McConnell Air Force Base News Release
MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan.– The McConnell Air Force Base Honor Guard supported the Dignified Arrival today of the remains of TSgt. Willis R. Hall, at Eisenhower International Airport in Wichita.
Airmen from McConnell were also on hand, to salute as the procession departed the airport.
Tech. Sgt. Willis R. Hall was killed during the Vietnam War in 1968, and was accounted for June 23, 2025. He is originally from Rose, Kansas.
His remains was transported to Wichita today, and received by his family. A visitation, followed by a memorial service and burial are scheduled for Saturday in Altoona, Kansas. The McConnell Air Force Base Honor Guard will be in Altoona on Saturday to support those services.
In 1968, Hall and 18 other men were assigned to Lima Site 85, a tactical air navigation radar site on a remote, 5,600-foot mountain peak known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province, Laos. In the early morning of March 11, the site was overrun by Vietnamese commandos, causing the Americans to seek safety on a narrow ledge of the steep mountain. A few hours later, under the protective cover of A-1 Skyraider aircraft, U.S. helicopters were able to rescue eight of the men. Hall and 10 other Americans were killed in action and unable to be recovered.
In 1994, a joint U.S. – Lao People’s Democratic Republic recovery operation, led by DPAA’s predecessor Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, took place near the top of Phou Pha Thi with negative results. A second recovery operation, in 2003, resulted in the discovery of remains which were subsequently identified as one of the missing U.S. servicemen, Tech. Sgt. Patrick L. Shannon. Since that time, JPAC evaluated the feasibility of conducting recoveries on Phou Pha Thi, but logistics and safety concerns precluded further attempts.
From 1994 to 2009, in cooperation with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Laos, teams pursued multiple leads from dozens of witnesses interviewed, including those involved with the attack. In 2003, a joint team recovered remains during site investigation work along the western slopes of Phou Pha Thi. The remains were scientifically identified as one of the 11 missing Airmen from this incident. In 2005, a Laotian citizen provided U.S. officials an identification card belonging to another missing servicemember, and human remains purportedly found at the base of Phou Pha Thi.
In 2020, DPAA partner the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) began an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) survey and analysis of the site with the goal of providing recovery recommendations to the DPAA. After the survey was cut short by the 2020 global pandemic, the team returned to the site in the fall of 2022 completing the UAV survey and delivering their recommendations which included the identification of specific areas of interest for recovery on the cliffside loss site.
In 2023, acting on the 2022 UIC recommendations, DPAA personnel and members from partner organizations, conducting work in preparation for a recovery mission, discovered unexploded ordnance, incident-related materials, possible material evidence, and possible osseus remains from the loss location surveyed by UIC. The osseus material was later identified as Sgt. David Price, one of the men missing from Lima Site 85.
Joint recovery teams surveyed and excavated the site from Jan. 16 – Feb. 16, 2025, and March 2-31, 2025, as parts of Joint Field Activities 25-2LA and 25-3LA. During both missions, the teams recovered possible human remains, possible material evidence, and other osseus material. All remains and evidence were subsequently accessioned into the DPAA Laboratory for scientific analysis.
To identify Hall’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis as well as material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial, Y-chromosome, and autosomal DNA analysis.
Today, Hall is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, and on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., (Panel 44E, Line 17). A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for.
