Vietnam
-
MIA
Fallen
Fessenden, ND
Circumstances:
On November 21, 1997, Joint Task Force–Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Major Glenn Arthur Belcher, missing from the Vietnam War.
Major Belcher entered the U.S. Army from North Dakota and served with the 1st Air Commando Squadron. On December 31, 1967, he piloted an A-1E Skyraider (tail number 52-135007, call sign "Hobo 19") that took off from Pleiku, South Vietnam, as the lead of two aircraft on a daylight armed reconnaissance mission against enemy targets in Khammouan Province, Laos. While making its third bombing run at the target, the aircraft crashed for unknown reasons, killing MAJ Belcher. An aerial search was performed but a heavy enemy presence on the ground prevented the recovery of MAJ Belcher's remains at the time. In 1989, the Vietnamese government repatriated human remains believed to be from this loss, and in 1997, U.S. investigators were able to identify MAJ Belcher from these remains.
Biography:
Major Belcher is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.