John Hartley Robertson: US Army veteran 'found living in Vietnam village 44 YEARS after being shot d
U.S. Army veteran 'is found living in Vietnam village 44 YEARS after being shot down and presumed dead'... but his daughters refuse to take DNA tests to prove his identity
- Sgt. John Hartley Robertson is believed to have died in 1968 over Laos during a special ops mission during the Vietnam War
- A new documentary claims to have found him - aged 76 - still living there
- This man, who remarried, has never contacted the American wife and two children who have believed him dead for 44 years
- Doubts remain over his identity but his sister, who is filmed being reunited with him in the documentary, said she knows it is him
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An elderly man found living in south-central Vietnam has claimed to be a U.S. war veteran who was presumed dead after his helicopter was shot down during a special ops mission over Laos in 1968.
But despite the potentially astonishing discovery, the man's two daughters - whom he has never contacted since disappearing - have refused to take a DNA test to prove his identity.
The wife and daughters of Sgt. John Hartley Robertson, a one-time Green Beret, initially agreed to participate in DNA testing, before changing their minds last year, according to a filmmaker behind a new documentary asking whether the man is indeed who he says he is.
'Somebody suggested to me maybe that's (because) the daughters don't want to know if it's him,' said Jorgensen. 'It's kind of like, "That was an ugly war. It was a long time ago. We just want it to go away".
'I don’t know. What would compel you not to want to know if this person is your biological father?'
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Discovery: Special Forces Green Beret Master Sgt. John Hartley Robertson is the subject of a documentary which claims to have found him alive - now revealed as incorrect - 44 years after he supposedly died in Vietnam
Mystery no More: Dang Tan Ngoc (pictured) has been revealed to be an imposter who had repeatedly tried to impersonate a MIA Vietnam veteran
Sgt. Robertson's name is etched along with 60,000 others onto Washington D.C.'s poignant Vietnam memorial, but now the documentary questions whether he is actually alive and well.
The filmmakers claim to have tracked him down to south-central Vietnam - where the 76-year-old is unable to remember his birthday, his American children’s names, or how to speak English.
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ShareThe makers of 'Unclaimed' say that the wiry, forgetful man could very well be a missing POW from the distressing conflict, and that fellow servicemen could 'lose their minds' when they hear the story of how he never returned home.
'Sgt. Robertson' told Emmy-award winning filmmaker Michael Jorgensen that when his flaming helicopter crashed to the ground during a firefight on a Laos mountaintop, he was captured immediately by North Vietnamese soldiers.
Fake? Robertson, a former U.S. Army Green Beret and member of an elite MACV-SOG unit, was listed as Missing In Action in 1968. But a fellow Vietnam vet who claims he has met a man claiming to be him set off a media storm on Tuesday
Out of sight: Dang Tan Ngoc (pictured) claims to be Robertson, but has forgotten how to speak English
'They locked me up, high in the forest, in a cage,' he said. 'I was in and out of consciousness from torture and starvation. The North Vietnamese soldier hit me on the head with a stick, shouting, "American!"
'Then he would hit me even harder; I thought I would die. I never said anything, though they beat and tortured me.'
Mr Robertson said he escaped after four years, hid in the woods and was found in a field by a woman who nursed him back to health and then became his wife.
He said he borrowed her late husband’s surname and birth date and was registered as a French-Vietnamese resident named Dan Tan Ngoc.
The couple then had children but no recorded attempt was made to contact his wife or children back home in America.
Search: Vietnam veteran and humanitarian Tom Faunce, pictured, has become obsessed with proving that the 76-year-old man he has found in Vietnam is indeed Sgt. John Hartley Robertson
MISSING IN ACTION: WHO WAS JOHN HARTLEY ROBERTSON?
John Hartley Robertson was born in Birmingham, Alabama on October 25, 1936, and went by the name of Johnny. He was the third of five children born to John Cheslea and Mildred Robertson.
He grew up during World War II, and it was this influence that led him to drop out of high school at 17 so he could get his GED and join the Army, according to the film makers.
He went on to join the U.S. Army Special Forces, known as the Green Berets, and was later chosen to join an elite Special Operations Group known as Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG).
On May 20, 1968, he was on a mission when his helicopter came under enemy fire and crashed. A full search mission was not possible and he was declared Missing in Action. On April 28, 1976, he was officially declared dead by the military, leaving behind a wife, Wanda Robertson, and two daughters.
The documentary follows the quest of Vietnam veteran Tom Faunce as he seeks to prove that the man he first heard about in 2008 while on a humanitarian mission was indeed a fellow serviceman.
Fonce contacted Jorgensen to see if the filmmaker would follow his story to establish that Robertson was still alive - but at first the director was cautious.
'The MIA story was pretty unbelievable, pretty grandiose,' he said to the Globe and Mail. 'I was very skeptical.'
However, what struck Jorgensen more than the idea a Vietnam veteran could have stayed undetected for 44 years was Faunce's own journey as a soldier, alcoholic and victim of child abuse.
Jorgensen said he was inspired by how Faunce would 'go all the way in helping someone he didn't even know.' He added that 'no matter how the story turned out with John, I knew there was just a great "once upon a time" with Tom.'
In Vietnam, Faunce tracked down the man who was locally rumored to be a former American Green Beret who had never returned home.
'Tom went to meet him and was very skeptical, grilled this guy up and down trying to get him to break, to say, "Oh, no, I’m just making it up." And he was adamant he was that guy,' Jorgensen told The Toronto Star.
Growing up: Robertson is pictured with his older sister Jean, other siblings and their parents
Former life: Robertson's parents, JC and Mildred, are pictured left, while Robertson himself is pictured in uniform in 1955, when he would have been 19 years old, two years after dropping out of school
Soldier: Robertson is pictured left in 1968 - the year he was declared missing after his helicopter crashed
POWS IN VIETNAM: COULD THERE STILL BE U.S. PRISONERS?
- There has been considerable speculation and investigation by private sources and government bodies into this issue since the United States exited the country in 1973
- Many vocal groups led by family members of those MIA in Vietnam contend that there has been a conspiracy to cover-up the fact there are still prisoners in the South East Asian Country.
- The U.S. government has always denied that any man was left behind.
- There have been several congressional investigations into the issue - culminating in the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in 1991-93.
- This was led by Senators John Kerry, Bob Smith and John McCain - who himself was a POW during the conflict.
- They found, 'no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.'
As the director delved further into the bizarre story, he discovered unusual evidence for Robertson's claims.
He found that reports existed as early as 1982 of Robertson's alleged survival, leading him to question why his family were not contacted to help provide proof.
'Why did the Americans leave him there for all those years?' Jorgensen asked The Globe and Mail. 'Are there other John Hartley Robertson's in Vietnam?'
Jorgensen answered his own question, adding 'a highly-placed source has told him there are and it's not because the Vietnamese won't let them go, it's more the U.S. Military doesn't want them to come home'.
Indeed, Jorgensen said that the U.S. government first became aware of the man as early as 1991, and tried to verify his identity in 2006. The team discovered that in 2010 Robertson was fingerprinted at the U.S. Embassy. His siblings were never informed.
Faunce was reportedly told that there was not enough proof to confirm this was John Hartley Robertson - to which they replied that there was not enough evidence to suggest he wasn't.
As the film proceeds, stronger personal reunions add to the case that the elderly man who seems to suffer from dementia is indeed the American special forces solider.
Jean Robertson Holley, said she will not have a DNA test as she knows it's him
Younger years: Jean and her younger brother are pictured center while growing up in Alabama
There is a tearful reunion with a soldier who Robertson trained in 1960 - who claims he knew it was him on sight.
And there is a moving moment when the man is brought back together with his sister, 80-year-old Jean Robertson Holly, at her home in Canada - who would have been Sgt. Robertson's only surviving sister.
'Jean says... "There’s no question. I was certain it was him in the video, but when I held his head in my hands and looked in his eyes, there was no question that was my brother",' Jorgensen told the Toronto Star.
This could be confirmed if Robertson-Holly agreed to DNA testing, but she said she does not need to take the test to know the man is her brother.
Jorgensen recruited a Vietnamese speaking police officer from Edmonton to act as a translator.
At work: Cinematographer Allan Leader and filmmaker Michael Jorgensen pictured in Vietnam in 2012
Film: Jorgensen's film, Unclaimed, will be showed at Toronto's Hot Doc's festival on Tuesday evening
Questions: Faunce walks along the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C.
The translator, Hugh Tran, said that the elderly man spoke just like a Vietnamese native with no trace of an American accent - leading him to become very suspicious.
'I still didn’t believe... until I saw the family reunion,' said Tran about the emotional meeting with his sister.
Other moments made Jorgensen believe they had the right man.
At the family reunion, Robertson also met his sister's husband, Henry, and told him that he remembered him working in a drugstore. Henry did indeed work for as a pharmacist for 15 years.
And when shown pictures of his two American daughters, he reportedly cried.
Jorgensen said he believes that no matter what viewers take away from the film, which opens on Tuesday at the Toronto Hot Docs festival, the man who claims to Robertson fulfilled his wish: to see some of his American family before he dies.
Heroes: American flags stand at the base of a statue of American Soldiers of the Vietnam War in D.C.
Hot Docs director Chris McDonald, said he had never seen an audience react with so much emotion after seeing the film of Mr Robertson's life.
He said: 'Everyone was wobbly and teary - and curious. If this individual is a legitimate MIA left behind, as the family and filmmakers believe, it's hard to overestimate what the impact might be.'
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