Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr.

Richard Bernard Fitzgibbon, Jr.
Born	(1920-06-21)June 21, 1920
Died	June 8, 1956(1956-06-08) (aged 35) Vietnam
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Air Force
Years of service	- 1956
Rank	Technical Sergeant
Battles/wars	World War II, Vietnam War

Technical Sergeant Richard Bernard Fitzgibbon, Jr. USAF was the first American to lose his life in the conflict that would later be known as the Vietnam War. He was murdered by another airman and died of his wounds later on June 8, 1956. Through the efforts of his sister and Mayor of Stoneham, Massachusetts, Alice Fitzgibbon Rose DelRossi, Fitzgibbon's name was added to the Vietnam War Memorial in 1999. Following his father's footsteps, Richard B. Fitzgibbon III joined the United States Marine Corps and also served in Vietnam, where he too was killed in September 1965. The Fitzgibbon deaths are one of only three amongst US casualties in which both father and son were killed in the Vietnam War.

Biography

Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr. was born on June 21, 1920, in Stoneham, Massachusetts.^[1] Fitzgibbon was a veteran of the United States Navy and served during World War II. After leaving the Navy, he joined the United States Air Force, rising through the ranks to become a Technical Sergeant. Fitzgibbon was serving as part of the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) (Detachment 1, 1173rd Foreign Mission Squadron^[1]), which was involved in training military personnel in South Vietnam.^[2]

Fitzgibbon was not killed in action, but rather was murdered by another American airman.^[3] On the day he was shot, Fitzgibbon was serving as the crew chief on an aircraft when he had an angry argument with one of the crew. When the other airman went off duty, he began drinking heavily at a club at the base. When he exited the club, he saw Fitzgibbon playing with some local children. The airman drew his sidearm and shot Fitzgibbon, who died from his wounds on June 8, 1956.^[4]

Recognition

For 43 years, his death was regarded by the United States government as too early to be classified as a Vietnam War casualty. The DoD department that handled the Vietnam Veterans Memorial originally started its database at Jan. 1, 1961.^[5] This was because President Lyndon B. Johnson had declared in a speech that Army Security Agency technician Spec/4 James T. Davis, who died in a Viet Cong ambush near his base at Cao Xang on 22 December 1961, was "The first American to fall in defense of our freedom in Vietnam."

Fitzgibbon's family lobbied to have the date changed, and their cause was taken up by U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D - 7th District, MA) of Malden, Massachusetts.^[6] After a high level review by the DoD and through the efforts of Fitzgibbon's family, the start date of the Vietnam War Memorial was changed to November 1, 1955.^[5] The November 1955 date was chosen because that was when the Vietnam Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) was created.^[7] With this new date, Fitzgibbon became chronologically the first person to be listed on the memorial, replacing Dale R. Buis. Fitzgibbon's name was added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in 1999.

The DoD had previously moved the date of the start of the Vietnam conflict to include the death of Capt. Harry Griffith Cramer, Jr., who was killed at Nha Trang during a training accident on October 21, 1957.^[8] His name was added to "The Wall" in 1983, after successful efforts by Captain Cramer's son, Lt. Col. Harry G. Cramer III USAR, then an active duty Army officer, to get DoD to acknowledge his father's death, as well as the presence of MAAG forces in Vietnam years prior to the officially recognized date of 1961. Capt. Cramer's son asked that his father's name simply be added to the center (1E) stone, out of sequence, but it is still clearly listed in the chronological book at "The Wall" as 1957, not 1959. The Army conducted an official ceremony at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, from which Capt. Cramer had graduated, in October 2007 to make the 50th Anniversary of the first Vietnam casualty. ref.^[9]

As part of the ceremony to add his name to the memorial, The Today Show host Katie Couric interviewed members of the Fitzgibbon family at their Harwich Port summer residence.^[6]

Although not the first American to be killed in Vietnam, Fitzgibbon is chronologically the first casualty on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. Lieutenant Colonel Albert Peter Dewey was mistakenly shot during an ambush by Viet Minh troops on September 26, 1945. He was the first known American fatality in Vietnam, killed in the early aftermath of World War II.^[10]

Family

Fitzgibbon's son, Marine Lance Corporal Richard B. Fitzgibbon, III (1944-1965), was also killed in the Vietnam War, making the Fitzgibbons one of only three father-son pairs on the Wall.^[6] Both father and son are interred at Blue Hill Cemetery in Braintree, Massachusetts.

He is survived by his wife Eunice Fitzgibbon Jackson, daughters Trudy McDermott and Linda Compas (whose son is American football player Jonathan Compas). Another son, Robert "Bobby" Fitzgibbon, died in April 2011.

Through Fitzgibbon's great-grandmother, Mary Coston Fitzgibbon, Fitzgibbon was third cousin to South African artist Jeremy Wafer.

Documentary

A year after his name was added to the Vietnam memorial wall TLC did a three part documentary called "Vietnam: The Soldier's Story". The second episode, titled "Stories From the Wall" (which aired May 29, 2000), did a segment on the father and son.^[2]

Other father-son pairs on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

• LCDR Leo C. Hester Sr., USN died March 10, 1967, in an accidental aircraft crash while co-piloting a C-47 cargo plane on an administrative flight from Cam Ranh Air Base to Tan Son Nhut Air Base.^[11]
  His son, WO1 Leo C. Hester Jr., USA was KIA November 2, 1969 when his OH-6 Cayuse observation helicopter was shot down by an RPG strike.^[12] They are the second father-son pair on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
• SP5 Fred C. Jenkins USA died April 2, 1968 of misadventure from drowning.
  His son WO1 Bert McCree Jenkins USA was KIA April 28, 1969. The AH-1G HueyCobra he was piloting was shot down by small arms fire, forcing an emergency landing. He was recovered from the site but later died in the hospital of his wounds.

See also

• Capt. Harry Griffith Cramer, Jr. was a Special Forces adviser with the Mobile Training Team, 14th SFOD, 1st Special Forces Group, MAAGV. He was wounded by a faulty explosive charge during a training exercise and died from his injuries on October 21, 1957. He was previously considered the first Vietnam War casualty from 1983 to 1999 and is still considered the first Special Forces casualty of the Vietnam War and the first casualty of the 1st Special Forces Group. His name was added to the Wall in 1983.
• Major Dale R. Buis (d. July 8, 1959) and Master Sergeant Chester M. Ovnand (d. July 8, 1959), were formerly the first names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the US. Buis and Ovnand were MAAGV advisers stationed at a compound in Bien Hoa that trained units of the South Vietnamese army. They and two ARVN soldiers and a child were killed and another adviser was wounded during a VC attack on their base. Like Fitzgibbon they were previously discounted because they died before the January 1, 1961 deadline.

Bibliography

Notes

References

External links

• Vietnam Wall memorial