Kearns, Joseph Thomas, Jr., Lt Col

   
   On June 3, 1967, Major Theodore Springston Jr.. pilot, and then Capt. Joseph T. Kearns, navigator, comprised the crew of a B-57B, call sign "Tanner", on a solo armed road reconnaissance mission.  Their flight path was from Phan Rang Airbase to the target area and back to Phan Rang.  The intended target was any target of opportunity in Route Package 1, the southern most section of North Vietnam.
  
   Tanner flight rondezvoused at a prearranged location with Alleycat flight, the on site airborne control aircraft.  At 1945 hours, Alleycat cleared Tanner flight into North Vietnamese airspace to begin their mission.  The last contact and known position placed Major Springston and Capt. Kearns in the area of Ron Ferry located approximately 2 miles inland from the coastline, 3 miles south west of Vinh Son and 32 miles north-northeast of the major North Vietnamese port city of Dong Hoi, North Vietnam.

   When Joseph Kearns and Theadore Springston failed to make further contact with the airborne controller, an electronic  and visual search was initiated.  No emergency beeper signals  were heard and no parachutes or wreakage was found.  Because the loss was deep within enemy held and heavily populated territory, no formal search and rescue (SAR) operation was possible.
  
   Both Joe Kearns and Ted Springston were immediately listed as MISSING IN ACTION.

This Veteran has an (IMO) In Memory Of Headstone in Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial, Hawaii.

                   
Joe Kearns Diary, December 29,1966

Perhaps now I've been here long enough to be able to describe Phan Rang and my reactions to it.  
We have no sewage, and have to use out-houses.  We wash and shave outdoors, with cold water in a dishpan.  Our shower is a large, public, plywood affair, equipped with warm water about half the time.  We live seven and eight to a room, in one-room cabins called "hootches".  The flight line is several miles from our quarters and we make the trip on back of a pick-up truck.  Our operations building is an undersized quonset hut powered by a kerosene generator which roars all the time, even louder than the MD-3 power carts which use to shatter my nerves at Griffis.  Most of the roads on base are unpaved and bumpy.  The dust blows so thick in the air that we chew it, breath it, comb it out of our hair, and blow it out of our noses.  In short, I love it!

   Thats right, I think this place is great!  I don't know why, but I enjoy it here.  Maybe its because we have a job to do and we're doing it.  Perhaps its because shaving with cold water and chewing dust are not really so bad as I expected.  Maybe the reason is that life is rather simple here, without the traffic jams, petty regulations, requirements, obligations,and other ulcer makers of our complex civilized life.  Now I'm not implying that this is how I would spend my whole life!  The point is that it's really not that bad here, and its good to get away from the neuroses of civilization for awhile. 
 
                  Made available by: Mary Jo Kearns  (sister), POW Network and NJVVMF