American War Heroes
A country that sends people to war owes them a name, a place, and an accounting. Missing in action is not a poetic phrase. It means a service member left and was not brought home in a way the record can close.
Notice Nearby will not invent MIA status to fill a page. We will not scrape recent private families. We will add names only when the fact is public and documented — a casualty report, a board of investigation, a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency file. That is slower. It is the only honest way.
American War Heroes is a publisher-curated historical register. Notice Nearby writes these entries from documented public records. Checkout does not add a name to a war roll, and we do not issue Heroes badges, MIA labels, or a “verified veteran” mark.
A paid Community memorial may mention military service in the family’s own words. That mention stays on the obituary. It is not verification, and it does not enroll anyone on these lists. Claiming service that was not given is stolen valor. It is disrespectful to those who served.
Individual pages marked missing in action state the documentation in plain language: what left, what was heard, and what has not been recovered. Administrative findings of death are not the same as a grave.
1904–missing December 15, 1944 · Major
Alton Glenn Miller was already a famous bandleader when he put on an Army Air Forces uniform. He was born in Clarinda, Iowa, on March 1, 1904. The service used him the way a modern army uses morale — to keep men remember…
1914–missing November 26, 1943 · Lieutenant Commander
Edward Henry O'Hare — Butch in the ready rooms — was a St. Louis Annapolis graduate (1937) who became, on February 20, 1942, the Navy's first flying ace of the war. Flying an F4F from USS Lexington, he broke up a formati…
1916–unaccounted for since July 26, 1944 · Lieutenant Colonel
Leon Robert Vance Jr. left Enid, Oklahoma, for the Army Air Forces and a heavy-bombardment cockpit. On June 5, 1944, as a lieutenant colonel and command pilot with the 489th Bombardment Group, he led a formation against …
1908–unaccounted for since November 14, 1942 · Lieutenant Colonel
Harold William Bauer left Woodruff, Kansas, for Annapolis and a Marine cockpit. By the Guadalcanal campaign of 1942 he was a lieutenant colonel commanding Marine Fighting Squadron 212 — Hellcats in the ready-room talk, W…
1919–unaccounted for since August 9, 1944 · Captain
Darrell Robins Lindsey left Jefferson, Iowa, for the Army Air Forces and a B-26 Marauder cockpit. By the summer of 1944 he was a captain in the 585th Bombardment Squadron, 394th Bombardment Group, flying medium-bomber mi…
1898–unaccounted for since January 5, 1943 · Brigadier General
Kenneth Newton Walker left the New Mexico Territory for the Air Service and spent two decades arguing that bombardment aviation had to be organized as a force of its own. By late 1942 he was a brigadier general commandin…
1917–unaccounted for since June 5, 1942 · Captain
Richard Eugene Fleming left Saint Paul for the Marine Corps Reserve and a scout-bomber cockpit. By early June 1942 he was a captain and flight officer with Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 241 on Midway, flying worn SB2U Vi…
1917–unaccounted for since November 2, 1943 · Major
Raymond Harrell Wilkins left Portsmouth, Virginia, for the Army Air Corps as an enlisted man in 1936, earned his wings before Pearl Harbor, and was already in the Southwest Pacific when the war opened for the United Stat…
1920–unaccounted for since February 10, 1952 · Lieutenant Colonel (promoted while missing)
George Andrew Davis Jr. was a Dublin, Texas, fighter pilot who had already made ace in the Southwest Pacific when the Air Force sent him to Korea. He flew the F-86 from Kimpo with the 334th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron. …
1918–unaccounted for since November 22, 1952 · Major
Charles Joseph Loring Jr. was a Portland, Maine, fighter pilot who had already been shot down in Europe and come home from a German camp when the Air Force sent him to Korea. In 1952 he flew the F-80 with the 80th Fighte…
1920–unaccounted for since September 14, 1951 · Captain
John Springer Walmsley Jr. left Baltimore for the Army Air Forces and then the Air Force. He spent the 1940s as an instructor and occupation bomber pilot. In June 1951 he went to Korea with the 8th Bombardment Squadron a…
1929–unaccounted for since September 5, 1952 · Private First Class
Fernando Luis Garcia left Utuado, Puerto Rico, for the Marine Corps and a rifle company in Korea. By September 1952 he was a private first class in Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, holding ground on the outpost lin…
1932–unaccounted for since June 12, 1952 · Private First Class
Henry Svehla grew up in Belleville after a Newark birth and went to Korea as a private first class with Company F, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Infantry, 7th Infantry Division. On June 12, 1952, near Pyongony — the fight for Hill…
1933–unaccounted for since April 25, 1951 · Corporal (posthumous)
Charles Leon Gilliland was still a teenager when he left the Ozarks for the Army. Born near Mountain Home, Arkansas, in 1933, he was a private first class in Company I, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division,…
1930–unaccounted for since November 25, 1950 · Corporal
Joe Rodriguez Baldonado was the son of Mexican migrant workers in Colorado and went into the Army as a light-weapons infantryman and paratrooper. By November 1950 he was a corporal machine gunner in Company B, 1st Battal…
1919–unaccounted for since September 1, 1950 · Captain (posthumous)
Frederick Funston Henry left Vian, Oklahoma, for the Army a week before his twenty-first birthday and already had Pacific war time behind him when Korea opened. By the last night of August 1950 he was a first lieutenant …
1921–unaccounted for since November 26, 1950 · First Lieutenant
Frank Nicias Mitchell enlisted in the Marine Corps from Texas in 1939, served through the Pacific war, and was a first lieutenant leading a rifle platoon in Company A, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, when the Chosin Reservoi…
1935–unaccounted for since June 4, 1953 · Private First Class
Charles Heyward Barker entered the Army from South Carolina and was still a private first class in Company K, 3rd Battalion, 17th Infantry, 7th Infantry Division, when the Korean War's last months were being fought along…
1932–unaccounted for since April 29, 1965 · Colonel (promoted while missing)
Charles Ervin Shelton left Utica, Kentucky, for the Air Force and a reconnaissance cockpit. On April 29, 1965 — his thirty-third birthday — he flew an RF-101C Voodoo from Udorn, Thailand, on a photo run over northern Lao…
1937–executed September 26, 1965; remains not recovered · Captain
Humbert Roque Versace — Rocky to the Army that sent him to the Delta — was born in Honolulu on July 2, 1937, and commissioned from West Point in 1959. In 1963 he was an intelligence adviser with a Civilian Irregular Defe…
1931–unaccounted for since April 26, 1967 · Captain (promoted while missing)
Michael John Estocin left Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, for the Navy and an A-4 cockpit. In the spring of 1967 he was a lieutenant commander and operations officer with Attack Squadron 192 on USS Ticonderoga, flying Shrike…
1931–unaccounted for since May 18, 1965 · Colonel (promoted while missing)
David Louis Hrdlicka entered the Air Force from Colorado and flew fighters for the 563rd Tactical Fighter Squadron. On May 18, 1965, he led an F-105D from Takhli, Thailand, against targets near Sam Neua in Houaphan Provi…
1934–died in captivity December 8, 1967 (reported); remains not recovered · Colonel (promoted while missing / posthumous)
Donald Gilbert Cook entered the Marine Corps from New York and was a captain advising South Vietnamese Marines when the war was still young on American paper. On December 31, 1964, near Bình Giã in Phước Tuy Province, th…
1939–unaccounted for since June 14, 1969 · Major
James William Grace entered the Air Force from Louisiana and flew the F-4D with the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, out of Ubon, Thailand. On June 14, 1969, he was aircraft commander of Wolf 0…
1939–unaccounted for since May 18, 1968 · Major (promoted while missing)
Tommy Emerson Gist entered the Air Force from Durant, Oklahoma, and flew as a navigator in the back seat of an RF-4C with the 14th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. On May 18, 1968, he was aboard Phantom 66-0442 — call s…
1939–unaccounted for since July 30, 1970 · Major (promoted while missing)
Donald Alan Brown entered the Air Force from Phoenix and flew night reconnaissance in the RF-4C with the 14th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron out of Udorn, Thailand. On July 30, 1970, he was the navigator on Phantom 66-…
1924–unaccounted for since February 25, 1967 · Lieutenant Colonel
Joseph Leslie Hart entered the Air Force from Wyoming — home of record Afton — and by early 1967 was a lieutenant colonel flying the A-1E Skyraider with the 1st Air Commando Squadron. On February 25, 1967, he was Hobo 36…
1955–unaccounted for since February 2, 1991 · Lieutenant Commander
Barry Thomas Cooke was a Navy attack pilot from Austin, Texas, flying the A-6 Intruder with Attack Squadron 36 from USS Theodore Roosevelt during Operation Desert Storm. On February 2, 1991, that airplane went down in th…
unaccounted for since February 5, 1991 · Lieutenant
Robert J. Dwyer was a Navy Hornet pilot from Worthington, Ohio, flying from the Theodore Roosevelt air wing in the first days of Desert Storm. On February 5, 1991, the F/A-18 did not come back from a mission over the Per…
Five Avengers and fourteen named Navy and Marine airmen left Fort Lauderdale on December 5, 1945. The Navy board of investigation listed every man. No confirmed wreckage of the flight has closed the file. A search Mariner was lost the same night with thirteen more — a second documented loss, not a fifteenth Avenger. Read the Flight 19 record.
The modern American MIA accounting — DPAA case files, aircraft losses, prison-camp rosters — is an institution of later wars. The Revolution still left thousands without a marked grave. The British prison ships in Wallabout Bay killed more Americans than many battles; most of those dead were buried without names this register can responsibly print.
Nathan Hale was captured and hanged in New York. His remains were not returned to a family stone. That is an unknown burial, not a modern MIA finding, and his page does not claim otherwise.
Doris Miller died when USS Liscome Bay went down. His remains were not recovered. The Navy lists a combat death. This register will not relabel a known sinking as missing in action to thicken a list.
World War II still has Americans unaccounted for — a missing Hellcat, a missing Norseman, and a missing C-54 are on this register because the casualty reports say so. Korea never quite ended; thousands remain in the DPAA ledger. Read Korea’s unaccounted. Vietnam’s wall is not a recovery list. Desert Storm still has two named aircrew on the DPAA Gulf Wars page. This page will not invent names to look finished. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier holds the ones who could not be named, and keeps a vacant Vietnam crypt after Michael Blassie was identified.