BOWMAN-FRANK

FRIENDLY  FIRE  CASUALTY

Quartermaster Second Class Frank Bowman was reportedly born on July 15, 1935, in Walterboro, South Carolina.  On the night of June 16, 1968, QM2 Bowman was a crewman aboard the Patrol Craft Fast swift boat PCF-19 which was cruising on a routine patrol off the shore of northern South Vietnam when a sudden explosion rocked, then sank, the small boat.  Six crewmen were aboard the boat and unfortunately, QM2 Bowman did not survive the sinking.  He was one of four men who died in the sinking.  Investigation eventually concluded that a U.S. Air Force plane had attacked the boat believing it to be a North Vietnamese PT boat and that the boat was thus a victim of friendly fire.  The body of QM2 Bowman has never been recovered and his name has been inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.  QM2 Bowman has not yet come home.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)