Operation Just Cause... ...for as long as it takes
by Marilyn Grote
Diane Moore: I am the daughter of Chief Master Sgt. Thomas Moore, one of the many men still missing in action from South East Asia, as there are from the other wars.
My father and his friends, Cmsgt.Samuel Adams, Cmsgt.Charles Dusing, and Retired Cmsgt Jasper Page, where the other men involved in the incident on October 31 1965.
Because I write this from records and from memory, I will attempt to make this as close as possible to the way I was told it by Jasper Page. To me he is a true Hero, and a great friend of my father's and the others.
Jasper Page was the last American to see the other three men alive and he was the only soldier to escape and return to this country from the group that was captured with my dad. He is, by all counts, as close as a man could be to being an adopted father without the legal papers to go with it. He and I began a bond through the help of the Internet and Tim Guy. Along with the adoptions of the POW/MIA(s) from this incident Tim then added the POW/MIA(s) oldest children, Sam Adams Jr. Charles Dusing Jr. and me, Diane Moore, to his list of care and concern.
Sam Adams Jr. and I met some 6 to 7 years ago. Sam and I share something in common that spans the voids of space and time, we are our father's blood, and our fathers shared the best of a bad situation, life and death, freedom and captivity. Almost three years ago a phone call came from Sam, telling me of a web site with our dad's story and of a man who adopted them as his POW's and had given us Jasper Page's telephone number.
I picked up the phone and made that phone call to Jasper Page, which began something like this. "Sgt. Page?" "Yes." "This is Diane Moore." Before I could get any thing else out, he let out an "Oh my goodness, Tom's daughter!"
I said, "Yes sir." I proceeded to learn about my father's capture, not like the causality files state, but from a man who went through it too.
Jasper Page is a wonderful man. He began by asking me what I wanted to know. My answer was to first tell me about my dad. I know about him from family but I want to know the man.
I think he was confused, but he knew what I meant. I took a notebook out and began to write as he talked. What transpired was the greatest phone call of a lifetime, and he now calls me at least once a month, and it always begins with "Well Hello Pretty Lady, how's my girl doing?" Strange, but I find this to be something my dad might say.
As we spoke, he began with how he entered my dad's life as a friend. He stated he entered my dad's work place in Vietnam by going to dad's office when my father's back was apparently towards the door, and stated who he was. At this point my dad turned and they both were surprised, said Jasper. Both men had been stationed together before at Keesler AFB in Biloxi Ms, when I was three years old, and had worked together both on post and off base, doing air conditioner installments. Jasper was in a different area than that of dad and the others, he was in the wiring area of the company and dad and Sam and Charles were the installment men so to speak, and dad was the NCO.
Jasper shared some great stories. These men did a lot together in Vietnam. Not only did they work together, they ate meals together, both at the chow hall, and the enlisted men's club. They would sometimes go into Saigon and eat supper there because they enjoyed each other's company.
All the men were married men, they all had children, and all were career men.
Jasper told me about what lead up to their capture. He said they were heading back on Route 15 towards Saigon, returning from a day of R&R, when the vehicle was stopped by a group of about 15-20 Ba Ra gorillas. The driver was removed from the van, searched and his personal belongings were taken from him. This is when the back doors of the van were opened and the Americans found.
Jasper Page said he had drawn his pistol, but that it was not used. He told me that my father made a statement to the fact " Looks like this is it."
They were then removed from the vehicle and searched, roughed up, tied and tethered with arms behind the backs, and their personal belongings and money taken. Then they were put back into the van and the Vietcong drove the van and passengers off.
They went down the route and then down another trail; similar to an ox trail. This is when the van broke down. The men were removed and marched into the jungles going, in what appeared to Jasper Page, to be towards Cambodia.
At night the men were tied with arms behind them and tied to the area. They slept on the ground on bamboo type mats. They were allowed to have water, which was boiled. However warm, it was still water. Jasper told me that the strange thing about the capture was not just that their personal belongings were taken, the Vietcong took their dog tags, which they were not given back but the Viet Cong made them wear their ribbons on their khaki uniforms.
During the nights they would stop at what appeared to be staging type camps. At one point during the days when they would be marching in the jungles Jasper stated that he remembered looking under his blindfold which they all had on, and if he raised and cocked his head just right he could see out of it at times.
During the time before the escape, Jasper told me that there was very little communication between the men, but on one occasion he said my father and the others spoke of many things. He said my dad tried to make the best of a bad situation, and jokingly said, "Well if they would let us go I would put air conditioners in all their huts and Page you can do the wiring."
Jasper Page also told of how my father stated that if the time came that one could get away, then it must be tried, otherwise no one would ever know what happened to them.
That day came on or around the 3 or 4th of November. While tethered in pairs, with dad and Dusing about 3 to 5 minutes behind Page and Adams it began to rain. The Viet Cong stopped to put on rain gear, the Americans had tarps of some type already on, and it was then that Page's ropes had become loose and he was able to get out of them, as Adam escaped from his ropes.
Three Viet Cong were guarding Page and Adams while the others were in the back with dad and Dusing. The Viet Cong had rested their weapons on the trees, Adams was to try for one, and Page was to rush the other 2 and try to retrieve their weapons. Apparently Page was successful and Adams was not.
There was a stand off between Page and one of the VC. Adams had apparently slipped in the mud, and had not retrieved the weapon he had tried for. Adams then tried to get up and start in an opposite direction from what Page was in, and Page was trying to fire one of the two rifles he had retrieved. One would not do anything, the other, which seemed to possibly be a French carbine, would not fire either.
For whatever reason, the VC did not fire at Page, but turned towards Adams. Page began to run in the other direction. At that time he stated that he heard Adams yell "NO", and heard some gunfire, but thought that the gunfire was aimed in his direction.
Page continued to run, and hid as soon as he could. He told me he heard more gunfire, then voices and then gunfire, then nothing.
He stayed where he was for a while then, when all was quiet, he started back in a more southerly direction. He traveled through the jungles, and was almost recaptured twice before making it to a friendly force encampment. There he was examined by a medic and taken to Tan Son Nhut.
He gave his debriefing on what happened. Page stayed to help with the SAR. He did not want to leave after the ordeal he had been through, but it was protocol to do so.
I could go on with more and more, but that is in my father's files, and in Adam's and Dusing's too.
What is not in the files is the courage of Jasper Page. The files do not tell of the shared feelings a man, some 34 years later, still has for my dad. The guilt he has for returning, the way he said to me he was sorry and the lives we now share because Jasper loved my father.
No, this is not the story of the POW's that did not return; yet it is.
It is about the lives of 4 men, Moore, Adams Dusing, and Page that has spanned more than 3 decades.
Do I believe that the Vietnamese government knows what happened to my dad and the other men in this incident, YES, I do! The Viet Cong told the Government that he died in Captivity, so they must know where he is buried.
As is said by many of the MIA children, " My dad is the X-Files". It is time that we demand that those files be reopened, no matter what the cost.
They are our Fathers.
Diane Moore,
Proud Daughter of Cmsgt. Thomas Moore,USAF
POW MIA last seen alive, 10-31-65
Incident report from POW/NET
Name: Jasper N. Page
Rank/Branch: E6/United States Air Force
Unit: 3415 CIV ENG
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Hattiesburg MS
Date of Loss: 30 October 1965
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 103950 North 10702000 East
Status (in 1973): Escapee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident: Charles Dusing, Thomas Moore, Samuel Adams, all
Prisoners of War
Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, personal interview with Jasper Page.
REMARKS: 651104 ESCAPED
SYNOPSIS: On October 31, 1965, four U.S. Air Force personnel were captured while traveling by truck from Vung Tau to Saigon. This incident occurred on Route 15 at grid coordinates YS224805, just on the border of Binh Hoa and Gia Dinh Province of South Vietnam. The individuals involved in this incident are SSgt. Samuel Adams, SSgt. Charles Dusing, TSgt. Thomas Moore and TSgt. Jasper Page.
On November 2, 1965, while being taken to a detention camp, Jasper Page, managed to escape and return to U.S. control. He was the first captured serviceman to return to U.S. control from South Vietnam. It was reported that Samuel Adams had been shot during the same escape that freed Page, but a defector identified Adams' photo as a prisoner at a later date. CIA's analysis of this identification has been inconclusive. The names of all three appeared on the died in captivity list furnished by the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) in 1973 at the Paris Peace Accords. The list reflected that they had died during December 1965, but no details were given.
When 591 Americans were released at the end of the war in 1973, Adams, Dusing and Moore were not among them; their names were on a list. No bodies were returned to their families, even though the Vietnamese clearly know where to find the three men. Since that time, Vietnam has doled out handfuls of remains as the political atmosphere seemed appropriate, but Adams, Dusing and Moore remain unaccounted for.
The three are among nearly 2500 Americans who remain missing in Indochina. Unlike "MIA's" from other wars, most of these men can be accounted for. Tragically, the U.S. has received over 8000 reports concerning Americans still in Southeast Asia since the end of the war. Experts say that the evidence is overwhelming that Americans were left behind in enemy hands. It's time we brought our men home.
1997
Jasper Page retired from the United States Air Force as a Sergeant. He and his wife reside in Colorado.
More information about Jasper Page can be found at:
