Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1959 Lucky Bag:

WINFIELD W. SISSON

Twentieth Company

Wade, an Army Brat familiar with the wilds of West Point, calls California his home. Coming to the Academy via Drew Prep, he managed easily to get by the academic departments without the aid of late lights or gouges. Utilizing efficiently his spare time, the “bashful blonde” always kept abreast of current events. He still found time to amass on his almost unbeatable record collection. While spending his weekends writing his California “cutie” and sleeping, Wade decided upon a life in Marine Air, where his subtle humor and wit will undoubtedly aid him in his career.

Loss

Winfield was lost on October 18, 1965 when the O-1G Bird Dog observation aircraft he was flying crashed in a mountainous area near Da Nang, South Vietnam. He was a member of Headquarters Battalion, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Winfield was first named to the Naval Academy by Congressman John F. Baldwin. When Winfield received a presidential appointment, the alternate was awarded entry to the Academy.

In May 1962, Winfield completed field carrier landing qualification with Training Squadron 5 at the Saufley Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Pensacola. He received his “Wings of Gold” in August at Chase Field Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Beeville, Texas.

In June 1963, Winfield was in the Caribbean engaged in aerial gunnery and fighter-intercept training with Marine Fighter Squadron 251.

Winfield sailed from the east coast to take part in Operation Steel Pike in Spain in November 1964. The combat training exercise was the largest amphibious operation conducted in the Atlantic since WWII. Winfield was a member of the Marine medium helicopter squadron at Marin Corps Air Facility in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

In January 1965, Winfield participated in a training operation near Atlanta preparing Marines for duty in mountainous terrain and cold weather.

Photographs

From The Berkeley Gazette on March 23, 1960

From The Berkeley Gazette on July 14, 1956

Remembrances

From Wall of Faces:

We were in Operation’s in MACV SOG. Never met a better Marine. Miss You CDR ARTHUR WILLIS JR. US NAVY RETIRED, ARTURO_BJ@HOTMAIL.COM, 7/29/07

Return

From ArlingtonCemetery.net¹:

Remains identified as missing Colonels
Wednesday, June 20, 2001

The remains of two colonels, including a former Berkeley resident who disappeared during a reconnaissance flight over South Vietnam in 1965, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial, officials said Tuesday. The Pentagon said the remains are those of Marine Colonel Winfield Wade Sisson, an aerial observer from Berkeley, and Colonel Harley Boyd Pyles, a pilot from Enon, Ohio. Officials said the pair had just accomplished a target-strike mission when bad weather apparently caused them to slam their two-seater Cessna into a mountain October 18, 1965. Pyles, who was piloting the O-1E “Bird Dog,” was about 10 minutes shy of landing at Da Nang Air Base from Kham Duc, South Vietnam, when he reported low-level cloud cover and rain. He was receiving help from another pilot, but that man’s plane was fired upon while landing, officials said. Pyles’ attempts to contact the tower went unanswered, and the O-1E never reached the base, according to Major Rene Stockwell of the Joint Task Force Full Accounting, which aids in the investigation of unaccounted-for servicemen in Southeast Asian nations. Air searches were conducted, but intense fighting prohibited officials from conducting thorough ground searches. Relatives of Sisson, of Berkeley, could not be reached Tuesday evening. In an interview with the Mercury News in 1985 – about 20 years after the colonel disappeared and was later presumed dead – Sisson’s father, Winfield Wilbur Sisson, said he was still holding out hope for his son’s return. “I think about him all the time,” he said. The remains of Sisson and Pyles were repatriated from Vietnam in 1993, and their identities were confirmed in May through dental records and DNA analysis, officials said.

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Related Articles

Charles Witt ‘59 and Robert Mulrooney ‘59 were also members of 20th Company.

Memorial Hall Error?

Winfield is listed on the killed in action panel in the front of Memorial Hall. While not an obvious error, inclusion on the panel for crashes like this (incidental to combat flights) has been inconsistent across the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

References