(12) MAJOR KANE AND THE OTHER AMERICAN POWS REPORTEDLY SEEN ON A CHAIN GANG JUST SOUTH OF HOA BINH PROVINCE TOWN IN NORTHERN VIETNAM IN 1983. CASE #3055.
(Authors’ map "The 1983-84 Cover-up, 15 Selected Cases," point 12).

n late November 1984, a resident of North Carolina advised the Special Office that a group of American POWs had reportedly been seen during the summer of 1983 working on a chain gang near Hoa Binh province town in Hoa Binh Province (postwar Ha Son Binh Province) southwest of Hanoi (Authors’ map "Postwar Indochina;" DMA SRV Postwar Province Map.). 133 The sighting was said to have occurred when a Greek merchant seaman happened upon the prisoners and their guards while sightseeing in the Hoa Binh area. Reportedly, one of the American prisoners had been able to shout his name and military rank to the merchant seaman before guards intervened and struck the prisoner and ordered the seaman out of the area.

The North Carolina source said he had learned the details of the reported sighting from a friend in Greece who, the source said, was a good acquaintance of the merchant seaman and had heard the story directly from him. The North Carolina source stated that he himself was not directly acquainted with the merchant seaman and therefore was "not in [a] position to pass final judgment on his integrity."

According to the North Carolina source, the merchant seaman had told his friend the following:

He was a crewman aboard the Greek vessel "San Dimitris," which arrived in Haiphong sometime during August 1983. After unloading the ship’s cargo of grain for eight days, he took a day’s shore leave and went sightseeing in Hoa Binh Province, southwest of Hanoi. As he was riding a rented motorbike through a hamlet no more than two clicks (1.2 miles) south of Hoa Binh province town, he came upon a group of bearded Caucasian prisoners working under guard alongside the road. When the prisoners saw him, one wearing army fatigue trousers yelled out, "I am Major Kane from the camp in Borikhan!" A guard immediately intervened, striking the prisoner in the face with a rifle butt and screaming at him (the seaman) to leave the area at once.
Frightened, he quickly discarded his motorbike and began running back toward Hoa Binh province town. As he was running away, he heard shots being fired behind him and the shouts of the prisoners yelling in English, "Go! Go!" The guard did not pursue him and he was able to reach Hoa Binh province town unharmed. From there, he took a bus to Hanoi and then back to Haiphong. The following day he and the crew of the "San Dimitris" sailed for Greece. 134

Background and Disposition of Case: The Greek merchant seaman’s reported sighting was assigned Case #3055. Deputy Chief Trowbridge, Senior Analyst Destatte and Analysts Tourison and Salvatore Ferro participated in the investigation.

The significance of the report quickly became apparent when the analysts discovered that Major Richard Kane, a Marine aviator shot down over South Vietnam in 1967, was, indeed, missing. 135 *

Though the analysts were puzzled by Kane’s reported statement that he was "from the camp at Borikan,"** they knew well that a prison believed to have held American POWs during the war but from which none returned at Operation Homecoming was located just a stone’s throw down the highway at Xom Tang hamlet. (Authors’ annotated 1:250,000 color map of Hoa Binh-Xom Tang area entitled "(1) Kane et al. on Road Gang; (2) Xom Tang Prison"). This prison, which was known to U.S. intelligence analysts as "Xom Tang Possible PW Detention Installation N-65," had been a prime target of U.S. intelligence collectors and had been photographed extensively throughout the war. 136 (Enlarged annotated DoD wartime reconnaissance photo of Xom Tang Prison w/partial DoD title "POSS PW DETENTION INSTALLA… 20 46 46N 105 20 32E").

Soon after the investigation of the merchant seaman's account got under way, the credibility of the story received yet another boost when personnel at the Office of Naval Intelligence determined that the Greek freighter "San Demitris" did in fact exist, and that the ship had transited the Suez Canal on 13 June 1983 bound for India. A further search of records determined that after spending the period 27 June – 4 July "in port in India," the "San Demitris" also spent the period 10 July – 28 August "in port in India." According to the Naval Intelligence personnel, this was "an unusually long time for the ship to be in port" and a possible explanation was "that the ship left and then returned to India…." 137 (Remember, according to Source 3055, the merchant seaman reportedly encountered Maj. Kane and the other Americans on the road gang sometime during August 1983).

1. MAJ. KANE ET AL ON ROAD GANG, 2. XOM TANG PRISON (DMA, with authors' annotations) [click to enlarge]

(DIA, from files of Former U.S. Rep. Bill Hendon, (R-NC), Intelligence Investigator assigned to the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs 1991-1992 from the Office of Committee Vice-Chairman Sen. Robert Smith (R-NH)) [click to enlarge]


In late January 1985, the Special Office analysts cabled the U.S. Embassy in Athens to request that embassy personnel locate the ship’s owners and interview them about the reported sighting. When embassy officials called on the owners and asked them about the incident, the owners declared that though the "San Demitris" had been in the region at the time, it had not docked at Haiphong because, they said, they did not want to violate the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam. (At the time of the "San Dimitris’s" 1983 voyage, U.S. law prohibited any loans, credits or grants to any country which allowed its ships to transport goods to Vietnam). 138

When advised of the owners’ statements, Trowbridge and his analysts at the Special Office, rather than press on with the investigation and interview the merchant seaman himself and the other members of the crew, quickly seized upon the owners’ transparent, self-serving denial and declared that it constituted proof that the reported sighting of Major Kane and the other American POWs was a fabrication. The "San Demitris" had not docked at Haiphong during August 1983, the group said, and therefore the merchant seaman could not possibly have seen Major Kane and the other American POWs on the road gang near Hoa Binh province town. Official evaluation: "Fabrication." 139

On 5 March 1985 the analysts’ evaluation was approved by DIA management and entered, albeit incorrectly, into the official DIA roster as follows:

CASENO SIGHT INFORMATION DOS CNTRY IAC COMMENTS
03055 POW-HSY 1 US PW HANOI ‘CAIN’ 8312 VN 850305 EVAL APP’D FABRICATION 140

No matter the location and date of the sighting were listed incorrectly. No matter at all. The investigation into the "non-voyage of the ‘San Demitris’ to Vietnam" was over.

* Major Kane’s name appears on Panel 26E, Line 61 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.. Next to his name is a cross, denoting his status as missing-in-action. (A VIETNAM REMEMBRANCE AND DIRECTORY OF THE NATIONAL VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL, published by the U.S. Veteran News and Report, Kinston, N.C., p.118).

** The name of a Lao province and a town within that province. Borikhan Province is located at the “head” of the Mekong in east-central Laos. The town of Borikhan is located on Lao National Route 4 at a point some 15 statute miles north of the Mekong River town of Muong Paksan. (authors’ annotated map of area).


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