The WallVietnam Veterans Memorial · The Lake Norman Brief
Soldiers of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade wait for a UH-1D during Operation Junction City, 1967.
Soldiers of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade wait for a UH-1D during Operation Junction City, 1967. Photo: U.S. Army, public domain. Shown for the time and place, not a photograph of Algernon Paul Thomas.

The Wall › Panel 17E › Ohio › Algernon Paul Thomas

ALGERNON PAUL THOMAS

Specialist Four · U.S. Army

March 16, 1946 – March 21, 1967

Service record

Algernon Paul Thomas, of Springdale, Ohio, served as a Specialist Four in the U.S. Army. He died on March 21, 1967, in Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam, at age 21. His name is inscribed on Panel 17E, Line 15 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 17E · Line 15

Position of Panel 17E on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Names are inscribed in the order of loss, starting at Panel 1E at the apex and ending at Panel 1W. At the Memorial, find the panel number at the base and count down from the top line.

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Service

Branch
U.S. Army
Rank
Specialist Four (SP4)
Service
Drafted (Selective Service)
Occupation
Field Artillery Basic (13A)
Unit (as recorded)
4 INF DIV
Born
March 16, 1946
Home of record
Springdale, Ohio (Hamilton County)

Casualty

Date of death
March 21, 1967
Age
21
Province
Tay Ninh
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Killed in Action
Circumstance
Small Arms Fire

Context · from the records

What was happening

95 names on the Wall carry the date March 21, 1967; 35 of them were lost in Tây Ninh Province. In March 1967, 1,091 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.

The 4th Infantry Division, his unit in the record, lost 145 of its members that month.

He died in Tây Ninh Province while Operation Junction City was under way. Operation Junction City (22 February–14 May 1967), in War Zone C along the Cambodian border, was the largest U.S. operation of the war to that time and included the only major American combat parachute assault of the war. The casualty record gives the province and date, not the exact place, so it does not say whether he fell in the battle itself.

Also on Panel 17E, Line 15

Same unit, same day

Source. U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Casualty Analysis System, Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File (as of April 29, 2008), Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Record Group 330, National Archives (NAID 2240992). Panel and line as recorded in that file. This page presents the official record and its historical context; no biography has been written for him yet. See something wrong? Report a correction.