Dennis Stanley Pike was a United States Navy pilot who went missing in action during the Vietnam War on March 23, 1972. He is one of fifteen servicemen from Arizona to remain unaccounted for during the Vietnam War.
Background[]
Dennis Pike was born on July 2, 1940 in Globe, Arizona to David and Gladys Pike and was raised Protestant. Dennis would later marry Lou An Roe and have a son, Vincent, and two daughters, Denise and Shannon. In 1965, Dennis graduated from Arizona State University and in May of that year, was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. By this time, he was living in Baghdad, Arizona.
He was not allowed to fly in the Air Force due to a color deficiency. With the help of an Air Force Senior Master Sergeant and a Navy Admiral, he accepted an inter-service transfer to the United States Navy in November 1967. He began flight training, and was awarded his pilot's wings in April 1969.
He served in Attack Squadron 192 aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) and flew a A-7E Corsair II with bureau number 157520 and call sign "Jury 307." He was also an accomplished artist who designed his squadron's "Golden Dragon" that was painted on the side of their A7s.
Disappearance[]
On March 23, 1972, Dennis, who became was Lieutenant Commander at this point, took off from the USS Kitty Hawk on a night strike mission against targets of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos. After his first pass over the target, he radioed his wingman, Commander Robert Taylor, that he was either hit by anti-aircraft artillery or was experience engine trouble.
Per Taylor's testimony, "I watched Pike disappear on the way out, and that scene, those ten or fifteen seconds, are embedded in my mind, lived over and over. I was about a mile-and-a-half behind him, saw the smoke come out of his tailpipe and called him up asking if there were any problems. He replied, 'Yeah, I've got some oil pressure problems.' We were only about twenty miles inside of Laos. I told him to take a heading toward Da Nang. He rolled out and made the turn from southwest all the way around to the east at five thousand feet. I told him, 'If you pass three thousand feet and don't have anything left, then [get] out.' He replied, 'Roger that,' followed by an 'Uh oh, there goes the engine. Well, see you guys later.'" Pike indicated that he had to eject."
Taylor observed a cloud of white smoke and an object tumbling appeared through the air what he thought was Dennis' ejection seat, but no parachute was sighted. The plane loss coordinates are 152200N 1073400E (YC755030), which was over rugged jungle mountains twenty miles southwest of the Laos/(South) Vietnam border. These terrain conditions would make recovery efforts difficult.
Aftermath[]
Aerial Search-and-Rescue efforts continued during daylight hours until March 26, 1972. No emergency beeper signals or voice contact were established and a visual search failed to locate the aircraft wreckage or Dennis.
Dennis has been declared killed in action-body not recovered and was not among the returned Prisoners of War or remains that have been returned to US custody since the end of the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Purple Heart and memorialized at the Courts of Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii and on Panel 2W, Line 119 of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Dennis Stanley Pike remains among the over 1,500 Americans who remain unaccounted for in the Vietnam War. The DPAA has listed his case as being under Active Pursuit.