Name: WO1 Paul Vernon Black
Status: Remains were returned on 1995 from an incident on 03/01/1971 while performing the duty of Aircraft Commander.
Age at death: 22.8
Date of Birth: 04/26/1948
Home City: Central Valley, CA
Service: AV branch of the reserve component of the U.S. Army.
Unit: 11 GS
Major organization: 1st Cavalry Division
Flight class: 70-13/70-9
Service: AV branch of the U.S. Army.
The Wall location: 04W-013
Short Summary: Shot down by 37mm inside Cambodia while on a classified mission for 371 Radio Research Co.
Aircraft: UH-1H tail number 69-15684
Country: Cambodia
MOS: 100B = Utility/Observation Helicopter Pilot
Primary cause: Cambodia-BNR
Major attributing cause: aircraft connected not at sea
Compliment cause: small arms fire
Vehicle involved: helicopter
Position in vehicle: aircraft commander
Vehicle ownership: government
Started Tour: 07/04/1970
"Official" listing: helicopter air casualty - other aircrew
The initial status of this person was: missing in action - P I D
Length of service: *
Military grid coordinates of event: WU955265
Additional information about this casualty:
Troops' Remains From Vietnam Era Buried
Associated Press
November 7, 2003
ARLINGTON, Va. - More than three decades after Army Warrant Officer Paul Black's helicopter was shot down by the Viet Cong, his remains were buried with those of three wartime comrades Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery. About 50 mourners gathered under a drizzling rain with their hands over their hearts as a horse-drawn caisson carried the flag-draped casket. It contained the recently identified remains of Black, along with those from three other men who were on the Huey helicopter with him when it crashed and burned in Cambodia on March 1, 1971.
Black, Warrant Officer Robert Uhl of San Mateo, Calif., Specialist Gary David from Pottstown, Pa., and Specialist Frank Sablan of Phenix City, Ala., were on an aerial reconnaissance mission at the time. Black, 22, was from Central Valley, Calif.
Black's remains were recovered by the military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in 1995, and then identified in early January, according to Gina Jackson with the Hawaii-based command.
His comrades' remains were recovered and identified in 1971, she said.
Complete article:The official NSA website has identified Paul Vernon Black as flying an EH-1H
LEFT BANK Helicopter as part of the Army Signals Agency when lost.
See: http://www.nsa.gov/display/c130/ru8_asa.htmlA portion reads:
A second LEFT BANK aircraft from the 1st Cav Division was lost on 1 March
1971 near Dambe, Cambodia (approximately five miles inside Cambodia). Those
lost were:áááááááá WO1 Paul V. Black from Central Valley, California KIA/BNRáááááááá WO1 Robert D. Uhl from San Mateo, California DWM/BRáááááááá SP5 Gary C. David from Pottstown, Pennsylvania KIAáááááááá SP4 Frank A. Sablan from Phenix City, Alabama KIAThese mission crews on board the two LEFT BANK aircraft were assigned to the
371st Radio Research Company. Originally designated as the 371st ASA
Company, it was formed by the UnitedStates Army Security Agency in 1962 and was attached to the 1st Cavalry
Division. It was with this division that the company saw wartime service in
the Republic of Vietnam from 1966 to 1971. The mission of the 371st was to
provide combat information to the division commander in pursuit of his
tactical war-fighting mission. The company served well and faithfully,
earning two Presidential Unit Citations, four Meritorious Unit
Commendations, and one Valorous Unit Award. It was redeployed to Fort Hood
wit the division in 1971 where it served with pride until deactivation in
1981. Its lineage and colors are now perpetuated by Company A, 312th MI
Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas.
=======================================
http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2003/09/13/news/news01.txtPage Updated: Saturday, September 13, 2003 9:10 AM PDT
At long last, a son foundBy Patti Richter, Staff WriterPORT ORFORD - Jim and Jane Black will bury their 22-year-old son at
Arlington National Cemetery on Friday. Paul Black is not a recent casualty
of the United State's ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.He died 32 years ago with three other soldiers, when the U.S. Army
helicopter he was piloting 2,000 feet above a Cambodian village on a
surveillance mission was shot down and exploded in flames.The death of his eldest son is still too hard a subject for Jim to broach.
As Jane began talking about Paul, her 88-year-old husband quietly grabbed a
light jacket from a coat rack in the tidy living room and slipped out the
back door. He headed for the garage a few feet away from the gray,
three-bedroom house a few miles outside of town.Jane, sitting down at the dining room table, picked up and looked at pieces
of paper that she had accumulated from the government throughout the years
since Paul's death. As she spoke about her son, her glance occasionally
drifted to a shadow box on the wall, filled with Paul's medals. Beneath it
was a small snapshot of her son, with a questioning look and furrow in his
brow. He was sitting in the pilot's seat of his helicopter.Jane said her family (which also includes two daughters, Judy and Jolene,
and another son, Darryl) is close-knit, but Jim, who was a driver for
Greyhound, was especially tight with his boys. The three used to spend hours
in the garage, fixing up old cars."It's very hard - it's just too painful for him," Jane said as her voice
began to choke up with emotion. The woman with the curly white and gray hair
brought her hand to her chin, trying to steady her composure.Growing up, Jane said, Paul was always an outgoing and spontaneous child. He
laughed a lot and was a hard worker. Jane remembers asking Paul, who was in
high school at the time, to quit one of his three part-time jobs."I wanted to see him once in a while," she said. "But he liked working
because it gave him spending money."Paul joined the Army a few years after graduating from Central Valley High
School near Redding, Calif. During basic training, her son was recruited and
joined an Army intelligence unit.It was in late 1967 when Paul left the United States for Vietnam. And
throughout his 13-month tour of duty, Jane said they knew very little about
what their son was doing. The couple of letters they received each month
from him were upbeat as he talked about his friends there and some of the
things he saw. Jane said she sent him "care packages" all the time."I sent him banana bread, cookies - you know, the usual stuff," she said.Those letters are now in one of the bedroom closets, sealed in a box."Maybe one day, I will be able to go through them again," she said. "Right
now, it's still too painful."When Paul returned home in the spring of 1970, Jane was happy. But he didn't
stay for long. Paul decided to go back to Vietnam and this time he wanted to
fly helicopters.Paul's love of flying was nothing new, Jane said. He persuaded his parents
to let him take flying lessons right after his high school graduation.Jane remembers going to visit Paul a few months after he started training in
Fort Worth, Texas. She said he called her and asked her to come visit and
make him tacos and guacamole.A few days later, Jane boarded a Greyhound bus in Tucson, Ariz., where the
family had recently moved, to go see her son. When she walked off the bus,
Paul was waiting with a military vehicle to chauffeur her to the house he
was watching for friends. Jane chuckled as she reminisced about her son's
behavior while he drove her across the base."He kept yelling, 'My mom's here!' at all these guys - his friends," she
said.A few hours later, Paul - and all of his friends - converged on the house
for tacos and guacamole."They just kept coming and coming," she said with a laugh.In the few days she was there, Jane said she and Paul also went to church
and she helped him with his Christmas shopping."He never had any money except on payday," she said.She didn't know it was the last time she would ever see her son.
After completing almost nine months of his second tour, Jane said Paul was
excited about returning home for good and said so in what turned out to be
his last two letters to his parents."He said, 'It looks like I'm going to make it,'" Jane said quietly, as her
eyes glistened with pooling tears.Paul also asked Jim to get a new clutch and insurance for his "baby" - a
1969 Plymouth Barracuda."(Paul) had burned it out racing before he left," his 81-year-old mother
said with a smile."On 1 March 1971, Warrant Officer Paul V. Black and Warrant Officer Robert
D. Uhl were flying a UH-1H Helicopter, with two passengers aboard, on a
combat mission," states a narrative from the Joint Casualty Resolution
Center in Hawaii. "The helicopter ... was hit by ground fire, crashed and
burned ... approximately 45 kilometers east of Kampong Cham (Cambodia)."The pilot of another helicopter in the area did not see anyone exiting the
helicopter before and after it crashed. A ground search team subsequently
recovered the remains of Warrant Officer Uhl and the two passengers. No
trace of Warrant Officer Black could be found."Jane heard the news a few days later, when Army officers tracked down Jim at
the Greyhound station in Tucson. Jim called Jane at the post office where
she worked and told her to come home immediately."I've got bad news," he told her.Even though both her sons were in Vietnam at the time, Jane was positive the
bad news concerned her eldest boy."I knew it was about Paul," Jane added. "I always knew it would be him. He
was in intelligence. Darryl wasn't."She didn't believe Jim at first, until two Army officers came back later
that night to talk to her in person. What they told her is still etched in
her memory."They said, 'He's been shot down and is missing in action. It doesn't look
good,'" Jane said."You can never prepare for that kind of news," she added.Darryl, who had joined the U.S. Air Force in 1970, heard the news about a
week later from his first sergeant while he was stationed in Cam Rahn Bay as
a liquid fuels specialist. Paul had traveled to the base only three months
earlier to spend a day with him, Darryl recalled in a phone interview
Thursday night. The two spent the evening catching up and Paul stocked up on
supplies."We had as much fun as you could at Cam Rahn Bay," he said with a chuckle.The next morning, Paul returned to his own base.After learning the news of his brother's helicopter crash, Darryl said he
was given new orders and sent back to the states.Paul was officially listed by the military as "missing in action." Many
years later, Jane said, his status was changed to "killed in action, body
not recovered."But the story didn't end there for the Blacks.In September 1995, the Army began building a case file about Paul's mission
with the hope of working with the Cambodian government to find the location
and survey the area for human remains.A joint team comprising U.S. and Cambodian specialists returned to Kampong
Cham province and found two witnesses to the incident, said Larry Greer, a
spokesman for the Pentagon's Prisoner of War/Missing in Action office in
Washington. The information the team found correlated to the information the
Army had about Paul's helicopter crash, Greer added.A month later, a group of experts began excavating the site. They found
small fragments of human remains and personal items from the crew members
aboard the helicopter.In January 1996, the team submitted a tooth for DNA testing. Jane said that
was when the Army contacted her and asked her to submit a blood sample that
could be used for DNA comparisons. Officials also contacted the families of
the other three crewmen aboard to provide samples.Months later, Jane learned her sample wasn't a match. The tooth didn't
belong to Paul.Over the next few years, several more fragments and a few teeth were
submitted for DNA testing. Each time, Jane was notified she wasn't a match,
a pattern that continued through January of this year.Then, in April she received a call from an Army mortician."He said they had a positive ID on my son," Jane said. "I said, 'How can you
when in January you still had nothing new?' I didn't believe him."The man said a match had been made between a bone and teeth to her DNA and
he wanted to come see her in person."I told him, 'No he wasn't (coming),'" she said. "Jim couldn't handle it."Instead, she told him to contact Darryl.Darryl said Army officials came to his Houston-area home in May and they
began planning Paul's burial. Due to the summer heat and coordinating the
schedules of the four soldiers' families involved, a fall burial was
planned.Coincidentally, the burial will take place on Friday during National POW/MIA
Recognition Day and the ceremony will be held at Arlington National
Cemetery."It's going to be an emotional event," Darryl said. "It's going to bring
closure for me. I've always had these thoughts lingering in my mind. ...
Paul was working on (National Security Administration) intelligence
missions. Maybe he's out there in a covert situation. Who knows? So for me,
this will bring closure to it."In addition to his parents, Darryl said his two sisters, a few grandchildren
and even some cousins will be attending the full military burial at the
expense of the Army."I think this will be the most meaningful thing for those who will be
attending and for my dad," Darryl said. "He's never accepted it. He can't
deal (with Paul's death). Hopefully, this will help him move on."For Jane, the discovery has been bittersweet. Her son's body has been
officially identified and she is grateful for all the Army officials have
done.But it is still hard to believe it is her Paul, Jane said."(The Army) say it is Paul, but I don't know," she said. "I guess I will
always question it because we don't have a body to bury. That's what makes
it hard. I can't see that it's really him."She said Thursday's memorial service and Friday's burial will provide her
with some solace and closure."This helps," she said.
=====================
ARLINGTON, Va.
12/11/2003
Troops' Remains From Vietnam Era BuriedAssociated Press
ARLINGTON, Va. - More than three decades after Army Warrant Officer
Paul Black's helicopter was shot down by the Viet Cong, his remains
were buried with those of three wartime comrades Thursday at Arlington
National Cemetery.About 50 mourners gathered under a drizzling rain with their hands
over their hearts as a horse-drawn caisson carried the flag-draped
casket. It contained the recently identified remains of Black, along
with those from three other men who were on the Huey helicopter with
him when it crashed and burned in Cambodia on March, 1, 1971.
ááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááááá Black, Warrant Officer Robert Uhl of San Mateo, Calif., Specialist
Gary David from Pottstown, Pa., and Specialist Frank Sablan of Phenix
City, Ala., were on an aerial reconnaissance mission at the time.
Black, 22, was from Central Valley, Calif.Black's remains were recovered by the military's Joint POW/MIA
Accounting Command in 1995, and then identified in early January,
according to Gina Jackson with the Hawaii-based command.His comrades' remains were recovered and identified in 1971, she said
From: Robert A Cox CW-4 (ret), US Army
Reason: aircraft lost or crashed
Casualty type: Hostile - died while missing
single male U.S. citizen
Race: Caucasian
Religion: other religions (Hindu, Thai, etc.)
Burial information: ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY, VA (IMO)
The following information secondary, but may help in explaining this incident.
Category of casualty as defined by the Army: battle dead Category of personnel: active duty Army Military class: warrant officer
This record was last updated on 12/13/2003
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