| Date: 5 October 1965 |
| Aircraft type: F-105D Thunderchief |
| Serial Number: 62-4295 |
| Military Unit: 36 TFS, 6441 TFW on TDY |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Takhli |
| Name(s): |
| Maj Dean Andrew Pogreba (KIA) |
| Aircraft type: F-105D Thunderchief |
| Serial Number: 62-4376 |
| Military Unit: 36 TFS, 6441 TFW on TDY |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Takhli |
| Name(s): |
| Capt Bruce Gibson Seeber (POW) |
| Aircraft type: F-4C Phantom |
| Serial Number: 63-7563 |
| Military Unit: 43 TFS, 15 TFW on TDY |
| Service: USAF |
| Home Base: Ubon |
| Name(s): |
| Capt James Otis Hivner (POW) |
| 1Lt Thomas Joseph Barrett (POW) |
| A Rolling Thunder raid on a road bridge at Lang Met, 40 miles northeast of Hanoi and just nine miles northeast of Kep met with disaster on the 5th. Maj Dean Pogreba was leading four other F-105s with Capt Bruce Seeber on his wing. During the attack on the target, which was intermittently obscured by rain showers, first Pogreba’s (call sign Mercury 1) and then Seeber’s (call sign Mercury 2) aircraft was hit by AAA. Seeber ejected and was captured immediately but none of the other American pilots in the flight knew exactly what happened to Pogreba although he was seen heading north towards China after hitting the target. A report claims that an announcement was made on Peking radio on the 5th that Pogreba had been captured by the Chinese and even gave his service serial number. However, there was never any independent confirmation of Pogreba being in Chinese hands. Dean Pogreba had been shot down once before, on 22 August, during a mission west of Thanh Hoa and was rescued and returned to duty. Three other F-105s on this raid were forced to divert to Da Nang due to battle damage. Several of the aircraft were carrying the 3,000lb M-118 bomb, which was the largest conventional bomb that could be carried by the F-105.
Half an hour after Pogreba and Seeber had been shot down the Lang Met Bridge was attacked again, this time by a flight of Phantoms from Ubon. One of the aircraft (call sign Panther) was hit by AAA and caught fire near the target and tried to escape by flying east. Capt Hivner and 1Lt Barrett were forced to eject 15 miles northeast of Lang Met and only 20 miles from the Chinese border. On 12 February 1973 Seeber, Hivner and Barrett were released from Hanoi in Operation Homecoming but there was no sign of Maj Pogreba. Post-war rumours of him being seen in captivity in North Vietnam were unsubstantiated and simply served to increase the anguish felt by his family. It is most probable that Dean Pogreba died in his Thunderchief but the Peking Radio report, if true, is very curious and as yet his remains have not been returned. According to Col Jack Broughton in his book Going Downtown, Dean Pogreba would have faced a courts-martial had he returned from this mission. The previous day he had attacked a SAM site that was under construction near Hanoi when he came under fire from the site’s protective anti-aircraft guns. Under the ludricous rules of engagement at that time new SAM sites could not be attacked until they had been completed and actually fired a missile! |
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