Robert Dale Herreid

Robert Dale Herreid
Rank/Branch: E5/US Army Special Forces
Unit: Detachment A-402, Company D, 5th Special Forces Group
Date of Birth: 13 June 1946 (Williston ND)
Home City of Record: Aurora IL
Date of Loss: 10 October 1968
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 102247N 1045857E (VS975478)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 2
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Refno: 1300
Other Personnel In Incident: (none missing)

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.

REMARKS:

SYNOPSIS: On October 12, 1968, demolitions specialist SP5 Robert Herreid was an advisor to the 47th Mobile Strike Force Company during an operation on the Nui Coto mountain area in Chau Doc Province, South Vietnam. When the unit was advancing up the mountain, the unit was blasted by heavy bunker fire and withdrew to a pagoda, where they set up a defensive perimeter.

During the initial fire fight, Herreid's Cambodian radio operator stated that he had seen Herreid get hit in the chest and fall to the ground dead, and he gave Herreid's weapon to the commanding officer. Nguyen Van Liet and other soldiers said Herreid was shot in the left temple and was last seen lying by a leafless mangrove tree. Other operations in and through the area failed to locate him.

In 1974, while trying to locate the site, an inhabitant of the area claimed that he had been with Herreid when he fell. He took U.S. officials to the spot in question, which was searched several times, but a gravesite was never found.