Albro Lundy III’s Decades-Long Search for His POW-MIA Father

This Memorial Day weekend, the United States of America will honor its fallen soldiers. For Hermosa beach-based attorney Albro Lundy III, the holiday is deeply personal; during a mission in the Vietnam War, his father, Albro Lundy, Jr. went missing. At first, his family believed that Albro, Jr. was dead. But that changed 20 years later, and Albro III’s journey to find out the truth about what happened to his father began.  

“The only moral thing I could do, the only spiritual thing I could do, the only logical thing I could do, the only practical thing I could do was to believe he was alive so I could bring him home,” says Albro III. 

Albro, Jr. was a fighter pilot in the Air Force. On Christmas Eve in 1970, nine months into a combat tour during which he was part of a flying squadron conducting dangerous search-and-rescue missions, a call came through requesting help getting a group of Hmong people out from the middle of a crossfire, according to Albro III. Albro, Jr., 37, wasn’t supposed to be the one to take the mission. But he volunteered, and it would be the last time anyone who knew him saw him alive. 

“He got shot down,” says Albro III. “They tried to rescue him, but he was already either captured or gone, out of his parachute.” 

His spouse and six children were told that Albro, Jr. died in the plane crash. For 20 years, it was what they believed. But in 1991, Albro III received a letter from a circuit judge in Tennessee informing him about a photograph they believed depicted Albro, Jr. and two other missing men whose remains had never been recovered. 

What happened next captivated the nation. The Lundy family appeared in front of the press with members of the other men’s families, now convinced that all three were still alive. This belief was shared by other members of the POW-MIA community who asserted America had knowingly left men behind in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and subsequently covered it up. 

In a Newsweek cover story, Johanna Lundy, Albro III’s mother, explained that she’d accepted her husband was dead and tried her best to continue with her life, attending law school at night and parenting her six children. After she saw the photo, Newsweek reported, “the mouth and the hairline ‘absolutely’ meant it had to be Al Lundy.”

For Albro III, the photograph and subsequent information changed the course of his life. He would travel to and from Laos, the country over which his father was shot down. Albro III’s brother, William, spent years in Southeast Asia trying to piece together the mystery. The family became activists in the POW-MIA movement, working to uncover what they believed were decades of lies told by government officials. 

Once, Albro III went to Vietnam in the company of Muhammed Ali. The two men’s unlikely meeting occurred after an event they both attended, when the host asked if Albro III would mind sharing a limousine. 

“I’m like, ‘It’s OK, just get me a taxi,’” says Albro III. “And he goes, ‘No, you’re gonna share this limo. But you have to share it with Muhammed Ali.’”

In the course of the ride, Albro III explained his situation to the boxing champion. Ali had famously been convicted for refusing the Vietnam draft on moral grounds, but when he heard Albro III’s story, agreed to accompany the young attorney on his mission. 

“Two, three weeks later, I get a phone call: ‘Ali said he was gonna go to Vietnam with you. We’re setting it up,’” says Albro III. “When we land, he looks at me and he goes, ‘I cannot believe I’m in Vietnam.’”

Sadly, none of it produced the result the family hoped for and, in 2004, they received remains that, after a DNA test, were confirmed to be the Lundy patriarch. In April 2004, Albro Lundy, Jr. was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery with a full military burial. A team of pilots flew overhead in the missing man formation, and soldiers gave a 21-gun salute. 

“We were wanting him to walk off the plane,” says Albro III. “We had to carry him off the plane instead, and we gave my dad a hero’s welcome and goodbye.”