- SURNAME
Durrwachter
- FORENAME
Herman Karl,Jr
- UNIT
1 SF Group (Det A1-213)
- RANK
Captain
- NUMBER
0-1924592
- DATE OF DEATH
13th January 1962
- AGE
33
- GRAVESITE
Arlington National Cemetery,Virginia Section 2 Site 3608-2
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
from Williamsport,Pennsylvania
born 16.10.1928 Williamsport,Pennsylvania
son of Herman Karl and Margaret Adelaide (nee Gulliver) Durrwachter
husband of Beatrice F. (nee Rowe) Durrwachter (1929-99)
entered service 1947
served in Korean War
1 SF Group 1961-62
killed in accident (non hostile) Quang Nam Province, South Vietnam
accidental grenade explosion
Vietnam Veterans Memorial,Washington,D.C. Panel 01E Line 4
SP6 Fred M. Steuer was a helicopter mechanic serving with the 93rd Transportation Company, Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam (MAAGV), at Da Nang, Quang Nam Province, RVN. He had arrived in Vietnam on January 12, 1962. CAPT Herman K. Durrwachter Jr. was a Special Forces soldier assigned to Detachment A1-213 (Da Nang), 1st Special Forces Group, MAAGV. He was in Vietnam to reinforce two helicopter companies that had arrived in December 1961. He also arrived in Vietnam on the 12th. The next day, January 13, 1962, both soldiers were fatally injured by a grenade explosion when a "believed to be dummy grenade" was tossed into the MAAGV billet in which the two men were sitting. It exploded, killing them. Eight other men were wounded. A general court-martial later found MSGT Troy M. Dillinder, a veteran of 17 years Army service, guilty of negligent homicide for the deaths of Steuer and Durrwachter. During his trial, Dillinder claimed that he had disarmed a dummy grenade and darkened it with paint for identification. He told the court that before tossing the grenade he had twice checked it to make sure it was the one he disarmed. The court did not believe his defense attorney’s claim that Viet Cong agents had blackened a grenade in hopes of just such an accident. The prosecution also pointed out that Dillinder had thrown the actual dummy grenade onto the lap of a fellow soldier sitting in a truck earlier in the same day the tragedy occurred. The prosecutor called the two jokes in one day “incredible” for a man of Dillender’s experience. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org and “NCO Convicted In Grenade Deaths of 2 in Vietnam.” Pacific Stars & Stripes, March 24, 1962]
DATE OF DEATH:
13-Jan-1962
Last edited by a moderator:
