Daughter says missing pilot’s remains unearthed in Vietnam
A daughter of Nellis Air Force Base pilot Col. John O’Grady, who went missing in action when his fighter-bomber jet was shot down over Vietnam in 1967, says a Vietnamese agency team extracted his remains May 25 in Quang Binh Province.
But U.S. officials from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) said in response to a Review-Journal query that no remains were recovered during a dig that was suspended because of interference from the daughter, Patricia O’Grady.
A statement Thursday from Patricia O’Grady, a 1970 graduate of Bishop Gorman High School, said that "an unofficial and undeclared recovery process that did not include any U.S. personnel recovered a full skeleton with dog tags from the grave site as expected." The statement said she was the only American on site in the Minh Hoa District when the remains were recovered by a team from Vietnam’s Office for Seeking Missing Persons.
Her statement came in response to comments from a JPAC spokeswoman in Hawaii. "The JPAC and Vietnamese team had only made initial steps in working the site. No evidence was recovered before the suspension. Furthermore, excavations were not conducted prior to JPAC arriving at the site, nor did any excavations occur after the team suspended the site," JPAC spokeswoman Elizabeth Feeney wrote in an email to the Review-Journal on Wednesday.
Previously, Feeney said JPAC suspended a recovery operation in Quang Binh Province "due to increased concern about the safety and well-being of a family member."
Feeney was unavailable Thursday, but Air Force Maj. Phillip Ulmer, director of JPAC’s Public Affairs Office, said in an email that he has no reaction to Patricia O’Grady’s statement "only to say that I cannot speak on behalf of the Vietnamese government, and that there was no exhumation and that no remains have been discovered or recovered from the site."
Terry O’Grady, a 1974 Bishop Gorman High School graduate and one of three brothers among the seven O’Grady siblings, said in a telephone interview that his oldest sister, Patricia Grady, caused the excavation to be suspended.
"I believe JPAC. I believe our government. JPAC has confirmed and the State Department and the Vietnamese Embassy has confirmed personally to me and my brother, Jack, that no remains have been extracted from the alleged burial site at any point in time. JPAC and the Air Force Casualty Office indicated that the reason for the termination of the excavation was due to the conduct and behavior of Patricia O’Grady at the site, and it was described as ‘belligerent, disruptive and interfering.’"
In a telephone interview from Oahu, Hawaii, one JPAC official with knowledge of the case, Robert Maves, said, "We were planning to be there 30 days at the site until this happened."
In Las Vegas, one of Col. O’Grady’s daughters, Tara O’Grady, said she "had hopes for many years that he was alive. I want closure. I hope to honor my father with a funeral or memorial service."
The U.S. Air Force Casualty Office lists Col. O’Grady’s primary next of kin as his wife, Diana C. O’Grady, who lives in Menifee, Calif., according to Terry O’Grady.
Col. O’Grady, a Naval Academy graduate who became an Air Force pilot, was a major at the time he ejected. He radioed on April 10, 1967, that his F-105D jet had been hit by enemy fire while on a bombing run. Maj. O’Grady landed in a tree, far from where his comrades thought he would be because the wind had carried him away.
Two Vietnamese soldiers found him. Patricia O’Grady said the soldiers, Nguyen Huy Thiet and Vo Dinh An, told her that he had a broken leg and seemed generally OK but that he soon died, perhaps from internal injuries. The men buried him with his dog tags near a star fruit tree so they would remember where he was. They took her to the grave site on May 21, according to her statement.
She said the excavation team from the Vietnam’s Office for Seeking Missing Persons had orders "to pressure" her to leave the grave site.
When they recovered some remains "the only American on the mountain to bear witness was Patty O’Grady. Patty also has confirmation of the recovery from multiple sources in the village of Dan Hoa/Y Leeng," her statement said.
The statement said that JPAC "can deny there was any recovery of remains because there were no remains recovered by the U.S. team before, during, or after the suspension of the excavations by U.S. personnel."
Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
