View Comments
HASLETT – On March 16, 1962, 93 U.S. Army soldiers and 11 crew members aboard Flying Tiger Line Flight 739 went missing over the Pacific Ocean during the early years of the Vietnam War.
What happened to Flight 739 and its exact mission are still unknown and that uncertainty has barred the men from recognition on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
But 59 years after Flight 739 disappeared, a granite monument erected on balsam fir tip land in Columbia Falls, Maine, gave them overdue recognition.
Sgt. Melvin Lewis Hatt, an Army Ranger from Lansing, was among the soldiers on the flight. His daughter, Donna Ellis Cornell, drove from Haslett to Columbia Falls at the invitation of Wreaths Across America for the May 15 unveiling.
In 1962, Flight 739 disappeared over the Pacific. Grieving families still want answers.
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
HONOLULU, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - On March 16, 1962, three years before the US entered the Vietnam War, a transport airliner from the Flying Tiger Line was bound for Saigon.
Between Guam and the Philippines, it suddenly disappeared.
Jennifer Kirk’s uncle, Army soldier Donald Sargent, was on board.
“I think for the families it’s the unknown, not knowing what happened to that plane. What was there mission? Where were they going?” she said.
An ocean tanker reported a mid-air explosion, but a search turned up no wreckage or remains.