American War Hero · Vietnam War · Notice Nearby
No rights-safe contemporary likeness is on file. The record is the service and the writing, not an invented face.
James A. Treece
August 11, 1934 – unaccounted for since October 7, 1966
Born Memphis, Tennessee
Loss location: Vicinity of Hue, South Vietnam / over-water approach corridor (loss location)
Captain (promoted Colonel while missing), U.S. Air Force; aircraft commander, 12th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 460th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing; RF-4C Phantom II (tail 650885), night reconnaissance near Hue, October 7, 1966
Missing in action — DPAA lists Col. James Allen Treece as Unaccounted For (Active Pursuit), profile a0Jt0000000BTYKEA4 (verified 2026-09-23). Aircraft commander of RF-4C 650885 lost October 7, 1966 on a night reconnaissance mission in the vicinity of Hue, South Vietnam; last radio contact with Da Nang controllers while still en route. SAR aborted for weather, then found no trace. Pilot 1st Lt. Larry D. Knight also Unaccounted For. Remains not recovered. Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Active Pursuit means DPAA still treats recovery as an open investigative track.
James Allen Treece came into the Air Force from Memphis, Tennessee — born August 11, 1934. By October 1966 he was a captain commanding an RF-4C with the 12th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron out of Tan Son Nhut, the photo Phantom that flew without guns so ground commanders could see what lay ahead.
On the night of October 7 he took tail 650885 toward military targets near Hue. Da Nang controllers still had the airplane on the way in. Then the radios went quiet. Weather scrubbed the first rescue try. A second search the next day found neither wreckage nor crew. He never appeared on a prisoner list. While carried missing, the Air Force promoted him to colonel.
DPAA profile a0Jt0000000BTYKEA4 still lists him Unaccounted For, analytical category Active Pursuit. He is on the Courts of the Missing in Honolulu and on the Wall in Washington. A finding of death is paperwork. It is not a recovered grave.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1965-017
- Content hash
- 8ee0dbd3 2ea3d2e3 1c050fb6 16aed586 28e23230 44a2539f fb406343 bd83cee4
- Base anchor
- 0xfcc559 5cd0fac3 d63c0ae4 c11baab2 04f7e29d c7691ec2 86f29958 860e77ca 9c
Base stores the content hash, publication number, memorial id, and timestamp — not the full obituary text. The complete memorial remains on Notice Nearby. This is not a legal affidavit.