Clarence Roger Bogard

Preferred Name: Roger
Date of Birth: January 3, 1937
Highest Military Grade: 0-5 – Lieutenant Colonel
Hometown: Roswell, NM
Headed West Date: September 3, 2017

From a letter to afa.org regarding the mission of “The Mayaguez Rescue” from Col. Lester G. Frazier,
USAF (Ret.), Georgetown, Tex.

“In the early afternoon of May 12, 1975, Col. Russ Thoburn, commander of the 347th TFW, called me to his office and tasked my squadron with sending an F-111 down to the Gulf of Siam “to look for a US ship that is missing.” I, in turn, tasked my acting ops officer, Lt.Col. Roger Bogard, and his navigator,Maj. Ken Law, for the mission. They launched and after searching, found the ship anchored just off Koh Tang, with no steam up. Lieutenant Colonel Bogard and Major Law reported the discovery to 7th Air Force headquarters (the F-111 crew’s discovery was covered in an issue of Airman Magazine). It was only some years after the fact that the Navy stepped forward to claim discovery. If the Navy had actually discovered the ship, they should have told someone.

One of our squadron pilots, Capt. Paul Reichel, provided a camera and film for the crew, and Ken Law took
many photos of the ship, dead in the water. The following day, those photographs were published in every major newspaper in the world.”

To see the letter in its entirety go to https://www.airandspaceforces.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2009/September%202009/0909Letters.pdf – page 6