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Name: : Thomas
Edward Knebel
Rank/Branch: E3/USAF
Unit: 41st Tactical Airlift Squadron, Ubon Airbase,
Thailand
Date of Birth: 11 Hybe 1947
Home City of Record: Midway AR
Date of Loss: 22 May 1968
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 162000N 1063000E (XC843858)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 4
Acft/Vehicle/Ground: C130A
Other Personnel in Incident: Jerry L. Chambers; Calvin C.
Glover; John Q. Adam;
; William H. Mason; William T. McPhail; Thomas B.
Mitchell; Gary Pate; Melvin
D. Rash (all missing)
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REMARKS:
CONTACT LOST - NFI
SYNOPSIS: The Lockheed C130 Hercules
aircraft was a multi-purpose propeller driven aircraft, and was
used as transport, tanker, gunship, drone controller, airborne
battlefield command and control center, weather reconnaissance
craft, electronic reconnaissance platform; search, rescue and
recovery craft.
In the hands of the "trash haulers", as the crews of
Tactical Air Command transports styled themselves, the C130
proved the most valuable airlift instrument in the Southeast Asia
conflict, so valuable that Gen. William Momyer, 7th Air Force
commander, refused for a time to let them land at Khe Sanh where
the airstrip was under fire from NVA troops surrounding that
base.
Just following the Marine Corps operation Pegasus/Lam Son 207 in
mid-April 1968, to relieve the siege of Khe Sanh, Operation
Scotland II began in the Khe Sanh area, more or less as a
continuation of this support effort. The C130 was critical in
resupplying this area, and when the C130 couldn't land, dropped
its payload by means of parachute drop.
One of the bases from which the C130 flew was Ubon, located in
northeast Thailand. C130 crews from this base crossed Laos to
their objective location. One such crew was comprised of LtCol.
William H. Mason and Capt. Thomas B. Mitchell, pilots; Capt.
William T. McPhail, Maj. Jerry L. Chambers, SA Gary Pate, SSgt.
Calvin C. Glover, AM1 Thomas E. Knebel, and AM1 John Q. Adam,
crew members.
On May 22, 1968, this crew departed Ubon on an operational
mission in a C130A carrying one passenger - AM1 Thomas E. Knebel.
Radio contact was lost while the aircraft was over Savannakhet
Province, Laos near the city of Muong Nong, (suggesting that its
target area may have been near the DMZ - Khe Sanh). When the
aircraft did not return to friendly control, the crew was
declared Missing In Action from the time of estimated fuel
exhaustion. There was no further word of the aircraft or its
crew.
The nine members of the crew are among nearly 600 Americans who
disappeared in Laos. Many are known to have been alive on the
ground following their shoot downs. Although the Pathet Lao
publicly stated on several occasions that they held "tens of
tens" of American prisoners, not one American held in Laos
has ever been released. Laos did not participate in the Paris
Peace accords ending American involvment in the war in 1973, and
no treaty has ever been signed that would free the Americans held
in Laos, and not one of them has returned home.
(William Mason was a 1946 graduate of West Point. Thomas Mitchell
was a 1963
graduate of the Air Force Academy.)
As long as
even one American remains alive, held against his will, we must
do everything possible to bring him home alive.
POW/MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W.
NETWORK Skidmore, MO.
USA
