JOHN JACKSON PARKER
Unit: Attack Squadron 86, USS CORAL SEA (CVA 43)
Date of Birth: 12 August 1943 (Savannah GA)
Home City of Record: Tallahassee FL
Date of Loss: 04 March 1970
Country of Loss: North Vietnam/Over Water
Loss Coordinates: 182059N 1075159E (ZF029311)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: A7A
Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 15 May
1990 from one or more of the following: raw data
from U.S. Government agency sources,
correspondence with POW/MIA families, published
sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK 1998.
REMARKS:
SYNOPSIS: The USS CORAL SEA participated in
combat action against the Communists as early as
August 1964. Aircraft from her squadrons flew in
the first U.S. Navy strikes in the Rolling
Thunder Program against targets in North Vietnam
in early 1965 and participated in Flaming Dart I
strikes. The next year, reconnaissance aircraft
from her decks returned with the first photography
of Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) sites in North
Vietnam. The A1 Skyraider fighter aircraft was
retired from the USS CORAL SEA in 1968. The
CORAL SEA participated in Operation Eagle Pull in
1975, evacuating American personnel from
beleaguered Saigon, and remained on station to
assist the crew of the MAYAGUEZ, which was
captured by Cambodian forces in 1975. The attack
carriers USS CORAL SEA, USS HANCOCK and USS
RANGER formed Task Force 77, the carrier striking
force of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Western
Pacific.
One of the aircraft that launched from the decks
of the CORAL SEA was the Vought A7 Corsair II.
The Corsair was a single-seat attack jet utilized
by both the Navy and Air Force in Vietnam, and had
been designed to meet the Navy's need for a
subsonic attack plane able to carry a greater
load of non-nuclear weapons that the A4 Skyhawk.
The aircraft's unique design completely freed the
wingspace for bomb loading; the Pratt and Whitney
jet engine was beneath the fuselage of the
aircraft. The Corsair was used primarily for close
air support and interdiction, although it was
also used for reconnaissance. A Corsair is
credited with flying the last official
combat mission in the war - bombing a target in
Cambodia on 15 August 1973.
LT John J. Parker was an A7A pilot assigned to
Attack Squadron 86 onboard the USS CORAL SEA. In
early March, 1970, the carrier was conducting
flight operations in the South China Sea. On March
4, Parker launched in his A7A, and immediately
after takeoff, crashed into the sea. A search and
rescue helicopter was immediately on the scene,
but was unable to find LT Parker.
He was initially listed as Missing, but later
changed to Reported Dead.
(NOTE: Even though Air Force records indicate
that the CORAL SEA was conducting flight
operations in the South China Sea, Parker's loss
coordinates as given by the Defense Department are
unquestionably in North Vietnamese waters -- in
the Gulf of Tonkin, about 100 miles offshore east
of Ha Tinh. Perhaps the carrier was on Yankee
Station in the Gulf of Tonkin and dispatching
aircraft south.)
Parker is listed with honor among the Americans
still prisoner, missing or unaccounted for in
Southeast Asia because his body was never
Others who are missing do not have such clear cut
cases. Some were known captives; some were
photographed as they were led by their guards.
Some were in radio contact with search teams,
while others simply disappeared.
Since the war ended, over 250,000 interviews have
been conducted with those who claim to know about
Americans still alive in Southeast Asia, and
several million documents have been studied. U.S.
Government experts cannot seem to agree whether
Americans are there alive or not. Distractors say
it would be far too politically difficult to bring
the men they believe to be alive home, and the
U.S. is content to negotiate for remains.
Over 1000 eye-witness reports of living American
prisoners were received by 1989. Most of them are
still classified. If, as the U.S. seems to
believe, the men are all dead, why the secrecy
after so many years? If the men are alive, why are
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