The WallVietnam Veterans Memorial · The Lake Norman Brief
A Navy Swift boat patrols the Long Tàu River to keep the channel to Saigon open, December 1966.
A Navy Swift boat patrols the Long Tàu River to keep the channel to Saigon open, December 1966. Photo: PH1 V.H. McColley, U.S. Navy, public domain. Shown for the time and place, not a photograph of Howard Frank Burns.

The Wall › Panel 49W › Indiana › Howard Frank Burns

HOWARD FRANK BURNS

Petty Officer Second Class · U.S. Navy

April 12, 1947 – August 11, 1968

Service record

Howard Frank Burns, of Shelburn, Indiana, served as a Petty Officer Second Class in the U.S. Navy. He died on August 11, 1968, in Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam, at age 21. His name is inscribed on Panel 49W, Line 46 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 49W · Line 46

Position of Panel 49W 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. Navy
Rank
Petty Officer Second Class (PO2)
Service
Regular
Occupation
Quartermaster (QM)
Born
April 12, 1947
Home of record
Shelburn, Indiana (Sullivan County)

Casualty

Date of death
August 11, 1968
Age
21
Province
Binh Dinh
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Killed in Action
Circumstance
Unknown

Context · from the records

What was happening

21 names on the Wall carry the date August 11, 1968; four of them were lost in Bình Định Province. In August 1968, 1,313 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.

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On the Wall

Elsewhere

Also on Panel 49W, Line 46

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.