
                       CASE SYNOPSIS: HESS, FREDERICK WILLIAM

  ============================================================================


Name:                           Frederick William Hess
Rank/Branch:                    O2/US Air Force
Unit:

Date of Birth:                  20 November 1943
Home City of Record:		Kansas City MO
                                (family in VA)
Date of Loss:                   29 March 1969
Country of Loss:                Laos
Loss Coordinates:               170900N 1060500E
Status (in 1973):               Missing In Action
Category:                       2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground:        F4D
Other Personnel
In Incident:                    (pilot rescued)


SYNOPSIS:  Frederick William Hess was a crack Bridge and Chess player as a
young man at the Air Force Academy.  Following his 1966 graduation, he went to
train on the F4 Phantom and was shipped to Vietnam.

On March 29, 1969, Fred and his pilot were sent on a defoliation mission in
Laos near the Ban Karai Pass.  There was a North Vietnamese training school for
anti-aircraft gunners near the Pass, and their plane was hit.  Hess was ordered
to eject and did so.  The pilot ejected and was subsequently rescued.  The
plane crashed into a hillside.  The area of the Pass was heavy with enemy
forces, and search was tricky.  Hess was not found.

Frederick Hess is one of nearly 600 Americans who were lost in Laos.  Only a
handful were acknowledged as prisoners by name by either government, although
the Pathet Lao publicly stated they held "tens of tens" of American prisoners.
They said the Americans were captured in Laos, and they would be released from
Laos when treaties were signed.

In negotiating the Peace Agreement for which he accepted the Nobel Prize,
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did not deal with the Lao, the Cambodians or
the Chinese for the prisoners they held, but only with the North Vietnamese.
No American held by the Lao was released in 1973 at the end of American
involvement in Southeast Asia.

Since the war's end, thousands of reports have been received concerning
Americans still held prisoner in Southeast Asia.  Experts estimate that there
are hundreds still alive.  One of them could be Freddie Hess.  

Fred's daughter was one year old when her dad was shot down.  She feels cheated
of a father.  Our nation has cheated itself by abandoning some of our best men.
It's time we brought them home.
