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.
Paul Darwin Raymond
January 10, 1943 – unaccounted for since September 5, 1967
Born Deposit, Broome County, New York
Loss location: Quang Binh Province, North Vietnam (~10 mi N of Vinh Linh) (loss location)
Captain (posthumous promotion from 1st Lt.), U.S. Air Force; pilot, 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 12th Tactical Fighter Wing; F-4C Phantom II 63-7547 (Sharkbait 42), night armed reconnaissance, September 5, 1967
Missing in action — DPAA lists Capt. Paul Darwin Raymond as Unaccounted For (Active Pursuit), profile a0Jt00000001UjaEAE (verified 2026-09-28). Pilot of F-4C 63-7547 (Sharkbait 42) lost September 5, 1967 on a nighttime armed reconnaissance over Quang Binh Province; last radio before attack run; flight leader saw large fireball; no parachutes or beepers; SAR failed. Crewmate Capt. Donald W. Downing later Accounted For; Raymond remains Unaccounted For. While missing, the Air Force promoted him from first lieutenant to captain. Memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Birth date and Deposit, New York, from POW Network bio r009 (public); USAF Academy class of 1965. Active Pursuit is not a recovered grave.
Paul Darwin Raymond was born in Deposit, New York, on January 10, 1943, and went into the Air Force from that state after the Academy — Class of 1965. Track, wrestling, choir, and a physical-fitness award sat in the same file as the night missions that followed. By September 1967 he was a first lieutenant flying the F-4C with the 557th Tactical Fighter Squadron.
On September 5 he flew Sharkbait 42 — tail 63-7547 — as wingman on a nighttime armed reconnaissance over Quang Binh Province. He radioed that he would follow the lead into an attack run. That was the last contact. The flight leader saw a large fireball falling. No chute. No beeper. Searchers did not find the crew. His WSO, Donald W. Downing, was later accounted for. Raymond was not. While carried missing, the Air Force promoted him to captain.
DPAA profile a0Jt00000001UjaEAE 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 page will not invent a recovery the public file does not carry.
- Publication
- NN-HERO-1965-030
- Content hash
- e4fb650a a27c7faa 65c487c3 c22522b7 57f43bb2 090bd7ab 0549c863 8b18826e
- Base anchor
- 0xe29d10 b51c14f3 cb7553a3 9a46c1b3 bf69949e 3c0195f5 f2554341 f18833f5 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.