Our Adopted POW/MIA
Colonel Robert Laurin Standerwick, Sr.

Date of Birth: 23 June 1930
Home City of Record: Mankato, KS
Date of Loss: 03 February 1971
Country of Loss: Laos, 171700N 1061030E

During his Air Force career, Colonel Robert L. Standerwick Sr. flew a variety of aircraft. At Omaha, Nebraska, he was selected to fly SAC's "Looking Glass" missions. After Thanksgiving 1970, Standerwick left Omaha and shipped out to Southeast Asia, to be stationed at Ubon Airfield, Thailand, with the 25th Tactical Fighter Squadron. To his four children, it seemed like just another long period Dad would be away.

On February 3, 1971, Standerwick and his backseater, Major Norbert A. Gotner, were assigned a sensor-drop mission over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. The border road was used for transporting weapons, supplies, and troops by the North Vietnamese, and the sensors would monitor this traffic. Standerwick flew the F4D Phantom, one of the "hottest" high-tech fighter planes of the day. During the mission, Standerwick and Gotner's F4 was shot down, and both men ejected as the aircraft crashed. Radio contact was made with both men, who were alive and uninjured on the ground. The two were close enough to talk with each other. Rescue was delayed due to darkness and weather.

A later radio message from Standerwick reported that he was surrounded and had been hit by gunfire. Soon after, contact with Gotner and Standerwick was lost, and the Air Force declared both men Missing in Action. An immediate intelligence report was received by the U.S. describing two Americans being moved through Mahaxay Village in southern Khammouane Province, Laos (about 8 miles northeast of the point the F4D was downed). This report was thought to possibly relate to Standerwick and Gotner.

Major Gotner was captured by North Vietnamese troops. He was moved immediately to North Vietnam, where he and a handful of other men captured in Laos were held in the same prisons as men captured in North and South Vietnam. This group of men captured in Laos were held completely separate from other American POWs for the next two years, and the other Americans did not know they were there.

When peace agreements were signed in Paris in January 1973, the Vietnamese agreed to release all American Prisoners of War in their hands. The list they provided the U.S. did not include any of the men lost in Laos. A subsequent list of eleven individuals was provided at the last minute, and it was known for the first time that Norbert Gotner was a Prisoner of War and would be returning home. Bob Standerwick's name appeared on no list, and he did not return home with the 591 Americans who were released in the Spring of 1973.

Families of men lost in Laos were stunned that none of the over 100 men they knew had been alive in captivity in Laos were released. The Pathet Lao had repeatedly stated that they held "tens of tens" of Americans, yet no negotiations had occurred to secure their freedom. A series of assurances were made over a period of years that these men had not been forgotten, and that negotiations would occur to free them. None of the assurances brought a single man home. These nearly 600 abandoned Americans were seemingly forgotten.

Friends of Bob Standerwick say that there is no chance he would ever give up. They say that unless he was killed, there is every chance he could be alive. Friends of Standerwick's children see the same ingenuity, courage, resolve, and determination in them. They have not stopped seeking information on their father and the Americans still missing in Southeast Asia since they were old enough to understand the circumstances of his loss.

Robert L. Standerwick, Sr. is an alumnus of the University of Kansas.

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