Tampa, Fla. (WFLA) – The Florida native aviator finally takes a break after disappearing from the mountains of Laos more than 50 years ago during the Vietnam War.
Sgt. Willis R. Hall, 40, of Broward County, was one of 19 men assigned to Lima Site 85, a secret radar site in Laos’ remote mountains. According to the US National Air Force Museum, the site was used to guide a bomb strike against North Vietnam.
The site, which is home to volunteer Air Force engineers, ran for just over four months before being attacked by Vietnamese forces. The Americans sought shelter on a narrow shelves in the mountains, eight of whom were rescued by a US helicopter a few hours later.
Hall was one of 11 Americans estimated to have been killed in the battle, and despite many recovery operations, their bodies were unable to recover.
However, the Department of Defense POW/Missing Action Accounting Agency (DPAA) never stopped trying to recover missing airmen. The 1994 mission failed, but in 2003 one of the other missing airmen, Sgt, remained. Patrick Shannon was recovered.
In 2023, the DPAA and other partner organizations discovered “difficulty, incident-related material, possible important evidence,” and bone tissue from a research site that was later identified as belonging to another missing Airman Sgt. David Price.
Earlier this year, the recovery team unearthed the site and restored human, material evidence, and bone tissue that could have been sent to the DPAA Institute for analysis.
In addition to anthropological analysis, scientists analyzed mitochondria, Y chromosomes, and autosomal DNA to identify Hall’s remains.
The DPAA said the hall was commemorated at the Pacific National Cemetery in Honolulu and at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in DC. A rosette is placed next to his name, indicating that he is described.
After 57 years of missing, his family will eventually put him down and rest this fall.
