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 W. Grace

December 20, 1939 – unaccounted for since June 14, 1969

Born New Iberia, Louisiana

Loss location: Southern Laos (ejection / rescue-loss location)

Major, U.S. Air Force; aircraft commander, 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing; F-4D Phantom II (66-7574, call sign Wolf 05), mission over southern Laos, June 14, 1969

Missing in action — DPAA lists Maj. James William Grace as Unaccounted For (Non-recoverable), profile a0Jt0000000BTGBEA4. On June 14, 1969, after ejecting from a damaged F-4D over southern Laos, he fell from a rescue hoist when the helicopter's tail rotor struck a tree; subsequent searches that day did not locate him. Remains not recovered. Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Non-recoverable is an analytic category, not a recovered grave.

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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 05 (serial 66-7574) on a strike into southern Laos when the Phantom took surface-to-air fire.

He nursed the damaged airplane to a safer area. Both crewmen ejected and made radio contact. The pilot was pulled out. Grace got on a second special-forces helicopter hoist; the tail rotor struck a tree, he lost his grip, and fell. The helicopter had to leave. Teams that returned the same day did not find him. Remains have not been recovered.

DPAA profile a0Jt0000000BTGBEA4 still lists him Unaccounted For, analytical category Non-recoverable — an agency judgment about practical recovery, not a marked grave. He is on the Courts of the Missing in Honolulu and on the Wall in Washington. This page will not invent a jungle burial the public file does not carry. A failed hoist and an open ledger are the documentation.

Publication: NN-HERO-1965-009
Content hash: 67345c57 a4b10de5 50df9b06 1a2e52ad 7e3609c5 b96f5108 7a000d7c 371cb0de
Base anchor: 0x2033f1 e5939225 86965c41 da4d4e85 58d7f0f0 25930fc6 fca6def5 4771059a 17

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.