Look Back: West Side Catholic basketball standout killed during the Vietnam War
May 18—At 12, Bernard Francis Rupinski was named to the Edwardsville Little League All-Star team that won the district championship in August 1955.
As a student at West Side Central Catholic High School, Rupinski was known as one of the best male dancers and a standout on the basketball court, being named to the first team of the Catholic League Central Division his senior season in 1961. After high school, Rupinski attended King's College where he was also a standout on the college's basketball team.
Following college graduation, Rupinski became a Naval Aviator, commissioned a lieutenant and flew as a Navy Flight Intercept Officer on the F-4 Phantom jet, stationed on the USS America during the Vietnam War.
Lt. Rupinski and pilot Lt. Walter E. Wilber were shot down over North Vietnam on June 16, 1968. While Wilber survived and was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, the body of Rupinski has never been found and is listed by the U.S. Defense Department as killed-in action.
"On June 16, 1968, a F-4 Phantom with a crew of two was the lead aircraft in a flight of two on a combat air patrol mission over the Gulf of Tonkin. The flight was directed inland to repel enemy aircraft reported to be south of the 19th parallel and encountered enemy MiGs over Nghe An Province, North Vietnam. During the ensuing combat, a MiG-21 fighter fired a missile which hit the Phantom in the fuselage, causing it to explode and crash. The pilot ejected, parachuted to the ground and was captured by enemy forces. The second crew member was not seen to eject and is believed to have died in the crash," according to an article on the U.S. Defense Department's POW/MIA Accounting Agency's website.
Rupinski was only 24 when killed and had been in Vietnam for more than one month.
Prior to being deployed, Rupinski and his wife, a native of Norway, were living in Virginia Beach, Va., and had a daughter, Michelle.
Nearly four years after being shot down, the U.S. Defense Department listed Rupinski, "killed from hostile action," according to a story in the Times Leader Evening News on May 25, 1972.
"Fragments of information collected from escaped and a small number of released POWs along with Navy intelligence revealed Bernie had apparently catapulted from the aircraft but never had been reported on the ground," the Evening News reported.
Rupinski's name along with 81 other veterans from Luzerne County killed during the Vietnam War are listed on the Vietnam Memorial on the south lawn of the Luzerne County Courthouse, which was dedicated on Feb. 21, 1988.
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