| Date: 4 August 1967 |
| Aircraft type: A-4E Skyhawk |
| Serial Number: 150052 |
| Military Unit: VA-163 |
| Service: USN |
| Home Base: USS Oriskany |
| Name(s): |
| Lt(jg) Ralph Campion Bisz (KIA) |
| As a formation of A-4s approached a POL storage site at Luc Nong, about eight miles northwest of Haiphong, four SA-2 missiles were seen to be fired from a SAM site near the target. Lt Bisz put his aircraft (call sign Old Salt 313) into a climb but the Skyhawk was hit by a SAM at about 10,500 feet and became a mass of flames and falling debris. No one in the flight saw any sign of a parachute and it was assumed by his wingman that Lt Bisz had died in his aircraft which crashed near Hai Duong. For some reason Lt Bisz was put on the official list as captured but the Navy later accepted that he had died on 4 August. Following the repatriation of human remains claimed by the Vietnamese to be those of Lt Bisz in 1988, several investigations were made by joint US/Vietnamese teams which discovered that the pilot’s remains had originally been buried in a local cemetery before being exhumed and handed over to district officers. However, it was not until 2007 that the use of recently developed nuclear DNA testing enabled the positive identification of the remains handed over in 1988 being those of Lt Bisz. Ralph Bisz was serving on his second tour in Southeast Asia with VA-163 when he was killed. |
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