Ambushed Over 50 Years Ago

Human remains found in China last summer are those of Robert Snoddy, of Roseburg, OR. The Pentagon confirmed that a CIA sponsored C-47 was shot down there in 1952. Snoddy was a civilian pilot whose CIA connection was kept secret until 1998.

"It's nice to finally bring him home," said Ruth Boss of Creswell, Ore in an interview with the AP. She will bury her brother at the cemetery where their mother and father are buried. Boss said that she heard the news from a CIA official earlier in the week.

"Any news is good. The bad had already happened," Boss said.

Relatives of the other pilot, Norman Schwartz of Louisville, KY, were informed of testing results as well. None of the recovered remains could be confirmed as belonging to Schwartz.

Schwartz and Snoddy were pilots for a CIA proprietary airline called Civil Air Transport, which supported covert operations in southeast Asia and the Far East. They were shot down by Chinese air defense forces while on a mission to retrieve an agent near the town of Antu in the northeastern province of Jilin.

Their Gooney Bird was riddled with bullets while making a low approach to pick up an agent with a cable dangling below the aircraft. The aircraft made a belly landing on the frozen ground, with the pilots caught in an intense cockpit fire according to media reports.

At the time, China and the US were involved in the Korean War. The US government acknowledged the men by adding their names to the Book of Honor at CIA Headquarters in December 1998.

Also aboard the aircraft were CIA officers Richard Fecteau and John Downey. They spent two decades in Chinese prisons, only being released after President Nixon acknowledged they were spies. The government had originally claimed that they were army civilians.

The Chinese government replied to President Ford's 1975 inquiry about the pilots by saying that "it is impossible to locate them now."

Undaunted, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team visited the crash site in July 2002 and found the aircraft wreckage, but no human remains. However, last July, another team returned and found a few remains, eventually determined to be Snoddy's.

For years, the CIA tried to cover up the mission. A false flight plan was created four days after the flight, and showed a flight from Korea to Japan. The story was the plane crashed in the Sea of Japan.

Betty Kirzinger, the sister of Schwartz, understands why her family was misled by the U.S. government for almost 50 years. In an AP interview, she said "That's the way it is when you sign up to do the CIA's business."

FMI: www.cia.gov