THE WALL OF FACES

1LT Larry Potts. Although I did not know you, Bat 21 connects you and the unit I served with -- F Troop 8th Cav. The Blue Ghosts lost a crew of three on the day Bat 21 Bravo first got to ground.

I'm an author working on a book on the famous Bat-21 rescue. For the book, I'd very much like to talk to anyone who knew Captain Potts. If you'd like to get in touch, you can reach me at stephant@yahoo.com.

Thank you. Stephan Talty
www.stephantalty.com

So nice to see al the kind comments left here over the years. Larry was my great great uncle and as a little girl my father always told me about his uncle lost at war. Sitting in the living room one day watching history channel "The Rescue of Bat21" came on and my dad heard his uncles name we couldn't believe it. My dad then began some research and we found out a lot of info (: His brother my poppop is still alive and living at a veterans home, I can't wait to share all o this with him.

The rescue attempt of Bat 21 Bravo, the call sign for Iceal "Gene" Hambleton, from behind North Vietnamese lines was the largest, longest, and most complex search-and-rescue operation during the Vietnam War. On April 7, 1972, the fifth day of the ordeal, a second Air Force OV-10A went down in the rescue area with Marine LT Larry F. Potts and U.S. Air Force 1LT Bruce C. Walker aboard. Their function in the rescue was directing naval gunfire. The OV-10A crashed after sustaining hits from hostile fire. Radio contact was established with both Potts and Walker, but they could not be rescued. Walker, the pilot of the aircraft, evaded capture 11 days, while it is reported that Potts was captured and died in Quang Binh prison. Walker's last radio transmission to search and rescue was for SAR not to make an attempt to rescue, the enemy was closing in. Lieutenants Walker and Potts were declared missing, and returning U.S. POWs were unable to provide information on their precise fate. By January 1980, both had been declared dead/body not recovered based on a presumptive finding of death. [Taken from pownetwork.org]

Hi I am a volunteer at the Palm Springs Air Museum in Palm Springs California and we are collecting the Bracelets of the MIAs and POWs. So if you have the bracelet of Larry Fletcher Potts please Email me at vbacklund17@gmail.com Thank you and Have a God Blessed Day