The US government promises the families of their war dead that every soldier killed in action will be returned home, no matter how long it takes. In 1967, at the height of Operation Rolling Thunder, the most intense aerial campaign of the Vietnam war, two pilots – Major Herman Knapp and Lt David Austin – went missing after they were shot down close to the border with Laos. Now, a JPAC (Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command) team has been called in to help bring their bodies home.
Nearly forty years on, MISSING IN ACTION (Tuesday 14th, 7.35pm) follows the search for the two pilots, as well as telling the story of Knapp’s widow, Helena, who wants the search to stop.