When many first think of the U.S. military presence in Jonestown following the events of November 18, 1978, they picture exhausted, masked personnel placing bodies into bags and loading them onto helicopters. Such images have become permanently engrained into the public memory of the Jonestown tragedy. Yet little has been written about the military’s role in the aftermath. Richard D. Newton’s Valor Untold: Air Commandos During the Jonestown Massacre Recovery, 1978, certainly helps to address this gap, documenting the experiences of the Air Force personnel tasked with recovering the deceased.
Despite its short length of 34 pages, Newton’s monograph is dense with information. He effectively utilizes DOD cables to construct a timeline of Air Commandos’ involvement in Jonestown, including the arrival and departure dates of the various units involved.[1] This provides a particularly helpful starting point for researchers, as information on the military units involved in the recovery effort remains scattered across records from multiple DOD branches.
Perhaps the greatest strength of Newton’s monograph is his use of eight interviews he conducted with Air Force personnel to supplement his narrative. He also references interviews conducted by Dr. Preston Jones, which are available and transcribed on Military Response to Jonestown. Two critical themes emerge from these firsthand accounts.
First, they help humanize the grim and emotionally taxing work carried out by military personnel while illustrating their resilience. It becomes evident that in spite of criticism of the U.S. State Department and the military for a haphazard handling of the aftermath, the accounts suggest that the men and women working on the ground in Guyana were doing their best to manage a rather unprecedented situation while respecting the “rights and dignity of the deceased.”[2]
Second, the accounts reveal the extreme logistical challenges of the aftermath. Jonestown’s remote location, combined with limited information, complicated the recovery operation from the outset. As Newton recounts, the Combat Control Teams, among the first U.S. military personnel to survey Jonestown on Monday, November 20, had little understanding of the situation they would encounter. Even after an aerial reconnaissance and brief walkthrough, it was difficult to ascertain the sheer number of bodies as they were stacked among each other and scattered everywhere. As the recovery progressed, transportation presented additional obstacles. Newton explains that “the rainy season had made the predominantly dirt roads in the northeast region of Guyana impassable for all but four-wheel drive trucks,” while the available helicopters were “too small to move that many bodies 150 miles each way” between Jonestown and Timehri International Airport.[3]
Given the persistent rumors surrounding the military’s handling of the aftermath, these accounts offer insights into the exceptionally difficult conditions under which military personnel carried out their recovery efforts.
In addition to drawing on firsthand accounts, Newton references official histories held by AF Historical Research Agency that remain classified. It would be interesting to find out when exactly these histories will be declassified, as they would provide researchers with a fuller narrative of the military’s response. Their existence also raises a question if official histories and accounts exist from other military units involved with Jonestown.
Nevertheless, Newton’s monograph points toward areas for future research. While this monograph documents the role of the Air Force in Jonestown, less attention has been given to the Army Quartermaster Graves Registration units, which were primarily responsible for handling the deceased in Jonestown. Research into these units could help create a more comprehensive account of the military’s response.
Overall, Valor Untold is a valuable read not only for those interested in the history of Jonestown but also for readers seeking to learn about an unprecedented episode in U.S. military history.
Notes:
[1] Many of the cables used in Newton’s timeline have recently been transcribed—and chronologically organized—on the Military Response to Jonestown website.
[2] Ted Bell, “Jonestown Mission Ends with Hugs,” Sacramento Bee, December 1, 1978, quoted in Richard D. Newton, Valor Untold: Air Commandos During the Jonestown Massacre Recovery, 1978 (Mary Esther, FL: Air Commando Association Press, 2021).
[3] Newton, Valor Untold, 11.
(Aliah Mohmand is the Research Associate for this website and the co-director of the Military Response to Jonestown website. Her research has resulted in multiple projects regarding the aftermath of the Jonestown tragedy. Aliah attends Kalamazoo College, pursuing studies in History and Finance. Her full collection of articles for this site may be found here. She may be reached at aliahmohmand@gmail.com.)