the crash that said at least four of the men were possibly taken prisoner. A Pentagon spokesman confirmed this information about five years after the crash.
Apparently as a result of questioning by The Atlanta Journal, an Air Force captain called six of the MIAs’ families (including the Cressmans) on July 8, 1978 and tried but failed to reach the two others, Air Force public information officers said.
“He said reporters’ questions are what prompted the whole thing (calling the families) and they wanted to tell us before we read about it or heard about it,” said Evelyn Cressman.
An addendum to the earlier “complete and detailed” report stated: “Shortly after the loss of this aircraft, an intelligence source, that may not be further identified, reported that enemy forces were transporting four captured men who may have been American pilots about 65 kilometers from the crash site.”
After five years, the update “came as a shock and a surprise” to Evelyn Cressman.
“I’d like to know how much more they know,” she said. This “new” information came to the Cressmans on the heels of statements by a Vietnamese refugee, Ngo Phi Hung, at the annual meeting of The National League of Families in San Diego held in July 1978.
Hung, who didn’t speak English, told the families of servicemen missing in action that he saw 49 Americans alive in Vietnam before he escaped from that country in February 1978.
Hung also told the League families that he believed 200 or 250 more Americans were being held prisoner on a “farm” in North Vietnam.
On Aug. 9, 1978 Hung testified before the Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the United States.
While the subcommittee itself made no determination as to Hung’s credibility, a US State Department spokesman said the story was untrue.
A spokesman of Rep. Helen Meyner of the International Relations Committee said that there were several similar stories originating from Vietnamese refugees about American MIAs being held in Vietnam, but that most of the stories were discounted.
“While the stories cannot be verified, neither can they be disproved. They linger as an ugly memory of a war America would like to forget,” wrote Suburban Trends reporter O’Connor.
According to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation, Peter Cressman had written letters to his congressman saying that he thought that the secret U.S. missions in Laos were illegal.
Worldwide sympathy
Send all the bedding and clothing and medical supplies you can round up. Tiny infants are sleeping in cribs with no more protection than a diaper. Some are suffering from sores and bruises from sleeping on bare wooden bottoms,” Peter Cressman had written to Father Leonard of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Oakland.
“Operation: Forget-Me-Not” was born.
Townspeople rallied to the soldier’s call for help, collecting and shipping clothing, supplies and money to orphanages in Vietnam. Cressman was shot down a month after locals sent thousands of dollars worth of supplies to orphans in Vietnam.
An excerpt from one of Sgt. Cressman’s last letters to his mother: “I’m glad to see that people are more interested in something more important than the number of bombs dropped on Hanoi and the number of enemy killed.”
Sister Marie Angela of the Sacred Heart Orphanage in Da Nang said, “We are deeply grieved at Sacred Heart Orphanage to hear that our very dear friend and benefactor Sgt. Peter Cressman is lost in Laos. Sgt. Cressman came to see us as often us his duties would allow while he was stationed at the Da Nang Air Force Base.
“Many times he assured us that his efforts to help our children would be seeing fruition soon. He told us about the wonderful people in Oakland, New Jersey who worked so hard to raise things we need.”
Aftermath
According to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation, Cressman’s remains were brought back to the United States in 1993, and positively identified on Oct. 27, 1995, using a piece of molar recovered from the crash site.
According to PBS, more than 2,000 American servicemen from the Vietnam War are still unaccounted for.
| Comments (1) |
On September 17, 2008 kathryn said:
i was very suprised to hear you ran the article about my brother all the way down here in north carolina but i did.it was good reading about one of his medals ,as he went on to win many more during hir career in the seal team. i just wanted to say thanks for bringing back some old memories. kathryn fallon jackson |
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