James William Grace
Major, U.S. Air Force
497th Tactical Fighter Squadron
Entered the Service From: New Iberia, Louisiana
Date of Birth: December 20, 1939
Date of Death: June 14, 1969
Wars or Conflicts: Vietnam War
Memorialized: Courts of the Missing: Court A
Honolulu Memorial
Major Grace was a member of the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Ubon Airfield, Thailand. On June 14, 1969, he was the pilot of a McDonnell Douglas Phantom II Fighter (F-4D) on a mission 10 miles west of Muang Xepone (Sepone), Laos, when his plane went down. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial
============
Jim Grace once told a friend that if he were ever shot down, captured and held for several years, he would start a new life rather than disrupt his family if he learned his wife had remarried.
Shortly afterward, on June 14, 1969, Grace was flying a mission over Laos when his plane went down about 10 miles west of Muang Xepone Laos. His backseater, who would have been the first to eject, is not missing, so it is assumed he was rescued safely.
Throughout the early years, his wife, Lillian, sifted through government statements about her husband, trying to sort out what happened and what the chances were that he survived. One document says "the possibility definitely exists that he could be alive," an assessment made after witnesses claimed to have seen Capt. Grace fall 300 feet to 500 feet from the helicopter hoist.
Three years after he was shot down, Mrs. Bickel discovered "Photograph No. 77" in a government "mug book" of unidentified Americans held captive in North Vietnam or Laos. She thought the man in the photograph was her husband. The photo had been taken in North Vietnam by a Soviet film crew.
Lillian Grace, after many years of hard work and disappointment in trying to solve the mystery of her husband's disappearance, remarried and started a new life.
Then on June 14, 1982, Lillian Grace Bickel received a postcard from Hawaii. It was blank except for the postmark, the typewritten address and the inscription referring to the photograph on the front: "After years of dormancy, the volcano Mauna Loa comes to life."
When Mrs. Bickel turned the card over, she "started shaking and went into shock. In the blue sky over the volcano, someone had printed the tiny initials "JMJ." Lillian and Jim, who were childhood sweethearts, used to write the letters "JMJ" on test papers for good luck. JMJ stood for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Lillian stopped the practice after the eighth grade, but not Jim. The three letters "were of such a personalized nature that only I would have recognized the significance," Lillian said. She believes Grace, either himself or through an intermediary, was telling her he was alive. The card postmarked on the 13th anniversary of Jim Grace's shootdown.
James has another cenotaph, his remains have yet to be located.
This memorial is a cenotaph
another cenotaph
Major, U.S. Air Force
497th Tactical Fighter Squadron
Entered the Service From: New Iberia, Louisiana
Date of Birth: December 20, 1939
Date of Death: June 14, 1969
Wars or Conflicts: Vietnam War
Memorialized: Courts of the Missing: Court A
Honolulu Memorial
Major Grace was a member of the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Ubon Airfield, Thailand. On June 14, 1969, he was the pilot of a McDonnell Douglas Phantom II Fighter (F-4D) on a mission 10 miles west of Muang Xepone (Sepone), Laos, when his plane went down. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial
============
Jim Grace once told a friend that if he were ever shot down, captured and held for several years, he would start a new life rather than disrupt his family if he learned his wife had remarried.
Shortly afterward, on June 14, 1969, Grace was flying a mission over Laos when his plane went down about 10 miles west of Muang Xepone Laos. His backseater, who would have been the first to eject, is not missing, so it is assumed he was rescued safely.
Throughout the early years, his wife, Lillian, sifted through government statements about her husband, trying to sort out what happened and what the chances were that he survived. One document says "the possibility definitely exists that he could be alive," an assessment made after witnesses claimed to have seen Capt. Grace fall 300 feet to 500 feet from the helicopter hoist.
Three years after he was shot down, Mrs. Bickel discovered "Photograph No. 77" in a government "mug book" of unidentified Americans held captive in North Vietnam or Laos. She thought the man in the photograph was her husband. The photo had been taken in North Vietnam by a Soviet film crew.
Lillian Grace, after many years of hard work and disappointment in trying to solve the mystery of her husband's disappearance, remarried and started a new life.
Then on June 14, 1982, Lillian Grace Bickel received a postcard from Hawaii. It was blank except for the postmark, the typewritten address and the inscription referring to the photograph on the front: "After years of dormancy, the volcano Mauna Loa comes to life."
When Mrs. Bickel turned the card over, she "started shaking and went into shock. In the blue sky over the volcano, someone had printed the tiny initials "JMJ." Lillian and Jim, who were childhood sweethearts, used to write the letters "JMJ" on test papers for good luck. JMJ stood for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Lillian stopped the practice after the eighth grade, but not Jim. The three letters "were of such a personalized nature that only I would have recognized the significance," Lillian said. She believes Grace, either himself or through an intermediary, was telling her he was alive. The card postmarked on the 13th anniversary of Jim Grace's shootdown.
James has another cenotaph, his remains have yet to be located.
This memorial is a cenotaph
another cenotaph
James William Grace
Major, U.S. Air Force
497th Tactical Fighter Squadron
Entered the Service From: New Iberia, Louisiana
Date of Birth: December 20, 1939
Date of Death: June 14, 1969
Wars or Conflicts: Vietnam War
Memorialized: Courts of the Missing: Court A
Honolulu Memorial
Major Grace was a member of the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Ubon Airfield, Thailand. On June 14, 1969, he was the pilot of a McDonnell Douglas Phantom II Fighter (F-4D) on a mission 10 miles west of Muang Xepone (Sepone), Laos, when his plane went down. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial
============
Jim Grace once told a friend that if he were ever shot down, captured and held for several years, he would start a new life rather than disrupt his family if he learned his wife had remarried.
Shortly afterward, on June 14, 1969, Grace was flying a mission over Laos when his plane went down about 10 miles west of Muang Xepone Laos. His backseater, who would have been the first to eject, is not missing, so it is assumed he was rescued safely.
Throughout the early years, his wife, Lillian, sifted through government statements about her husband, trying to sort out what happened and what the chances were that he survived. One document says "the possibility definitely exists that he could be alive," an assessment made after witnesses claimed to have seen Capt. Grace fall 300 feet to 500 feet from the helicopter hoist.
Three years after he was shot down, Mrs. Bickel discovered "Photograph No. 77" in a government "mug book" of unidentified Americans held captive in North Vietnam or Laos. She thought the man in the photograph was her husband. The photo had been taken in North Vietnam by a Soviet film crew.
Lillian Grace, after many years of hard work and disappointment in trying to solve the mystery of her husband's disappearance, remarried and started a new life.
Then on June 14, 1982, Lillian Grace Bickel received a postcard from Hawaii. It was blank except for the postmark, the typewritten address and the inscription referring to the photograph on the front: "After years of dormancy, the volcano Mauna Loa comes to life."
When Mrs. Bickel turned the card over, she "started shaking and went into shock. In the blue sky over the volcano, someone had printed the tiny initials "JMJ." Lillian and Jim, who were childhood sweethearts, used to write the letters "JMJ" on test papers for good luck. JMJ stood for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Lillian stopped the practice after the eighth grade, but not Jim. The three letters "were of such a personalized nature that only I would have recognized the significance," Lillian said. She believes Grace, either himself or through an intermediary, was telling her he was alive. The card postmarked on the 13th anniversary of Jim Grace's shootdown.
James has another cenotaph, his remains have yet to be located.
This memorial is a cenotaph
another cenotaph
Major, U.S. Air Force
497th Tactical Fighter Squadron
Entered the Service From: New Iberia, Louisiana
Date of Birth: December 20, 1939
Date of Death: June 14, 1969
Wars or Conflicts: Vietnam War
Memorialized: Courts of the Missing: Court A
Honolulu Memorial
Major Grace was a member of the 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Ubon Airfield, Thailand. On June 14, 1969, he was the pilot of a McDonnell Douglas Phantom II Fighter (F-4D) on a mission 10 miles west of Muang Xepone (Sepone), Laos, when his plane went down. His remains were not recovered. His name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial
============
Jim Grace once told a friend that if he were ever shot down, captured and held for several years, he would start a new life rather than disrupt his family if he learned his wife had remarried.
Shortly afterward, on June 14, 1969, Grace was flying a mission over Laos when his plane went down about 10 miles west of Muang Xepone Laos. His backseater, who would have been the first to eject, is not missing, so it is assumed he was rescued safely.
Throughout the early years, his wife, Lillian, sifted through government statements about her husband, trying to sort out what happened and what the chances were that he survived. One document says "the possibility definitely exists that he could be alive," an assessment made after witnesses claimed to have seen Capt. Grace fall 300 feet to 500 feet from the helicopter hoist.
Three years after he was shot down, Mrs. Bickel discovered "Photograph No. 77" in a government "mug book" of unidentified Americans held captive in North Vietnam or Laos. She thought the man in the photograph was her husband. The photo had been taken in North Vietnam by a Soviet film crew.
Lillian Grace, after many years of hard work and disappointment in trying to solve the mystery of her husband's disappearance, remarried and started a new life.
Then on June 14, 1982, Lillian Grace Bickel received a postcard from Hawaii. It was blank except for the postmark, the typewritten address and the inscription referring to the photograph on the front: "After years of dormancy, the volcano Mauna Loa comes to life."
When Mrs. Bickel turned the card over, she "started shaking and went into shock. In the blue sky over the volcano, someone had printed the tiny initials "JMJ." Lillian and Jim, who were childhood sweethearts, used to write the letters "JMJ" on test papers for good luck. JMJ stood for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Lillian stopped the practice after the eighth grade, but not Jim. The three letters "were of such a personalized nature that only I would have recognized the significance," Lillian said. She believes Grace, either himself or through an intermediary, was telling her he was alive. The card postmarked on the 13th anniversary of Jim Grace's shootdown.
James has another cenotaph, his remains have yet to be located.
This memorial is a cenotaph
another cenotaph
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