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Vietnam air crew to be buried 41 years after crash
08:35 AM CST on Thursday, January 13, 2011
By JOE SIMNACHER / The Dallas Morning News
jsimnacher@dallasnews.com
Maj. Robert Leon Tucci and Col. James Eugene Dennany will be buried together Friday at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery – more than 41 years after they were shot down in combat over Laos during the Vietnam War.
The men – both with Texas roots and whose remains are scheduled to arrive in Dallas this morning from Honolulu – were declared missing in action after their F-4 Phantom was hit by anti-aircraft fire while strafing a convoy on the Ho Chi Minh Trail on Nov. 12, 1969. The damaged fighter plane crashed and exploded.
The Dallas ceremony, complete with a flyover by three F-16 Falcons and a now-vintage F-4 aircraft, was years in the making. The U.S. government, using case leads from wartime reporting, started its search for remains in the mid-1990s.
Eventually, the men were identified using forensic tools and circumstantial evidence.
For family and friends, the service at 11 a.m. Friday will at long last provide the final chapter. But the homecoming is too late for others. Tucci's father, Leon J. Tucci, died in 2009.
"My husband's last words were ... 'I'm just sorry that I won't find out about Robert,' " said Tucci's mother, Jean Tucci of Austin. "That's all he kept thinking about, 'Will I find out about my Robert?' "
The last flight
On its last flight, the F-4 crew was on a night reconnaissance mission that included escorting an AC-130 gunship. U.S. officials knew the plane had been shot down but had no access to the wreckage because of the conflict.
Fighting continued in Laos even after the United States and Vietnam ended the war.
With reports of American POWs in Laos, Dennany wasn't listed as presumed dead until June 21, 1978.
The men were lost but never forgotten.
The village of Schoolcraft, Mich., dedicated the second Monday of each month to Dennany, leaving a chair empty in his honor in hope that he might one day return.
By the fall of 1995, a U.S. team for the first time was able to search the area where the F-4 went down. Those results were inconclusive.
Searches continued, and there was a breakthrough in 1999: A pistol issued to Tucci was recovered.
"Having obtained this last bit of information, you would think that they would immediately start looking for the remains," Jean Tucci said. "Unfortunately that was not to be ... not for another three to four years."
Initially, villagers wanted money from the Americans for any remains, according to Jim Dennany Jr. of Humble, Texas, Dennany's son.
Eventually, the remains and items linked to the crew were obtained. The identification was made without the use of DNA technology, said Dennany's daughter Melissa Harrington of Dallas.
"They excavated the crash site," she said. "With that thorough excavation they were able to retrieve bone fragments, but there was no ability to obtain a DNA sequence," she said. "When there is a crash, very often, our military conducts joint burials."
The search for missing Americans is handled by the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command based in Hawaii, which has conducted 116 field investigations in Laos. Most recently, the group completed a 35-day search that excavated three aircraft crash sites and one ground site in search of 12 Americans in the Khammouan, Savannakhet and Xekong provinces.
Both born in Michigan
Tucci and Dennany were both natives of Michigan, but each established Texas roots through military ties.
Tucci, a 27-year-old pilot, was born in Detroit. But he grew up in Fort Worth and Del Valley, near Austin, where his father, an Air Force pilot, was stationed.
"He spent a lot of time here," Jean Tucci said. "He only spent about seven or eight years of his life in Michigan. We spent most of our lives down here."
Tucci graduated from Del Valley High School and received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin in January 1966.
An ROTC cadet, he received a commission in the Air Force and was called to active duty.
Tucci had flown 181 missions as a co-pilot and weapons officer out of Da Nang Air Base during his first tour of duty.
He then took training in Florida to become an F-4 commander, finishing at the top of his class, his mother said.
Tucci then volunteered for a second duty tour in Vietnam. He was based at Udorn Airfield in Thailand and had completed 32 missions before beginning his last assignment.
His co-pilot and weapons systems officer was Dennany. The 34-year-old was born in Mattawan, Mich., where he was on the varsity football team and was a member of the student council in high school. Shy and soft-spoken, he was one of 32 members of his 1953 graduating class.
Dennany entered the University of Michigan but had to leave school after his father died. He joined the Air Force and met his wife-to-be, Emily Hon of Brownsville, while he was training in Harlingen, Texas. The couple had seven children. Emily Dennany died in 2002.
Dennany continued his college studies in the Air Force and received his bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Wyoming.
'What an honor'
Despite the pace of the investigation, Jean Tucci is pleased with the work done to locate her son.
"The casualty department in San Antonio keeps me apprised of everything," she said. "I can't say enough about them. They have just been wonderful to me."
Harrington said it is a great honor to have the U.S. government and military officials take the steps necessary to find and return lost service members.
"It is just incredible ... to bring Dad's and Maj. Tucci's remains back home and give them such a dignified burial," she said. "What an honor."
In addition to his mother, Tucci is survived by his wife, Sharon Tucci of Benbrook.
In addition to his son and daughter, Dennany is survived by three other daughters, Elizabeth Marchan, Marie Lara and Pamela Tabares, all of Brownsville; 12 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Vietnam air crew to be buried 41 years after crash
08:35 AM CST on Thursday, January 13, 2011
By JOE SIMNACHER / The Dallas Morning News
jsimnacher@dallasnews.com
Maj. Robert Leon Tucci and Col. James Eugene Dennany will be buried together Friday at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery – more than 41 years after they were shot down in combat over Laos during the Vietnam War.
The men – both with Texas roots and whose remains are scheduled to arrive in Dallas this morning from Honolulu – were declared missing in action after their F-4 Phantom was hit by anti-aircraft fire while strafing a convoy on the Ho Chi Minh Trail on Nov. 12, 1969. The damaged fighter plane crashed and exploded.
The Dallas ceremony, complete with a flyover by three F-16 Falcons and a now-vintage F-4 aircraft, was years in the making. The U.S. government, using case leads from wartime reporting, started its search for remains in the mid-1990s.
Eventually, the men were identified using forensic tools and circumstantial evidence.
For family and friends, the service at 11 a.m. Friday will at long last provide the final chapter. But the homecoming is too late for others. Tucci's father, Leon J. Tucci, died in 2009.
"My husband's last words were ... 'I'm just sorry that I won't find out about Robert,' " said Tucci's mother, Jean Tucci of Austin. "That's all he kept thinking about, 'Will I find out about my Robert?' "
The last flight
On its last flight, the F-4 crew was on a night reconnaissance mission that included escorting an AC-130 gunship. U.S. officials knew the plane had been shot down but had no access to the wreckage because of the conflict.
Fighting continued in Laos even after the United States and Vietnam ended the war.
With reports of American POWs in Laos, Dennany wasn't listed as presumed dead until June 21, 1978.
The men were lost but never forgotten.
The village of Schoolcraft, Mich., dedicated the second Monday of each month to Dennany, leaving a chair empty in his honor in hope that he might one day return.
By the fall of 1995, a U.S. team for the first time was able to search the area where the F-4 went down. Those results were inconclusive.
Searches continued, and there was a breakthrough in 1999: A pistol issued to Tucci was recovered.
"Having obtained this last bit of information, you would think that they would immediately start looking for the remains," Jean Tucci said. "Unfortunately that was not to be ... not for another three to four years."
Initially, villagers wanted money from the Americans for any remains, according to Jim Dennany Jr. of Humble, Texas, Dennany's son.
Eventually, the remains and items linked to the crew were obtained. The identification was made without the use of DNA technology, said Dennany's daughter Melissa Harrington of Dallas.
"They excavated the crash site," she said. "With that thorough excavation they were able to retrieve bone fragments, but there was no ability to obtain a DNA sequence," she said. "When there is a crash, very often, our military conducts joint burials."
The search for missing Americans is handled by the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command based in Hawaii, which has conducted 116 field investigations in Laos. Most recently, the group completed a 35-day search that excavated three aircraft crash sites and one ground site in search of 12 Americans in the Khammouan, Savannakhet and Xekong provinces.
Both born in Michigan
Tucci and Dennany were both natives of Michigan, but each established Texas roots through military ties.
Tucci, a 27-year-old pilot, was born in Detroit. But he grew up in Fort Worth and Del Valley, near Austin, where his father, an Air Force pilot, was stationed.
"He spent a lot of time here," Jean Tucci said. "He only spent about seven or eight years of his life in Michigan. We spent most of our lives down here."
Tucci graduated from Del Valley High School and received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin in January 1966.
An ROTC cadet, he received a commission in the Air Force and was called to active duty.
Tucci had flown 181 missions as a co-pilot and weapons officer out of Da Nang Air Base during his first tour of duty.
He then took training in Florida to become an F-4 commander, finishing at the top of his class, his mother said.
Tucci then volunteered for a second duty tour in Vietnam. He was based at Udorn Airfield in Thailand and had completed 32 missions before beginning his last assignment.
His co-pilot and weapons systems officer was Dennany. The 34-year-old was born in Mattawan, Mich., where he was on the varsity football team and was a member of the student council in high school. Shy and soft-spoken, he was one of 32 members of his 1953 graduating class.
Dennany entered the University of Michigan but had to leave school after his father died. He joined the Air Force and met his wife-to-be, Emily Hon of Brownsville, while he was training in Harlingen, Texas. The couple had seven children. Emily Dennany died in 2002.
Dennany continued his college studies in the Air Force and received his bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Wyoming.
'What an honor'
Despite the pace of the investigation, Jean Tucci is pleased with the work done to locate her son.
"The casualty department in San Antonio keeps me apprised of everything," she said. "I can't say enough about them. They have just been wonderful to me."
Harrington said it is a great honor to have the U.S. government and military officials take the steps necessary to find and return lost service members.
"It is just incredible ... to bring Dad's and Maj. Tucci's remains back home and give them such a dignified burial," she said. "What an honor."
In addition to his mother, Tucci is survived by his wife, Sharon Tucci of Benbrook.
In addition to his son and daughter, Dennany is survived by three other daughters, Elizabeth Marchan, Marie Lara and Pamela Tabares, all of Brownsville; 12 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
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