THE WALL OF FACES

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 [email protected] Thank you and Have a God Blessed Day

Semper Fi Captain Potts.

I remember Lt. Larry F. Potts as the XO of our Artillery Battery. I was at the time the Unit Diary Clerk for the battery. I remember Lt. Potts and myself doing our PT test distance run together. I remember him as a very sharp, very disciplined officer who always had a good remark for us and who seemed concerned about the well-being of everyone in the Unit. I processed his orders out of the unit and his assignment as a forward observer in Vietnam. I distinctly remember President Nixon making the TV announcement that no more Marines were being sent to Vietnam. The next day Lt. Potts received his orders.