Welcome To
Walter Hugh "Wally"
Moons' Dedication Page
Name: Walter Hugh
"Wally" Moon
Rank/Branch: O4/US Army Special Forces
Unit: Company B, FFT-59, 1st Special Forces
Date of Birth: 31 March 1923
Home City of Record: Rudy AR
Date of Loss: 22 April 1961
Country of Loss: Laos
Loss Coordinates: 185521N 1022827E (TG240150)
Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Refno: 0005
Source: Compiled from one or more of the following:
raw data from U.S.
Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families,
published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W.
NETWORK in 1998.
Other Personnel In Incident: Orville Ballenger
(released 1962); Gerald
Biber; John Bischoff (both missing)
REMARKS: KIA N ESCAPE UG 0944 - J
SYNOPSIS: The early 1960's marked a period of civil
war and military coups
in the country of Laos which resulted in major
objectives being taken by
Kong Le-Pathet Lao communist forces. Kong Le had
himself been a graduate of
the CIA-sponsored Philippine scout and ranger school
and had announced that
he was fighting the corrupt royal government headed by
Prince Souvanna
Phouma. Kong Le found support from the Soviets, who
assisted him in
defeating Gen. Phoumi Nosavan's countercoup forces at
the capitol city of
Vientiane in December 1960. Pathet Lao troops were
airlifted by the Soviets
to take the Plaine des Jarres region in March 1961.
Although Gen. Nosavan and Groupement 12 of the new
Forces Armees de Laos
continued to give chase to Kong Le and his troops,
they were not successful
in regaining the Plain of Jars. In early March two
Pathet Lao battalions
drove Groupement 12 back toward Vang Vieng. Capt.
Walter Moon's four-man
Field Training Team FTT-59, MAAG, of the 7th Special
Forces Group was
attached to the 6th Bataillon d'infanterie (Lao) at
Ban Pha Home, about
thirty miles north of Vang Vieng. On April 22, 1961,
the battalion was
subjected to a heavy and accurate artillery barrage
and was rapidly flanked
at Phou Tesao.
Shortly after the battalion commander announced that
they were cut off, the
perimeter collapsed and the Pathet Lao quickly overran
the battalion
positions. The team's commander, Capt. Walter Moon,
was captured in the
initial attack.
SFC John M. Bischoff (the medic), Sgt. Gerald M. Biber
(the radio operator),
and some Laotian soldiers jumped aboard an armored
car, heading south on
Route 13, in a breakout effort. According to Lao
survivors, they crouched
behind the turret, but the car came under heavy
grenade attack. Sgt.
Bischoff fired a machine gun from the vehicle until he
was shot through the
neck and killed. Sgt. Biber had already been wounded
and was apparently
killed by stick grenades thrown against the armored
car. The vehicle was
halted and its crew captured.
Sgt. Orville R. Ballinger, demolitions sergeant,
escaped through the jungle
and linked up with some Lao soldiers. They found a
boat and were going
downriver when they were surprised and captured by the
Pathet Lao seven days
later. Sgt. Ballenger were eventually released in
August 1962.
Capt. Moon tried to escape twice during his
confinement, and on the last
attempt was wounded in the chest and head. According
to Ballinger, Moon's
head injury caused him to be come mentally unbalanced,
and after several
months of persecution, he was executed in his prison
quarters at Lat Theoung
by a Meo guard and a Pathet Lao officer on July 22,
1961. The Pathet Lao
have consistently denied knowledge of Moon, Biber or
Bischoff.
In 1984, James "Bo" Gritz, a highly decorated former
Special Forces colonel,
brought documents and a photograph pertaining to Moon
from Laos and gave
them to the U.S. Government. Moon's wife positively
identified the
photograph and Moon's signature. The Government stated
that the photograph
was made May 6, 1961, two weeks after Moon's capture.
(Moon was normally
clean-shaven but had, according to USG, grown a full
beard in 2 weeks!)
Though the documents were taken from a large
collection of 250-300 similar
documents held by the Lao People's Army in Laos, the
U.S. refused to demand
the information from the Lao. The Defense Intelligence
Agency, according to
Congressman Stephen Solarz, has full knowledge of this
collection.
Whether Biber and Bischoff survived the ambush on
April 22, 1961 is unknown.
They and Moon are among nearly 600 Americans who
disappeared in Laos and did
not return. The treaty which ended American
involvement in the war in
Southeast Asia did not pertain to the prisoners held
by the Lao, and not a
single prisoner was released from Laos in 1973. The
Lao publicly stated they
held prisoners, but the U.S. has never negotiated for
their release.
Were it not for thousands of reports relating to
Americans still held
captive in Southeast Asia, we could simply close the
door on men like Biber,
Bischoff and Moon. But as long as there is even one
man alive, the nation he
went to serve must do all it can to bring him home.
---------------------------------------------
[smith2.94
07/31/94]
Mark Smith 07/06/94
NOTE: this report IS NOT repruduced in its entirety.
Mark Smith's thoughts on:
6. Walter Moon....persistent intelligence on Walter
Moon surfaces from
time to time......although Bo Gritz was accused of
fabricating
intelligence on Moon, in all fairness, his
intelligence was consistent
with all other information. Though other prisoners
related Moon's death,
none actually witnessed it........reported alive as
late as 1990....
-----------------------------------------------
SOVIETS INVITE U.S. VETS TO MOSCOW FOR POW TALKS
SPECIAL TO U.S. VETERAN - By Tim Carver
The principal topic of discussion was unaccounted for
prisoners of war and
missing in action--American and Soviet--during two
weeks of talks in Moscow
between a delegation of U.S. veterans and high-ranking
Soviet officials.
A delegation of ten members of the National Vietnam
Veterans' Coalition, a
Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group, headed by its
chairman, Thomas Burch,
was in Moscow and in the Ureals from July 10 to 24 at
the invitation of
Afghan vet activist in Sverdolvsk and at Soviet
expense.
In discussions with various Soviet leaders there was a
mutual concern
expressed for U.S. prisoners of war, ranging from
those still unaccounted for
from World War II through the Korean War and the
Vietnam War, and for Soviet
prisoners of war who are missing in Afghanistan.
GIVEN LIST OF 73
Representatives of the U.S. delegation testified
before the Supreme Soviet
Committee on Internationalist Combatants. The Soviets
were presented a list
of 73 American missing in Indochina, including four
cases relating to
American military personnel captured in Laos.
Those four cases included David L. Hrdlicka, missing
since May 18, 1965;
Charles Shelton, missing since April 29, 1965; Walter
Moon, missing since
April 22, 1961, and Robert Standerwick, missing since
Feb. 3, 1971.
---------------------------------------------
The Bamboo Cage -- The Full Story of the American
Servicemen still held
hostage in South-East Asia. By Nigel Cawthorn
........ Gritz also claims that Admiral Tuttle
informed him of the Fort
Apache Mission and that he, Tuttle, had personally
briefed President-elect
Ronald Reagan and several members of his staff in the
west room of the White
House in January, 1981, on 'a minimum of 100 PoWs in
Vietnam'. Gritz has
produced as evidence a photograph and signature of an
American captive of
the Pathet Lao who identifies himself as US Army Major
Walter H. Moon from
Arkansas who went missing in Laos in April, 1961. His
wife, Ruth Moon, has
verified that the man in a photograph and the
signature belong to her
husband. The DIA say that Moon was killed in an escape
attempt in July,
1961. (12)
"All Biographical and loss
information on
Vietnam Era POW/MIA's provided by Operation Just Cause
have been supplied by Chuck and Mary Schantag of
POW/NET http://www.asde.com/~pownet/
. Please check
with POW/NET regularly for
updates."
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