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Remains of MIA pilot buried at Arlington

WEATHERFORD, Okla. — The remains of Col. Norman Dale Eaton, who was declared missing in action after his airplane crashed during the Vietnam war, have finally been buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Burial services were held Wednesday for Eaton, 42, of Weatherford, who was piloting a B-57B Canberra Bomber that crashed on the evening of Jan. 13, 1969.

Air Force officials lost communication with him and his navigator, Lt. Col. Paul E. Getchell of Portland, Maine, over the Salavan Province of Laos.

The last communication by Eaton and Getchell indicated their bomber was low on fuel, but that they were determined to make the last of three nighttime bombing runs. They would do so without the help of flares to illuminate the target area. Seconds later, their plane crashed.

Neither Eaton’s nor Getchell’s remains were recovered at the time.

“This is important and very emotional,” said Carol Guant, commander of the Bergner-Eaton American Legion Post 91 in Weatherford. “He’s back on home ground.”

Weatherford’s American Legion Post honored Eaton and his fellow 1944 high school classmate, Pvt. Laverne Bergner, with a dedication ceremony in 2001. The post was renamed in their honor. Bergner died in World War II while fighting on Okinawa on June 6, 1945.

In 1995, a joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic team interviewed Laotian citizens who remembered the 1969 crash.

Wreckage of the bomber and crew-related materials were then found.

In 2003, a U.S.-Laos team excavated the crash site and found Eaton’s military identification tag. Human remains, Getchell’s military identification tag and other items were recovered during five searches between 2004 and 2005.

Getchell will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery later this spring.

“I was with Dale on his last night in Weatherford, before he left for Vietnam,” recalled Weatherford’s R.L. Lockstone, a family friend.

“I remember him remarking that if he had hoped to advance in rank, he needed combat time. He really wanted to be a general. That always stuck with me.”