Home at last: pilot laid to rest 37 years after his death

Citizen Airman, August, 2004 by Bud McKay

It weighs only a few ounces, but for almost 40 years Tommy Holmes' MIA bracelet has been like an anchor. He wore the silver bracelet, inscribed with the name of his father, Col. Lester E. Holmes, every day since he was reported missing in action May 22, 1967.

Along with his two older brothers, Bruce and Senior Master Sgt. Roger Holmes, Tommy was finally able to remove the anchor from his wrist--37 years to the day Colonel Holmes was shot down over North Vietnam. They placed their bracelets next to their father's coffin at a funeral May 22 in Nashua, Iowa.

"I've gone through a couple of them," said Tommy, the youngest of Colonel Holmes' three sons, as he touched the silver MIA bracelet he wore on his right wrist before the funeral. "At times, it's been a shackle in my life. For the last 37 years, my dad was never dead to me--he was missing. After the funeral, I'll never wear this particular bracelet again: I'll put it in my dad's coffin. But once I put that one away, I will wear another one with another name on it. The (MIA) issue is that important to me."

Colonel Holmes' father and mother, Lagrand and Chloe Holmes, of Plainfield, Iowa, and his wife, Norma Jean Holmes, died before ever learning what happened to him. The colonel was laid to rest next to his wife, who passed away in 1986.

Colonel Holmes was last in Iowa in 1966. That's when he took his wife and three sons to his hometown of Plainfield to show them the dream house he planned to buy in preparation for his retirement from the Air Force in 1968. The house had plenty of land for the highly decorated aviator to construct a small runway out back. It also had an area where he planned to locate a gun shop.

His passion for guns landed him on the all-Air Force pistol team. In one competition, he and his teammates went up against the all-Marine Corps pistol team at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Shooting against him was his son, Bruce, who just a few years before was sworn into the Marines. The elder Holmes won four of the five matches against his son that day, and the Air Force won the overall competition. However, he was most proud of Bruce's sole victory.

Colonel Holmes' skill as an aviator earned him aircraft commander opportunities in many major events, including flying the lead jet in Jimmy Stewart's movie "Strategic Air Command" as well as flying Bob Hope around during the Berlin Airlift to entertain the troops. He looked at the chance of flying the smaller O-1E "Bird Dog" as a forward air controller in Vietnam as a dream assignment.

His dream job turned into a nightmare when Colonel Holmes was shot down May 22, 1967.

"Morn always dreaded to see a staff car drive up in the driveway," said Sergeant Holmes, first sergeant for the 36th Aerial Port Squadron, part of Air Force Reserve Command's 446th Airlift Wing, McChord AFB, Wash. "That's exactly what happened to us, only there were two staff cars: the wing commander and chaplain. Dad was shot down on May 22. We were notified on May 23. I graduated from high school on May 24."

When the Air Force officials showed up to notify the Holmes family, Bruce was serving as a Marine, and Sergeant Holmes was away visiting a nearby friend. Only Tommy was home with his mom when the staff cars pulled into their driveway.

"When the staff cars showed up, we knew something bad happened--there's never any good news when they show up," Tommy said. "We were told that he may have been captured or killed. They didn't know. The chaplain who showed up said, 'Let's pray he jumped out with his parachute.' Dad wouldn't wear a parachute.' we all knew that. Mom sure as hell knew that. She got very angry and told the chaplain, 'He didn't wear a damn parachute. Don't sit here and speculate on what you think may have happened. Give me the facts of what happened.'" But facts were scarce. The pilot of an O-1E flying about a mile ahead of the colonel's aircraft heard an explosion. He turned around and saw that Colonel Holmes' plane had been hit. One wing was gone, and the plane was spiraling toward the ground. The other Bird Dog pilot never saw Colonel Holmes' plane hit the ground because he began to take ground fire and had to take evasive action. For 30 minutes he circled the area where he thought Colonel Holmes may have gone down, but he never saw any evidence of a crash site.

Because of heavy concentrations of North Vietnamese forces in the area, which was just a few miles south of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, no rescue mission was possible, according to a Department of Defense report. It would be more than 20 years before the department received any leads into what happened to Colonel Holmes.

"There were so many different reports on what happened or what didn't happen," Sergeant Holmes said. "The Air Force would even bring over pictures it got from various POW camps to see if my mom could identify anyone as my dad. This was three or four years after he was shot down. My mom actually thought she did recognize his nose in one of the photos." All of the reports gave her and her sons hope, as well as fear, that Colonel Holmes was still alive.