Jilin province. The pilots, Robert Snoddy and Norman Schwartz were killed during the crash and subsequent fire, and were buried nearby. The two CIA officers, John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau survived and were immediately taken prisoner by Chinese forces, who were waiting for the flight. Downey and Fecteau were held by China and regularly interrogated for nearly twenty years. Fecteau was released unexpectedly following Nixon's visit to China in 1972, but Downey was released only after Washington publicly acknowledged their spy mission in 1973. At the time the families of the pilots were told, in order to keep the CIA's covert actions in China secret, that they had crashed into the Sea of Japan on a routine flight to Tokyo. In 2001, China allowed the US Defense Department's Prisoner of War and Missing in Action (POW/MIA) office to conduct a recovery effort for the bodies of the pilots. In 2005 the POW/MIA office announced that it had identified the remains of Robert Snoddy using DNA analysis. Schwartz's remains have not been recovered. The 1952-1953 edition of Jane's All The World's Aircraft lists the head office address as Suite 309, Kass Building, 711 14th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., with the footnote that the company had reregistered in the U.S. The president is given as Whiting Willauer, and the fleet listed as 23 Curtiss C-46 Commando and 4 Douglas DC-3 aircraft. First Indochina War On May 1, 1953, Operation Squaw began, calling for CAT to airdrop supplies to French troops besieged at Na Sam, Laos. This operation was the first U.S. involvement in what became the First Indochina War. CAT transported supplies and troops for French operations during Operation Castor in November 1953. CAT assisted the French government at various times during its Indochina wars, flying supplies and equipment into Hanoi's Gia Lam airport and other fields using C-46 and C-47 transport planes. Operation Squaw-II was approved on January 29, 1954, and, after negotiations with the French, a contract was signed on March 3 for CAT to supply 24 pilots to operate 12 C-119s. At the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, CAT supplied the French garrison by parachuting troops and supplies with covert USAF C-119 inscribed with French Air Force insignia. Two CAT pilots James B. McGovern Jr. and Wallace Buford were killed in action during the siege of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954. They were the first American