Body of New Haven airman killed in 1968 identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced Monday that the remains of a serviceman missing from the Vietnam War have been identified and will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery . Here’s the news release:

“U.S. Air Force Col. Francis J. McGouldrick Jr. of New Haven, Conn., will be buried Dec. 13, at Arlington National Cemetery.  On Dec. 13, 1968, McGouldrick was on a night strike mission when his B-57E Canberra aircraft collided with another aircraft over Savannakhet Province, Laos.  McGouldrick was never seen again and was listed as missing in action.

After the war in July 1978, a military review board amended his official status from missing in action to presumed killed in action.

Between 1993 and 2004, joint U.S/Lao People’s Democratic Republic (L.P.D.R.) teams attempted to locate the crash site with no success.  On April 8, 2007, a joint team located a possible crash site near the village of Keng Keuk, Laos.

From October 2011 to May 2012, joint U.S./L.P.D.R. teams excavated the site three times and recovered human remains and aircraft wreckage consistence with a B-57E aircraft.

In the identification of McGouldrick, scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools, such as mitochondrial DNA – which matched McGouldrick’s great nephew and niece.

Today there are 1,644 American service members that are still unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO website at www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call 703-699-1169.”