On October 25, 2022, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) identified the remains of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Larry A. Zich, missing from the Vietnam War. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Zich entered the U.S. Army from Nebraska and served in the Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 37th Signal Battalion, 1st Signal Brigade. On April 3, 1972, he was the copilot of a UH-1H Iroquois (tail number 68-16330, call sign "Cavalier 70") with a crew of four that departed Marble Mountain, Da Nang, South Vietnam, on a combat support mission to Quang Tri City, South Vietnam. During the flight, the pilot told a Hue/Phu Bai Ground Control Approach (GCA) controller that he was lost, and believed they were near Quang Tri. Following the transmission, the GCA controller could not locate the helicopter on the radar and reported the team missing. When the helicopter failed to appear at any of the air bases in South Vietnam, an aerial search was initiated but found no sign of the missing aircraft or crew.
On April 11, 1988, the Defense Intelligence Agency received human remains from a Vietnamese refugee. Reportedly, the remains belonged to individuals who died in an aircraft crash and were buried in Quang Nam Province. These remains were then sent to Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, for further study. The laboratory analysis and the totality of the circumstantial evidence available established an association between one set of these remains and CW3 Zich. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Zich is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
Service Members Associated with CW3 LARRY ZICH's Loss
Christensen; Allen Duane (SFC)Unaccounted For
O'Neill; Douglas Lee (CW3)Unaccounted For
Williams; Edward Wayne (SSG) Unaccounted For
Zich; Larry Alfred (CW3)Accounted For
2 Responses
John Vela
The following information was provided to the NVVM via the NVVM Facebook page by a friend of the Zich family, Janice Nekuda, “Although I didn’t know Larry, I remember his mom and dad who worked so hard to find answers about him. There is a freedom tree planted in his honor along interstate 80 at the Waverly exit. This was the only Freedom Tree in any state planted along the interstate highway. His dad worked for the Nebraska Dept. of roads and received special permission.”
We thank Janice for permitting us to share her story on our website!
The following information was provided to the NVVM via the NVVM Facebook page by a friend of the Zich family, Janice Nekuda, “Although I didn’t know Larry, I remember his mom and dad who worked so hard to find answers about him. There is a freedom tree planted in his honor along interstate 80 at the Waverly exit. This was the only Freedom Tree in any state planted along the interstate highway. His dad worked for the Nebraska Dept. of roads and received special permission.”
We thank Janice for permitting us to share her story on our website!
Update on CW3 Zich’s story: https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt00000001UVOEA2