Chapter 14: Finding Remains
Excerpt from “Incident at Ple Tonan, An Imperial Japanese War Crime and the Fate of U.S. Navy Airmen in French Indochina”
In October, 1946, Army Captain Samuel J. Loyd was sent to Ple Tonan to locate, if possible, the remains of the seven airmen killed there: Henry, Daley, Barnes, McGowan, Yates, Venditti, and Douglas. Captain Loyd had with him several American soldiers and about a dozen Vietnamese soldiers.
In the diary excerpt that follows, Captain Loyd describes finding the remains. He also describes what happened to the airmen, based on what he was told by Moi villagers in the area. As discovered later, through the interrogations of Japanese soldiers who were present at the killings, the story of the airmen’s deaths were quite different from the account that Captain Loyd gathered from the Moi witnesses.
Diary of Captain Samuel J. Loyd – Extract
“19 October 1946 (Saturday) – Dawn and pouring raining. Walking will be hell today. For the first two and a half hours we walk up and up. I fell and cut and sprained my hand on the down grade. At 1445 in pouring rain we arrived at the village of Thongbon. We are welcomed with bananas. The leeches have again carried the day – we are smeared with blood.”
“20 October 1946 (Sunday) – Dawn – cold and damp. All night long the wind howled. At 0930 we are on the way again. Pletanang [Ple Tonan] is our next and final stop. 1530 we are at last at Pletanang.”
“The story of 12 March 45 [27 April 1945] can now be told as related to us by eye witnesses thru our interpreter. Moi to Viet-Namese to English. Seven [9] Americans arrived at the village on the evening of 11 March – being pursued from Pleiku by the Japanese – a distance of 100 miles. The natives state that the biggest man of the bunch was called “Brooklyn?”
The next morning the Americans retreated to a deserted French outpost located on a hill about 2000 yards northeast of the village. Upon the arrival of Japanese patrols from both North and South a short engagement took place – “Brooklyn” was killed. The remaining six surrendered. After accepting their surrender, the senior Japanese present ordered them to kneel down, had their wrists tied behind them (we found a pair of wrist bones still tied together) and shot each one in turn. He kicked each one over backwards. All seven were then buried in two shallow graves and the Japanese moved north toward Tourano. At 1600 we planted the Viet Nam flag and ours in the ground side by side between the two graves – and we and the Viet-Namese soldiers paid military honors to our dead.”
“21 October 1946 (Monday) – Today at 1330 on a mist surrounded mountain top we again rendered military honors to our dead. As we saluted and the patrol presented arms, a Viet-Namese Lieutenant fired a 3 volley salute from a borrowed American .45. We started digging – we found in one grave 3 skulls, 3 pairs of arms, 3 pairs of legs, one fountain pen, one pencil, one identification tag with the name Thomas J. McGowan. In the other grave we found 4 skulls, 4 pairs of arms, 4 pairs of legs and one pair of wrists tied with rope. The party returned to the hut at 1515.”
“22 October 1946 (Tuesday) – It is 0900. We are starting back. It is misting heavily. Our dead are in rubber bags and bamboo baskets. The Viet-Namese patrol is carrying them; over one of the baskets are draped both flags – theirs and ours.”
“23 October 1946 (Wednesday) – For the first time since Friday we saw the sun; it came up about 0630. Most of the walking was down hill. We arrived at our second stop at 1445. We are not allowed in any of the villages with our dead. We were guided around each village we passed today. At this, our stopping place, they have built us a hut and given us a pig and chicken.”
Remains Identified
The remains recovered from the two burial sites at Ple Tonan by Captain Loyd were shipped to the U.S. Military Cemetery, Barrackpore, India, and were interred in Plot 3, Row S, Common Grave 20 as unidentified remains X-275. In September, 1947, the remains were disinterred for identification. Dental records were able to confirm that the remains were those of Lt(jg) Donald Augustus Henry, AMM2c Frederick Chester Barnes, AMM3c Thomas Joseph McGowan, AOM3c Gordon Hugh Yates, AMM3c Warren Halvor Daley, AMM3c Donald Howard Douglas, and S1c Joseph Nicholas Venditti.
