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.
Michael J. Estocin
April 27, 1931 – unaccounted for since April 26, 1967
Born Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania
Loss location: Near Haiphong, North Vietnam (loss location)
Lieutenant commander, Attack Squadron 192, USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14); A-4E Skyhawk SAM suppression
Missing in action — DPAA lists Capt. Michael John Estocin as Unaccounted For (Active Pursuit). On April 26, 1967, he piloted A-4E bureau number 151073 (call sign Jury 208) on a SAM-suppression mission. Observers reported the Skyhawk on fire after a missile hit. His last radio call was that he was switching to the search-and-rescue frequency. The aircraft entered a cloud layer at about 3,500 feet. SAR found no crash site and no remains. A later finding of death and a promotion to captain are not a recovery.
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 anti-radar missions ahead of strikes into Haiphong.
The Medal of Honor citation covers two days. On April 20 he warned a strike group of missile sites, pressed a damaged Skyhawk back into the target, and brought the burning airplane aboard the carrier. On April 26 he went back. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency file is the rest of that morning: a missile hit, a fire call from other aircrew, a last transmission that he was switching to the rescue frequency, and a Skyhawk last seen entering cloud. Search and rescue found neither the airplane nor a man in the water.
He remains unaccounted for. Promotion to captain happened on paper. A memorial marker at Fort Rosecrans and a name on the Courts of the Missing and on the Wall in Washington are not identified remains. This page will not invent an ejection, a camp, or a last sentence the radio did not carry. The documentation is a missing Skyhawk, a DPAA Active Pursuit case, and a finding of death that did not produce a grave.
No rights-safe official portrait is hosted here. A later frigate carried the name. That is a public honor. It is not a recovery.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1965-005
- Content hash
- 9b57b596 55692056 9d659c4d 6377c4de f47c794a 9f8ae089 b661fc9f 80a1b1d2
- Base anchor
- 0xe17d76 a8277ccc 2c705c7a 08e73bd6 a68b6ebd 30cdfabe 4b1e93d8 17d3810a be
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.