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Search Teams Look for Missing American Pilot in South Vietnam

Feb. 7, 1963 - Search teams combed jungles in central Vietnam today for a U.S. Air Force co-pilot missing since the crash of his fighter-bomber. An American military spokesman identified him as 1st Lt. James E. Johnson of Winter Haven, Fla. A Vietnamese air force observer was found alive, and it was thought that the co-pilot, one of two Americans aboard, also may have survived. The body of the plane’s American pilot was found in the wreckage. He was identified in Saigon as Air Force Maj. James R. O’Neill (pictured), 40, of Huntington Station, N.Y. The fighter-bomber crashed yesterday after the pilot reported engine trouble. It had been dropping incendiary bombs on a suspected concentration of Communist guerrillas in thickly jungled mountains 200 miles northeast of Saigon.

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