COLONEL JOSEPH CLAIR AUSTIN, USAF


34th Tactical Fighter Squadron

Lost March 19, 1967, North Vietnam
MIA; Still Unaccounted For

Presented by Linda Cunningham Fluharty.


The Department of Defense conducted a ceremony at the Pentagon on Friday, 20 September 2019 in recognition of POW/MIA Recognition Day. - "Colonel Joseph Clair Austin, USMA Class of 1952, is one of those 1,587 MIAs unaccounted for in Southeast Asia from the Vietnam War. He is also one of 10 graduates from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who is still MIA."

Born in Moundsville on June 30, 1929, Joseph Clair Austin was the son of Joseph Russell Austin and Estella McCoy. He had a younger brother, Charles Dean "Chuck" Austin, who died May 22, 2019, at age 88, at his home in Glen Dale.

Joseph Clair Austin graduated from Moundsville High School in 1947. He was accepted at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and graduated in 1952. Following his graduation, he married Beverly (Bunny) Marino, a graduate of Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, New York, Class of 1951. They became the parents of two sons, Joseph John and Thomas David.

An article in the Wheeling Intelligencer, dated June 16, 1958, indicates that Joseph Clair Austin, of Moundsville, graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology that month with a Master of Science degree in Industrial Administration.

At the time he went missing, Joseph Clair Austin was a Lieutenant Colonel; he attained the rank of Colonel while he was Missing in Action. He was declared dead on May 25, 1979.

The name of Joseph Clair Austin is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial, Courts of the Missing.


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