Dan Heller 
Name: James Lewis Carter
Memorials: Find a Grave 1 2 3 Vietnam Wall Wall of Faces
Rank/Branch: Major/USAF
Unit: Company 311th Air Commando Squadron Da Nang Airbase South Vietnam
Date of Birth: 26 October 1928
Home of Record: Pasadena CA
Date of Loss: 3 February 1966
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 163000N 1064000E
Status in 1973: Missing in Action
Category: 4
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: C-123B “Provider” Serial No. 55-4537
Other Personnel In Incident: Wilbur Brown; Edward Parsley and Therman Waller (all missing)
REMARKS: NO RAD CNTCT-REK SITE UNCONF-J
SYNOPSIS: Though it had been declared obsolete in 1956, the Fairchild C-123 Provider, which was a converted WWII glider, became one of the mainstays of tactical airlift in the Vietnam War. In 1962 the Provider was fitted with special equipment to spray defoliants. Later, it was modified with a pair of J-85 jet engines that increased its payload carrying capability by nearly one-third. The first of these modified C-123s arrived at Tan Son Nhut on 25 April 1967, and this venerable old aircraft proved to be among the hardest working aircraft throughout Southeast Asia.
On 3 February 1966, then Major James L. Carter, pilot, Captain Wilbur R. Brown, co-pilot, Sgt. Edward M. Parsley loadmaster, and Sgt. Therman M. Waller, flight mechanic, comprised the crew of a C-123B Provider which was on a multi-legged combat airlift support mission over Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. There was an unconfirmed report that four foreign nationals may also have been aboard this aircraft.
The Provider departed DaNang at 1320 hours and arrived at Khe San Special Forces Camp at approximately 1410 hours. It then departed Khe Sanh and flew to Dong Hai, then returned to Khe Sanh. The aircraft again departed Khe Sanh at 1655 hours and headed southeast of the base on a supply shuttle mission. During this portion of their flight, contact was lost with the aircraft and crew. An immediate communications search was conducted with negative results.
The area where the Provider was believed to have gone down was thoroughly searched by air, but no trace of the aircraft or its crew was found in the extremely dense mountainous jungle. During the search, 25 sorties were flown over a period of 74 hours and were finally suspended at 1400 hours on 10 February 1966. Because this area was known to be under the total control of the Viet Cong (VC), it was believed there was a good chance the crew had been captured.
The location in which this aircraft disappeared was on the north side of a rugged mountain with a long, narrow jungle covered valley just to the north approximately 2 miles south of Highway 9 and 5 miles northeast of Khe Sanh. The extended search area was bordered by the DMZ 23 miles to the north and the Vietnamese/Lao border 21 miles to the west. In March 1966, wreckage thought to be that of the C-123B was located in this area and photographed from the air. However, after the photos were evaluated by US intelligence, that wreckage proved to be that of a missing helicopter and not the Provider.
In April 1969, a Communist rallier identified a number of photographs of missing Americans as men he believed to have been captured. Wilbur Brown’s photo was among those the rallier selected. After the war, CIA analysts questioned the allier’s identification of Captain Brown’s photo because no returned POWs reported having seen any of the Provider’s crew in any of the POW camps.
In 1999 local residents reported the wreckage of an aircraft that was eventually identified as a C-123. Four excavations were conducted between 2000 and 2003 and human remains were recovered. The remains were later identified to be those of Major Carter. He was interred in Arlington National Cemetery in an individual grave. The remains of the rest of the crew—Wilbur Brown, Edward Parsley, and Therman Waller, were also eventually identified. They are commemorated, along with Major Carter, on a group burial marker in Arlington National Cemetery. Also inscribed on the memorial is “four unknown foreign nationals”—the ARVN troops.
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. Many of these reports document LIVE America Prisoners of War remaining captive throughout Southeast Asia TODAY.
Pilots and aircrews in Vietnam 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.
