HUNT, WILLIAM BALT

Name: William Balt Hunt
Rank/Branch: E6/US Army 5th Special Forces
Unit: Detachment A-302
Date of Birth: 31 July 1935
Home City of Record: Sand Point ID
Date of Loss: 04 November 1966
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 106203N 1063538E (XT418657)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground

Other Personnel In Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 October 1990 from one or more of
the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: William B. Hunt was a replacement platoon leader III CTZ Mike Force
(Detachment A-302), 5th Special Forces Group. On November 4, 1966, he was a
passenger on a helicopter on an assigned mission in Tay Ninh Province, South
Vietnam (grid coordinates XT 418 657) when the helicopter diverted to conduct a
medevac for an American lead company that had suffered heavy losses.

At a landing zone northeast of Soui Da, 10 miles from Dau Tieng, Hunt was lifted
into battle to help evacuate the wounded. He voluntarily left the aircraft to
help reinforce the remaining troops on the ground, and the helicopter left with
the wounded.

The Viet Cong again attacked the position the unit was maintaining that evening.
After two days of heavy fighting, and numerous casualties, the Mike Force was
overrun by numerically superior forces on November 6. As Hunt carried the
wounded company commander, SFC George H. Heaps, out of danger, Hunt was gravely
wounded by a bullet that hit him in the shoulder, penetrated his upper back, and
exited his side, but Hunt still succeeded in moving Heaps to a covered position
where both passed out from loss of blood.

Both Heaps and Hunt later regained consciousness and crawled toward the landing
zone for extraction, with two ARVN. Progress was very slow because of their
wounds, and finally Hunt told Heaps he could not go farther, and for Heaps to
continue on and leave him there. A Nung soldier stayed behind with Hunt, and
Heaps and the two ARVN were evacuated. The Nung later reported that Hunt had
died, but when searches were made to recover his body, it was not found.

In 1985 a private citizen obtained a lengthy report through the Freedom of
Information Act in which a Vietnamese defector described in great detail a
Prisoner of War camp near Hue, South Vietnam. Together with the report was a
list of Americans the source positively identified as being held at the camp.
William Hunt's name is on the list. Although the report has been substantiated
by returned POWs who were held there, the U.S. Defense Department has declared
that the defector is a liar, and has discounted his report.

The defector's report is one of over 10,000 received by the U.S. that has
convinced many experts that hundreds of Americans are still alive as prisoners
in Indochina. As long as the mindset exists to term these reports "lies," we
cannot expect to learn the truth of the matter. Until we learn the truth, we
cannot expect anyone who is alive to come home.

