Bill Hunt

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Bonner County Daily Bee and local community for remembering our local veterans sand their actions which are very much worthy of our consideration, ensuring their stories are remembered in a greater context.

This story is about Master Sgt. William Balt Hunt, a local veteran. Many here in our community remember him.

Bill Hunt was a local kid who graduated from Sandpoint High School in 1953, entering the U.S. Army as a paratrooper. After his first enlistment, eh got out of the Army, returning to Sandpoint to lead a normal life, working as a longer with his dad. Bill returned to the Army, volunteering for Special Forces training, then subsequently becoming a Green Beret radio operator in 1961. He spent three tours of duty in Vietnam: 1962, 1964, and his final tour in 1966.

Sergeant Bill Hunt, in 1964, worked with South Vietnamese Rangers during his second tour.

On his third tour in the Republic of Vietnam, he was declared missing in action. This is his story.

In 1966, the Vietnam War was escalating with operations ever increasing. The conventional war was intensifying with the largest battle up to that point in the war looming on the horizon.

In Saigon III Corps, Tay Ninh Province, along the Cambodian border just northwest of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Operation Attleboro commenced. Its general goal was to find, then destroy North Vietnamese Army and Viet Long logistical resources plus any enemy units operating in the area.

Attleboro would slow enemy support and infiltration into the Saigon III Corps area. Among this conventional operation was a very unconventional unit, the III Corps MIKE (Mobile Strike) Force led by an Army Special Forces team and manned by ethnic Chinese Nung soldiers.

In November, Staff Sergeant Bill Hunt was due to rotate out of the country in a month. He was a passenger on a helicopter returning from R&R (rest and relaxation) to Soui Da, an SF camp and local SF headquarters, for combat operations. As a passenger on the helicopter, he was listening to traffic on his radio headset, explaining  combat actions on the ground. He quickly realized he knew the unit in contact (Saigon III Corps MIKE Force) and convinced the pilot to divert to conduct a medivac (medical evacuation) for the American-lead company that had suffered heavy losses.

At a landing zone northeast of Soui Da, 10 miles from Dau Tieng, SSgt. Hunt was lifted into battle to help evacuate the wounded. The helicopter was unable to take off due to overloading so he voluntarily left the relative safety of the aircraft to reinforce the MIKE Force.

He had no equipment or weapon, receiving his combat equipment from Ssgt. Jim Monaghan (an injured SF soldier just loaded into the helicopter). Hunt found a weapon on the battlefield as the helicopter left with the wounded.

They fought for another two days taking over as platoon leader for Monaghan's platoon with the NVA and Viet Cong continually probing the MIKE Force. The North Vietnamese forces constantly attacked the position the unit was maintaining during the evening.

After two days of heavy fighting and numerous casualties, the MIKE Force was overrun by the numerically superior forces on Nov. 6. As SSG Hunt drug the wounded company commander, Sergeant First Class George Heaps out of danger, Hunt was gravely wounded by a bullet that hit him in the shoulder, penetrated his upper back and exited his side. SSG Hunt still succeeded in moving heaps to a covered position where both passed out from loss of blood.

Both Heaps and Hunt later regained consciousness, found a .45 caliber pistol on the battlefield and with two wounded Nung MIKE Force soldiers, crawled toward a landing zone for extraction. Progress was very slow because of their wounds. Finally, Hunt told Heaps he could go no further and for Heaps to leave him there. He would cover their withdrawal with his pistol.

SFC Heaps left one Nung soldier with SSG Hunt but when a helicopter arrived at the landing zone, the Nung soldier came running toward SFC Heaps saying, "Hunt dead, Hunt dead."

Heaps and the two Nung soldiers were evacuated. Heaps

passed out for over 24 hours due to his injuries and the search was Bill Hunt was in to the southeast, in the wrong direction. When searches were made to recover his body, it was not found. 

SSgt. William B. Hunt was declared missing in action and has been carried in that category ever since November 1966. He earned the Silver Star and ·was awarded the Purple Heart for his wounds. His name is inscribed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., Panel E12, row 22 on the left border. His name has a "cross" next to it signifying his MIA status. His name is also included at on the War Memorial Field monument here in Sandpoint and on the veterans memorial monument in Riverfront Park in Spokane.

During his missing status Staff Sgt. Hunt was promoted twice, first to sergeant first class and, finally, to master sergeant. 

Source: Compiled with some corrections by by his son and by Homecoming II Project, Oct. 15, 1990, from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the POW Network 2020.