With his death during a training exercise in South Vietnam in 1957, Capt. Harry Griffith Cramer Jr. became the first U.S. Army casualty of the VIetnam War.
A lecture on Thursday at the Army's Airborne & Special Operations Museum by retired Lt. Col. Harry “Hank” Cramer III will focus on the service of his late father.
Cramer is an expert on his father’s unit, the 14th Special Forces Operational Detachment, the first Special Forces team to deploy to Vietnam, according to a museum news release.
In 1956, Capt. Cramer was assigned to the Mobile Training Team, 14th Special Forces Operational Detachment (Area). The team's job was to train indigenous special forces teams in military skills. From June to November 1957, they began training Vietnamese special forces soldiers in raid operations and related skills.
The class was undergoing a series of field training exercises before its graduation in late October when Cramer was involved in a training accident on Oct. 21, 1957, near Nha Trang, South Vietnam, the release said.
Cramer, a native of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a 1946 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. At age 20, he was the youngest of more than 800 cadets in his class. He served in Korea and Vietnam and was laid to rest at West Point.
A parachute drop zone on Okinawa, CRAMER DZ, was named in his honor. Later, when the 1st Special Forces Group moved into its new facilities at Fort Lewis in 1987, Cramer Avenue was named in his honor, the release said.
The lecture will begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the museum's video theater, and seating is limited, the release said. Pre-registration is recommended with a suggested donation of $15 per person and $10 for museum friends. Active-duty military personnel may attend at no charge.
Light refreshments will be available.
To register, go to bit.ly/hankcramer
