Airmen missing from Vietnam War identified Published July 27, 2005 WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Officials with the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office announced July 26 that the remains of two Airmen, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.They are Col. James Lewis of Marshall, Texas, and Maj. Arthur Baker of San Antonio. Colonel Lewis will be buried in Marshall on August 13, and Major Baker will be buried in Longview, Texas, on July 29.The Airmen led a flight of four B-57B Canberra aircraft April 7, 1965, on an interdiction mission over Xiangkhoang Province, Laos. After their B-57 initiated an attack they flew into heavy clouds and Colonel Lewis radioed that his plane was outbound away from the target. There was no further radio or visual contact with the crew, and search-and-rescue missions failed to yield any evidence of the two men or their aircraft. Although the cause of the crash is unknown, enemy fire and bad weather are believed to be contributing factors, officials said.In July 1997, a joint U.S.-Lao People's Democratic Republic team interviewed several witnesses, two of whom led the team to the crash site. Four excavations led by the Joint POW/Missing In Action Accounting Command from 2003 to 2004 yielded human remains and crew-related artifacts.The JPAC and Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab scientists used mitochondrial DNA to identify the remains as those of the Airmen.Of the 88,000 Americans missing from all conflicts, 1,827 are from the Vietnam War, with 372 of those within Laos. Another 756 Americans have been accounted for in Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. Of the Americans identified, 197 are from losses in Laos.