This Military Service Page was created/owned by
Cpl Elizabeth Davis
to remember
Marine SSgt Leonard John Lewandowski, Jr..
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DISAPPEARED WHILE SWIMMING, MOUTH OF CUA VIET RIVER 19661019, UTM grid reference is YD344698, 06/18/1975, Body not recovered..
Notes from The Virtual Wall On 19 Oct 1966, Delta 1/4 Marines were on a brief R&R break before heading out for a patrol. They were located in a Regimental area near the mouth of the Cua Viet River in Quang Tri Province, about 7 miles south of the DMZ. In mid-morning, PFC Richard E. Mishuk and LCPL Michael J. Burke asked for and received permission to go swimming in the river. Shortly thereafter they were joined by a third Marine, PFC Leonard J. Lewandowski. When the three Marines did not return for lunch, a LCPL Ronald A. Rihaly took a look for them and spotted three men - dressed as Burke, Mishuk, and Lewandowski had been dressed - playing with a dog near a landing craft. About three hours after the men had gone for swim call, it was noted that they could no longer be seen and that they were not in the company area. By 1400 informal search efforts had extended along the north bank of the river, and at 1530 LCPL Rihaly reported to his Company Commander that the three were missing.
A search party was sent to the south bank and an O-1 Bird Dog aircraft launched for an aerial search. The three men were not located by nightfall. Formal search and rescue operations were begun at daybreak on 20 October, with several O-1s and ground search parties involved. The searchers were unable to locate the men or any local villagers who had seen them. Formal search efforts were terminated on 22 October and Burke, Mishuk, and Lewandowski declared Missing in Action. There were two obvious possibilities - that the three drowned in the Cua Viet River and were carried out to sea, or that they had been captured or killed by local Viet Cong forces (the area was not totally secure). No evidence was found to support either possibility; the three men had simply disappeared. On 23 April 1975 the Secretary of the Navy approved a Presumptive Finding of Death for Richard Mishuk. The remains of the three men have not been recovered.
This Veteran has an (IMO) In Memory Of Headstone in Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial, Hawaii with another memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA.
