Missing in Action - Cold War

Cold War

According to the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, as of 2000 there were still 126 U.S. servicemen unaccounted for from the Cold War.

• April 8, 1950, a U.S. Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer, (Bureau Number : 59645), flying out of Wiesbaden, Germany, was shot down by Soviet fighters over the Baltic Sea. The entire crew of 10 remains unaccounted for.

• Nov. 6, 1951, a U.S. Navy P2V Neptune, (Bureau Number : 124283), was shot down over the Sea of Japan. The entire crew of 10 remains unaccounted for.

• June 13, 1952, a U.S. Air Force RB-29 Superfortress, (Serial Number : 44-61810), stationed at Yokota Air Base, Japan, was shot down over the Sea of Japan. The entire crew of 12 remains unaccounted for.

• Oct. 7, 1952, a U.S. Air Force RB-29 Superfortress, (Serial Number : 44-61815), stationed at Yokota Air Base, Japan was shot down north of Hokkaido Island, Japan. Of the eight crewmen on board, seven remain unaccounted for.

• Nov. 28, 1952, a civilian C-47 Skytrain aircraft flying over China was shot down, and one American civilian remains unaccounted for.

• Jan. 18, 1953, a U.S. Navy P2V Neptune, (Bureau Number : 127744), with 13 crewmen aboard was shot down by the Chinese, in the Formosa Straits. Six crew members remain unaccounted for.

• July 29, 1953, a U.S. Air Force RB-50 Superfortress, (Serial Number : 47-145), stationed at Yokota Air Base, Japan, was shot down over the Sea of Japan. Of the 17 crew members on board, 14 remain unaccounted for.

• May 6, 1954 a civilian C-119 Flying Boxcar aircraft flying over Northern Vietnam was shot down. One of the two Americans onboard remains unaccounted for.

• April 17, 1955, a U.S. Air Force RB-47 Stratojet, (Serial Number : 51-2054), based at Eielson Air Base, Alaska, was shot down near the southern point of Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia. The entire crew of three remains unaccounted for.

• Aug. 22, 1956, a U.S. Navy P4M Mercator, (Bureau Number : 124362), was shot down off the coast of China. Of the 16 crew members on board, 12 remain unaccounted for.

• Sept. 10, 1956, a U.S. Air Force RB-50 Superfortress, (Serial Number : 47-133), based at Yokota Air Base, Japan, with a crew of 16, was lost in Typhoon Emma over the Sea of Japan. The entire crew remains unaccounted for.

• July 1, 1960, a U.S. Air Force RB-47 Stratojet, (Serial Number : 53-4281), stationed at RAF Brize Norton, England, was shot down over the Barents Sea. Of the six crew members on board, three remain unaccounted for.

• Dec. 14, 1965, a U.S. Air Force RB-57 Canberra, (Serial Number : 63-13287), was lost over the Black Sea, flying out of Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. The entire crew of two remains unaccounted for.

• April 15, 1969, a U.S. Navy EC-121 Warning Star, (Bureau Number : 135749), was shot down by North Korean fighters. Of the 31 men on board, 29 remain unaccounted for. (see 1969 EC-121 shootdown incident).

The 1991–1993 United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs investigated some outstanding issues and reports related to the fate of U.S. service personnel still missing from the Cold War. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin told the committee that the Soviet Union had held survivors of spy planes shot down in the early 1950s in prisons or psychiatric facilities. Russian Colonel General Dmitri Volkogonov, co-leader of the U.S.–Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs, said that to his knowledge no Americans were currently being held against their will within the borders of the former Soviet Union. The Select Committee concluded that it "found evidence that some U.S. POWs were held in the former Soviet Union after WW II, the Korean War and Cold War incidents," and that it "cannot, based on its investigation to date, rule out the possibility that one or more U.S. POWs from past wars or incidents are still being held somewhere within the borders of the former Soviet Union."