20,440 Days and Counting. Missing Airman's Family Not Giving Up on Bringing Him Home

There were no shovels in the ground over the past year to search for the body of Maj. San D. Francisco, a Kennewick High graduate, who was shot down over Vietnam.

On Veterans Day, his family will have been waiting for news that he is coming home for 20,440 days.

A counter on a website dedicated to bringing awareness to the campaign to recover his body ticks off the days since the F-4 Phantom jet he was co-piloting was shot down during a reconnaissance mission over the Ho Chi Minh Trail on Nov. 25, 1968.

He volunteered for the mission just days before a scheduled R&R break when a member of the scheduled crew fell ill.

"I haven't given up and I won't give up," said his younger sister Terri Francisco-Farrell of Kennewick last week.

She had been dogged in her determination not to let the U.S. Department of POW/MIA Accounting Agency or the Washington Congressional delegation forget about him.

Help to Find MIA Airman

Most recently she has enlisted the help of Washington state Sen. Matt Boehnke, R-Kennewick, to obtain an update on any new developments or updates in the federal government's efforts to find Francisco's remains.

"As you may be aware, Terri Francisco-Ferrell has been diligently pursuing information and assistance in locating and repatriating the remains of her brother, whose sacrifice and service to our country deserve the utmost respect and recognition," Boehnke said in a letter to the U.S. Air Force Oct. 30.

Francisco-Farrell also is asking Tri-Cities residents, plus residents of Burbank, Wash., where her brother grew up, and those who went to school at Central Washington University as her brother did, to contact Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., to ask that another excavation to look for Francisco be scheduled.

Murray has met with Francisco-Farrell and advocated for the return of her brother's remains previously.

The location where Francisco may have been buried in the Quanf Binh province in central Vietnam was identified in 2004.

Excavations of first one site and then another were done by 2020, without Francisco being found.

Then with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, excavations organized by the U.S. government were halted and a third planned excavation for Francisco was canceled.

Excavations in Vietnam were scheduled to resume this year, but Francisco was not on the list despite a third site for excavation being identified, said his sister.

It is close to the first site.

Francisco's F-4 Shot Down

When the F-4 that Francisco was co-piloting was shot down, the pilot survived, only to be killed resisting capture.

Co-pilot Francisco had two broken legs and was being taken into captivity when he was hit by shrapnel from American bombs, according to accounts from Vietnamese witnesses.

Francisco-Farrell suspects that he was dragged into an open area by his captors in their attempt to ambush the Americans looking for him. She believes he died during the ambush after he would not lift his hands to the ladder of a rescue helicopter and put its crew in danger.

He was promoted to major after his death.

Vietnamese witnesses were interviewed over the last decade by the U.S. Department of POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) to identify where Francisco's body was buried.

Among them was one who was guarding a tunnel and said he saw Francisco's parachute land. The other helped bury him and later exhumed his body for Vietnamese Army propaganda on a claim that his was the 2,000th plane shot down during the war.

He is believed to have been reburied in the same area.

In 2019 two witnesses were re-interviewed by DPAA and escorted to the first site excavated in 2015.

They indicated that he was buried "just meters" from that site, Francisco's sister said.

Francisco-Ferrell was told by the DPAA in 2020 that their information was credible. Then an excavation was planned for 2020, before the COVID pandemic derailed efforts.

Those who knew Francisco or want to help his family with their campaign to recover his remains may email Murray through her website at murray.senate.gov/write-to-patty or email Cantwell through her website at cantwell.senate.gov/contact/email/form.

Letters also may be sent to Sen. Patty Murray, 154 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510, and to Sen. Maria Cantwell, 511 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510.

(c) 2024 Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Wash.)

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