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.
George W. Clarke Jr.
January 28, 1941 – unaccounted for since October 16, 1967
Born Hampton, Virginia
Loss location: Western DMZ / Laos border corridor (loss location per DPAA; historical country of loss Laos)
Captain (promoted Major while missing), U.S. Air Force; navigator, 12th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 460th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing; RF-4C Phantom II (65-0855, call sign Kodak 64), night photo reconnaissance, October 16, 1967
Missing in action — DPAA lists Maj. George William Clarke Jr. as Unaccounted For (Active Pursuit), profile a0Jt0000000KZXyEAO (verified 2026-09-22). Navigator on RF-4C 65-0855 (Kodak 64) lost October 16, 1967 on a night photo reconnaissance mission over the western DMZ; last heard after artillery-clearance radio exchange; searches unsuccessful. Aircraft commander Capt. Richard D. Appelhans also Unaccounted For. Remains not recovered. Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Active Pursuit is an open investigative track, not a recovered grave.
George William Clarke Jr. was born January 28, 1941, and entered the Air Force from Virginia — home of record Hampton. By October 1967 he was a captain flying as navigator in the RF-4C with the 12th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron.
On the night of October 16 he was in the back seat of Kodak 64 (tail 65-0855) on a single-ship photo run over the western section of the demilitarized zone. The crew checked in with ground control, asked for artillery clearance, got it, and acknowledged the south exit. They were not heard from again. Searches found no airplane and no crew. While carried missing, the Air Force promoted him to major.
DPAA profile a0Jt0000000KZXyEAO 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. This register will not invent a hillside recovery the public file does not show. A last radio clearance and an open ledger are the documentation.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1965-016
- Content hash
- 97b073cf a1c00968 14ab3e81 9a8dfe20 0ca652d0 7ca913d9 5f583664 24aaa767
- Base anchor
- 0x046aa0 478d9e08 191990b3 ff67b641 07308259 ed0f26a2 9448f8da c7fc56b7 60
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.