1st Lt. Gerard Peter Cyr, USAF

Korean War · Identification card displayed in Pyongyang · Never returned

The Pentagon states in its own published profile that his identification card was seen in a North Korean museum. It then states that it has no additional information about his fate.

Identification photograph of 1st Lt. Gerard Cyr on display in the Pyongyang war museum — The identification photograph of 1st Lt. Gerard Cyr, found on display in Pyongyang’s war museum. It appears to come from something he was carrying. (PIP/Mark Sauter)

The man

Gerard Cyr was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Max Cyr of Waterbury, Conn., according to the 1954 Army-Navy-Air Force Register. Born in Waterbury in 1927, he flew with the 6148th Tactical Air Control Squadron and was awarded the Air Medal, according to Honor States (Unconfirmed by PIP).

What is known

First Lieutenant Gerard Peter Cyr joined the U.S. Air Force from Connecticut and was assigned to the 6149th Tactical Control Squadron, 6147th Tactical Control Group.

On 11 March 1952 an LT-6G Texan, tail number 49-3565A, call sign Palomino 3, left Pyeongtaek with two men aboard on a tactical air control — “Mosquito” — mission directing airstrikes north of Heartbreak Ridge in support of the 45th Infantry Division. Cyr was the observer. The pilot was 1st Lt. Carl Julius Evans of Utah. After crossing into the eastern battle area the aircraft called for a reconnaissance tasking. That was the last contact. A forward observer later reported an unidentified Mosquito making a low pass behind Hill 1277. Searches found nothing.

What the Pentagon admits about the museum

DPAA’s published profile for Cyr contains this sentence:

“In November 1995, a partially torn identification card belonging to 1st Lt Cyr was seen at the Peoples’ National Liberation Museum in Pyongyang, North Korea; however, we have no additional information regarding his fate.”
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, service-member profile

This is the United States government confirming, in writing, that North Korea holds and displays a document taken from an American serviceman it has never accounted for — and then closing the paragraph.

In late 1996 PIP’s founder visited the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, where North Korea displays the identification cards and personal documents of Americans it has never accounted for. He photographed what was on show. Four of those men now have pages here. Pentagon researchers later visited the same museum and collected the same kind of information, adding to what the State Department already had. There is no public record that North Korea has ever provided any information on the fate of the men whose documents it puts on public display.

What the enemy prisoners said

John Zimmerlee correlated three debriefings of captured enemy soldiers — Korean Tactical reports — against the loss:

KT_3057, source captured 15 March 1952: “In early Mar 52, a UN liaison plane was hit by AA fire and crashed in vic DT169495. On 13 Mar 52, source observed the remains of the aircraft and heard that 2 crew members were killed instantly when the plane crashed.”
KT_3062, source captured 13 March 1952: “a low flying UN recon plane crashed in the vic of Sangchongsong DT1649. The plane was believed to have been hit by NKA machine gun fire, burst into flames when it crashed and it is believed the pilot was lost with the plane.”
KT_3145, source captured 11 April 1952: “In mid Mar 52, he heard that 1 UN plane was shot down by AA guns in vic of Sangchongsong (DT1749). The plane caught fire after it crashed and the 2 UN pilots were killed.”

All three appear to describe LT-6G 49-3565, lost 11 March 1952 near DT1852 with Cyr and Evans aboard.

What remains unresolved

Whether the photograph came off a living man or a dead one. That is the question the card poses and nobody has answered.
Why the status has not changed. Both men are carried as missing. Between the three enemy debriefings and the card in Pyongyang, the record arguably supports a determination — and, as Zimmerlee has argued, that determination may be what the families have been waiting seventy years to hear.
1st Lt. Carl Evans. The pilot of the same aircraft is subject to every question on this page.

Their papers in a Pyongyang museum

In 1996 Mark Sauter photographed the identity documents of four missing Americans on display in North Korea’s Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang. North Korea displays the papers; it has not, to PIP’s knowledge, explained what became of the men who carried them.

Evidence and sources

Photograph of Cyr’s identification photo on display in the Pyongyang war museum, taken by PIP’s founder in late 1996.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency service-member profile, 1st Lt. Gerard Peter Cyr — including the November 1995 museum sighting.
Korean Tactical debriefing reports KT_3057, KT_3062 and KT_3145, correlated by John Zimmerlee.
Primary account: PIP research files.

Request for information

Please contact us if you can help with any of the following.

Accounts from former North Korean or Chinese soldiers of the two men aboard the LT-6G lost near Sangchongsong in March 1952, including whether either was taken alive.
How Cyr’s identification card reached the Pyongyang museum.
The burial places of Cyr and 1st Lt. Carl Evans.

Three captured enemy soldiers said the crew died in the crash. The Pentagon records that Cyr’s card was seen in the Pyongyang museum. Did both men die in the wreck, with the card taken from the site? Or was one of them taken alive?

Write to contact@powinvestigativeproject.org. We treat every approach in confidence.