MIA - 14 July 1966 - Laos
On July 14, 1966, PFC Marshall Kipina, observer/airborne sensor operator; and Capt. Robert G. Nopp, pilot flew out of hu Bai Airbase at Hue in an OV1C aircraft (serial #612675) on a classified surveillance mission over Laos. The company flew under code names "Steel Tiger" and "Tiger Hound". Their call sign was "Iron Spud" that night.
The Grumman OV1C maintained surveillance using infrared detection equipment and a forward-aimed camera, making it a valuable night surveillance plane able to detect enemy movement and designate and confirm targets. It was on such a mission that Kipina's plane vanished with no trace.
Although the official data listing loss coordinates is located in Laos, about 25 miles southwest of the city of Attopeu, there is considerable doubt as to the exact location of the crash. The target area was in a region of Laos code named "Golf", east of Attopue, Laos. Source data seems to indicate that the crash may have occurred east of that point, in the mountains. During the searches for the missing aircraft, a parachute was sighted, hanging from a tree, containing a decapitated body. No attempts were made to recover the body, because of the fear of booby traps, and the hostile environment. JCRC later determined the body to be, in fact, a dummy, and not one of the missing crew members.
In 1969, PFC Marshall Kipina was listed in a CIA document which listed 22 American POWs who were positively identified from pre-war photographs. These POWs along with 32 others who were tentatively identified are reported to have been transferred to either North Vietnam or to an unidentified agricultural camp near the Laos border after the Tet offensive. Capt. Nopp was not listed with either group.1
Capt. Nopp is listed as deceased in the Federal Division Research database2. PFC Kipina is listed with "Live sighting; PW transit; Xepon River".3
VIETNAM-ERA UNACCOUNTED FOR STATISTICAL REPORT
as of 09 March 1999
as of 27 February 1997
2 The Vietnam-era Prisoner-of-War / Missing-in-Action Database - Federal Research Division - Reference Numbers 0393
3 The Vietnam-era Prisoner-of-War / Missing-in-Action Database - Federal Research Division
Background is from Karen's Patriotic Graphics