Dan Heller 
Name: Dean Andrew Pogreba
Memorials: Find a Grave 1 2 3 Vietnam Wall Wall of Faces
Rank/Branch: Colonel/USAF
Unit: 36th Tactical Fighter Squadron Takhli Airfield Thailand
Date of Birth: 16 March 1922
Home of Record: Three Forks MT
Date of Loss: 5 October 1965
Country of Loss: North Vietnam/China
Loss Coordinates: 213021N 1062108E (XJ401786)
Status in 1973: Missing in Action
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F-105D “Thunderchief” Serial No. 62-4295
(Survived shootdown 22 August 1965 Serial No. 62-4235)
Other Personnel In Incident: Bruce G. Seeber (released POW); from USAF F-4 on same day nearby location: James O. Hivner; Thomas J. Barrett (both released POWs); Phillip E. Smith (captured from an F-104C downed over Chinese territory September 20 1965)
REMARKS: POW CHINA/KIA/PFoD
SYNOPSIS: On 20 September 1965 an American pilot named Capt. Phillip E. Smith was shot down over the Chinese island of Hai Nan Tao. The case of Capt. Smith ultimately became entwined with those of other American pilots lost in North Vietnam the following month. Capt. Smith was flying an Air Force F-104C and his loss over Hai Nan Island is perplexing.
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was an unusual aircraft created in the mid-1950’s to fill a need for a more maneuverable, faster fighter aircraft. The result was a Mach 2-speed aircraft thrust into a combat-aircraft world of Mach 1and below. The aircraft itself is spared looking like a rocket by its thin and extremely short wings set far back on the long fuselage, and a comparatively large tailplane carried almost at the top of an equally enormous fin. One less apparent peculiarity was an ejection seat which shot the pilot out downwards from under the fuselage rather than out the canopy of the cockpit. The Starfighter was primarily a low-level attack aircraft capable of flying all-weather, electronically guided missions at supersonic speed.
Why Capt. Smith was flying a strike aircraft over 40 miles inland in Chinese territory is a matter for speculation. While the flight path to certain Pacific points from Vietnam may take a pilot in the general vicinity of the island, China was denied territory. According to one pilot, “Hai Nan was on the way to nowhere we were supposed to be, and on the way back from the same place. Either Smith was unbelievably lost or was on a mission whose purpose will never see the light of day. Capt. Smith was captured by the Chinese.
Lieutenant Colonel Dean A. Pogreba was an F105D pilot attached to the 49th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Yakota, Japan. In the fall of 1965, Pogreba was given a temporary duty assignment to fly combat missions out of Takhli Airbase, Thailand with the 36th Tactical Fighter Squadron.
The aircraft flown by Pogreba, the F-105 Thunderchief (“Thud”), flew more missions against North Vietnam than any other U.S. aircraft. It also suffered high losses, partially due to its vulnerability, which caused the aircraft to be constantly under revision. A total of 397 USAF Thuds were lost in SEA, second only to 446 USAF F-4 Phantom losses.
On October 5, 1965, Pogreba departed Takhli as the strike commander (Call sign “Mercury Lead”), of a five-plane combat section on a Rolling Thunder strike mission on the Lang Met Highway bridge north of Hanoi. In addition to the Mercury flight, four other strike units were to follow at five-minute intervals, making a total of 21 aircraft in the strike.
The weather obscured the hill tops and target identification was precluded. The flight proceeded on course but was forced to deviate to the south because rain showers. At this time the target was acquired visually, two miles to the north, and a 180 degree turn was initiated to position the flight for attack. The weather again obscured the target, but it was picked up again and Mercury 2 headed in with Mercury Lead close behind.
As Pogreba pulled off the target, he radioed that he was “heading 114 degrees” which was the pre-briefed heading to the water for regrouping after the attack. Mercury Lead never joined the rest of the flight. No further radio was made, according to Mercury 3, who had received the last transmission.
Capt. Bruce G. Seeber, Pogreba’s wingman on the mission, also failed to rejoin the rest of the flight. The two, as far as Mercury flight could determine, had simply disappeared.
It was later determined that the two aircraft had been hit by enemy fire and crashed at a point near the borders of Lang Son and Ha Bac provinces. The location of loss given by the Defense Department is approximately 40 miles southwest of the city of Dong Dang, which sits on the border of North Vietnam and China. The area was “hot” with MiGs, surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and anti-aircraft fire.
On the same day, an Air Force F-4C Phantom fighter/bomber was shot down approximately five miles form the city of Kep, and about ten miles south of the official loss location of Pogreba and Seeber. The crew of this aircraft consisted of Major James O. Hivner and 1Lt. Thomas J. Barrett.
Curiously, Radio Peking announced the capture of an American pilot that day, giving the pilot’s name and serial number. It was Dean Pogreba that had been captured. The U.S. never received separate confirmation of the capture, however, and Pogreba was listed Missing in Action.
Gradually, it became known that the crew of the F-4, Barrett and Hivner, had been captured by the North Vietnamese. Likewise, Bruce Seeber was also identified as prisoner of war of the Vietnamese. Dean Pogreba’s fate was still unknown.
When American involvement in Vietnam ended, 591 Americans were released from prisoner of war camps in Southeast Asia. Among them were Hivner, Barrett, Seeber and Smith. Smith was released by the Chinese. Pogreba was still missing. None of the returnees had any information regarding his fate, and all believed he had died in the crash of his plane.
Reports of an American POW held in China that had fueled hopes for the Pogreba family were correlated to Phillip Smith upon his release. The Pogreba family thought this was hastily and summarily done. According to others in the flight with Pogreba, Dean’s plane had actually strayed into Chinese territory. Although no information at all was forthcoming from the Chinese, the Pogrebas still believed there was a good chance Dean had been captured.
Years passed, and no word of Pogreba was heard. Under the Carter Administration most of the men still listed prisoner, missing or unaccounted for were administratively declared dead because of the lack of specific information that they were alive. The Pogrebas, although haunted by the mystery of Dean’s disappearance. finally resigned themselves to the fact that he was most probably dead, and went on with their lives. Dean’s wife Maxine, with children to raise alone, ultimately remarried.
Then in 1989, Maxine Pogreba Barrell received some shocking news. Through an acquaintance, she learned of a “high-ranking friend” of Dean’s who claimed to have visited Vietnam and spoken with her former husband. This high-ranking friend turned out to be retired Air Force General Thomas Lacy. He told her a story quite different from the official account given to Dean’s family.
According to Thomas Lacy, Dean had indeed been shot down in China, but had been brought back across the border into North Vietnam in 1965 by “friendlies. Several attempts to rescue him had failed; two helicopters had crashed in the effort. Then food and supplies were dropped to Dean and his rescuers; recovery efforts were deemed impractical because of the hostile environment.
General Lacy stated that he had never given up on Dean, and had made it his mission to find the “gray-haired colonel” which he claimed he did in 1988 and 1989, traveling to Vietnam on a diplomatic passport. He told Dean’s family that Dean was alive and well and had adjusted to his “situation,” which was solitary life in a village. Dean, he said, leaves the village daily to work.
Mrs. Barrell does not know how much credence to give the story. On one hand, she says, Lacy asked nothing from them. He did not seek them out. On the contrary, she and her family sought him out. Shortly after they spoke, Lacy told her that he was in “trouble” with the U.S. Government and would not speak with her again.
On the other hand, there is absolutely no way Dean’s family can verify or discount the General Lacy’s story. A family, at relative peace for over a decade, once again suffering the uncertainty that comes with not knowing. The U.S. Government simply isn’t talking to them about it. One cannot simply fly to Hanoi and beg permission to visit one’s relative when Hanoi denies he even exists.
Unfortunately, the Pogreba story is not an aberration. Many cases of Americans missing in Southeast Asia are fraught with inconsistencies, some to the point of outright deception. Still others are hidden under the cloak of “national security” classification; some cannot be revealed until after the year 2000. These families will have to wait almost half a century to know the truth about what happened to their men.
In 1985, China acknowledged it had deployed over 300,000 of its forces in northern Vietnam during the war years, many of whom were in the northern tier of provinces which included the area where Pogreba was lost. Chinese units included various anti-aircraft forces.
Since the end of the Vietnam War well over 21,000 reports of American prisoners, missing and otherwise unaccounted for have been received by our government. In addition, U.S. intelligence agencies have conducted over 250,000 interviews and perused “several million documents” related to Americans still missing, prisoner or unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. Many authorities, including a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, having reviewed this largely classified information, have concluded that scores of Americans are still alive in captivity today.
Pilots and aircrews in Vietnam and Laos were called upon to fly in many dangerous circumstances, and they were prepared to be wounded, killed or captured. It probably never occurred to them that they could be abandoned by the country they so proudly served.
From Vietnam Air Losses narrative: “According to Colonel Jack Broughton in his book Going Downtown, Dean Pogreba would have faced a courts-martial had he returned from this mission. The previous day he had attacked a SAM site that was under construction near Hanoi when he came under fire from the site’s protective anti-aircraft guns. Under the ludricous rules of engagement at that time new SAM sites could not be attacked until they had been completed and actually fired a missile!”
