Synopsis:
Major Harold Lineberger was
assigned to the 23rd Tactical Air Support Squadron operating from Ubon Royal Thai Air
Base. Lineberger's unit operated in northeastern Cambodia flying aerial reconnaissance and
interdiction missions. They would try to stop motorized sampans on the Mekong River
between Laos and South Vietnam as well as stop vehicles on Route 13, the main highway
running from Saigon through Cambodia into Laos. (NOTE: Air Force records list Lineberger's
unit as the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing at Ubon).
Lineberger normally teamed
up with John Evans, an aerial combat photographer. Onthe morning of January 29, 1971,
however, Lineberger departed Ubon alone in an OV10A Bronco to return to an area he and
Evans had been to on January 26 and 27. They had destroyed several motorized sampans on
the Mekong close to Sambor village, a small settlement on Route 13 ten miles north of the
provincial capitol of Kratie. On January 27, they had seen what appeared to be an
abandoned truck, and it was Lineberger's plan to go back to destroy it.
Evans took off with another
pilot to photograph other possible targets, and the two were relieve Lineberger at about
0900 hours. As they flew out to relieve Lineberger, they attempted to raise him by radio,
without success. They later learned that contact with Lineberger had been lost at 06:43
hours when he reported his position as being 27 miles WSW of Stung Treng and 51 51 miles
NNW of Sambor, Cambodia. He never returned from the mission.
Search efforts were
conducted in the area for the next several days, but no trace of Linebeger's plane was
found. Evans had seen intelligence that any Air Force personnel who were captured were
summarily executed by the Khmer Rouge, who controlled their entire area od operations. He
didn't hold out much hope, but the fate of his friend and pilot haunted him.
On March 25, 1971, a Khmer
Rouge rallier reported during interrogation that he had observed an OV10 near Kratie
during the time Lineberger disappeared. The rallier had gone to the crash site with a
friend and had been told by villagers that the aircraft flew over in a wavering pattern,
went into a dive, crashed and exploded. The source had seen two badly burned bodies in the
cockpit - one very large in the front, and one small and skinny in the rear seat. The
bodies were removed from the aircraft and buried. The Air Force determined that the source
had not correctly identified what was in the back seat and mistakenly believed it was a
body. They correlated this report to Major Linebeger, who had flown alone.
Linberger is one of nearly
2500 Americans still missing from the Vietnam War. Since the war ended, nearly 10,000
reports have been received on these men, convincing many authorities that hundreds are
still alive in captivity. Whether Lineberger is among those who survived and are still
alive or whether he died when his plane went down may never be known. One of the few
people still looking for him is his friend, John Evans.
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