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Albert Mark Fransen, Jr.

Rank/Branch: E4/US Navy

Unit: Commander Coastal Division 15

Date of Birth: 09 November 1944 (Clinton OK)

Home City of Record: Las Vegas NV

Date of Loss: 02 July 1969

Country of Loss: South Vietnam/Over Water

Loss Coordinates: 125029N 1092706E (CQ320200)

Status (in 1973): Killed/Body Not Recovered

Category: 5

Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Boat (PCF 87)

Other Personnel in Incident: (none missing)

Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 30 April 1990 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.

SYNOPSIS: Engineman Petty Officer Third Class Albert M. Fransen, Jr. was assigned to Commander Coastal Division 15. On July 2, 1969, he was onboard a swift boat (PCF-87) which was conducting harassment and interdiction fire about 50 miles south of Qui Nhon, South Vietnam, when the boat was hit by an 81mm mortar round.

Petty Officer Fransen was killed by wounds inflicted by the mortar. Navy information provides no further details of the boat or the rest of the crew. It only states that Fransen could not be found. He was listed Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered (KIA/BNR).

Petty Officer Fransen is listed among the missing because his body was never located to return home for burial. There is no doubt that he is dead. He is among over 3000 Americans who were prisoner, missing or unaccounted for when the war ended.

Others who are missing do not have such clear cut cases. Some were known to be captives; some were photographed as they were led by their guards. Some were in radio contact with search teams, while others simply disappeared.

Since the war ended, over 250,000 interviews have been conducted with those who claim to know about Americans still alive in Southeast Asia, and several million documents have been studied. U.S. Government experts cannot seem to agree whether Americans are there alive or not. Distracters say it would be far too politically difficult to bring the men they believe to be alive home, and the U.S. is content to negotiate for remains.

Over 1000 eyewitness reports of living American prisoners were received by 1989. Most of them are still classified. If, as the U.S. seems to believe, the men are all dead, why the secrecy after so many years? If the men are alive, why are they not home?

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to keep pushing this issue inside the Beltway, the need to get specific answers is more important now than ever before. If still alive, some MIAs are now in their 70s, they don't have much time left. We have to demand the answers from the bureaucrats and keep standing on their necks (figuratively speaking) until they get the message that THEY work for US and that we are serious about getting these long overdue responses. Diplomatic considerations aside, we can no longer allow questionable protocols established by pseudo-aristocratic armchair strategists, to determine or influence the fate of the men who were in the trenches while the diplomats were sharing sherry and canapés and talking about "Their Plans" for the future of SE Asia.

My letter to help bring our men and women home.
The family of Albert Fransen has the right to know where he is. Where are our missing.

If you would like to help with this cause please click the image below for more info.

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