| The Incident
On 29 April 1966, Lt. Cmdr.
William P. Egan was the pilot of a A1H Spad that launched from
the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Hancock as the lead aircraft
in a flight of two on an bombing mission against a pre-assigned
target. The target, a military complex used by the communists as
a truck stop and supply depot, was located in the foothills on
the south side of a jungle-covered mountain range approximately
62 miles due west of the major North Vietnamese port city of Dong
Hoi, 14 miles southwest of the Lao/Vietnamese border and 1 mile
southwest of Ban Senphon, Khammouan Province, Laos.
This area of eastern Laos was
considered a major artery of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. When
North Vietnam began to increase its military strength in South
Vietnam, NVA and Viet Cong troops again intruded on neutral Laos
for sanctuary, as the Viet Minh had done during the war with the
French some years before. This border road was used by the
Communists to transport weapons, supplies and troops from North
Vietnam into South Vietnam, and was frequently no more than a
path cut through the jungle covered mountains. US forces used all
assets available to them to stop this flow of men and supplies
from moving south into the war zone.
The pilots had been briefed to
make one bomb run from 10,000 feet and then leave the area. At
approximately 1600 hours, Lt. Cmdr. Egan identified the target as
they approached it at the attack altitude. The flight immediately
rolled in on the enemy depot with Lt. Cmdr. Egan in the lead and
his wingman following a few seconds later. His wingman observed
William Egan drop his bomb, but instead of pulling up and away
from the target, he watched in horror as the Spad continued down
at a 30 degree dive angle and explode upon impact with the
ground. The wingman orbited the wreckage several times before
being forced to depart the area. He believed Lt. Cmdr. Egan did
not have time to bail out of his crippled aircraft, and after
observing the crash site, he reported that there was no chance of
survival. William Egan was immediately listed Killed in
Action/Body Not Recovered.
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