In 2021, AFSA expanded its Memorial Plaques in the Department of State’s C Street Lobby to add 67 new names of early diplomats and consuls going back to 1794 who researchers had identified as having died under circumstances qualifying for plaque inscription. Anticipating that researchers would continue to discover additional qualifying deaths from past decades, the AFSA Governing Board voted that any additional historical names would be memorialized here on this Virtual AFSA Memorial Plaque to preserve the limited space on the physical plaques to inscribe the names of colleagues who die serving our nation abroad in future decades. As anticipated, additional discoveries of long ago deaths continued, with eight names now on this virtual plaque.
The Governing Board in 2025 adopted the policy to consider inscribing the virtual names on a physical plaque in the future if that number reaches 26 -- enough to fill one of the three currently blank physical plaques – if relatively few contemporary deaths have occurred by then and substantial open space remains.
Click on a name to read more about an honoree.
Osmon E. Henryson
Plane Crash – Suriname 1943
Osmon Ephraim Henryson was born on April 19, 1906, in Story City, Iowa, as a twin and one of six children in his family to survive infancy. He worked for the Works Progress Administration in Washington, D.C. prior to joining the Foreign Service in July 1942.
After a brief assignment in Washington, D.C., he traveled to serve as a clerk at U.S. Consulate General Algiers. Due to the war in Europe, the Douglas C-54 staffed by a TWA crew under contract to the Department of War flew via South America. The airplane carrying 35 people crashed in the jungle 30 miles from Paramaribo, Suriname, on January 15, 1943. All aboard died. Henryson died at age 36.
When the remains were returned to the United States five years later, searchers only found enough to fit in a single casket. At the time, it was the largest loss of life in U.S. aviation history. One report attributed the crash to mechanical problems. Another report noted that two other airplanes in the area around the same time observed anti-aircraft file coming from what appeared to be a German submarine.
[Sources: Foreign Service Journal, March 1943, Page 127; Statement by the Secretary of State, January 21, 1943, reprinted in State Department Bulletin, January 23, 1943, Page 84; Lassie Family Website at http://www.lassiecomehome.info/id8.html; FBI website (two FBI agents were on the airplane)].
§
Jeannette LaFrance
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning – Cairo 1954
Jeannette Lucille LaFrance was originally from Nashua, New Hampshire. She served in the Woman's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II. Joining the Foreign Service in 1947, her first tours were in Warsaw and Lima.
As a Foreign Service secretary serving at U.S. Embassy Cairo, Egypt, she was found dead in her embassy-leased apartment on March 18, 1954. The cause of death was determined to be carbon monoxide poisoning from a malfunctioning gas water heater. She died at age 32.
[Source: Nashua Telegraph, Nashua, New Hampshire, March 26, 1954, Page 6].
§
Thomas McGrail
Airplane Crash – Pacific Ocean 1957
Thomas Henry McGrail was born November 7, 1905, in New Hampshire. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire and earned a Ph.D. at Cornell University. He worked as a professor at the University of New Hampshire and served in the U.S. Army between 1942 and 1947 in the Pacific theater, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He joined the U.S. Information Agency as a Foreign Service officer in 1952.
After initial USIA assignments in Tel Aviv and Tokyo, he was traveling to assume duties as cultural attaché at U.S. Embassy Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar). The Pan American Airways flight carrying him, 35 other passengers, and eight crew left San Francisco on November 8, 1957, headed to Honolulu but never arrived. Debris and bodies were eventually found floating in the ocean. The cause of the crash was never determined, with both sabotage and mechanical failure being possibilities. McGrail was 52 years old. There is a grave marker in his memory at Sant James Catholic Church Cemetery in Thomaston, Maine.
[Sources: Gregg Herken with Ken Fortenberry, "The Mystery of the Lost Clipper," Air and Space Magazine, September 2004; Honolulu Adviser, Honolulu, Hawaii, November 10, 1957, Page 6; “Thomas Henry McGrail,” Findagrave.com, Memorial ID: 184975004; State Department Biographic Register 1956; Ancestry.com records.]
§
John J. Meily
Plane Crash – Brazil 1944
John James Meily was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 3, 1896. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Institute of Technology, and lived as a young adult in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He joined the consular service in 1919 and served in Berne, Port Limon (Costa Rica), Stavanger (Norway), Leipzig, Hamburg, Zagreb, and Guadalajara.
He was en route to Pernambuco (Recife), Brazil, to assume the position of Consul General when the commercial airliner that he, his wife Margaret, and 15 others were flying in crashed near San Salvador, Brazil, on September 21, 1944. There were no survivors. He died at age 57. He is buried at Holy Name Cemetery and Mausoleum in Jersey City, New Jersey.
[Sources: American Foreign Service Journal, November 1944, Page 623; The Morning Call, Allentown, Pennsylvania, September 23, 1944, Page 5; Troy Record, Troy, New York, September 23, 1944, Page 1; Harry W. Kopp, The Voice of the Foreign Service (Foreign Service Books, 2015), Pages 36-37; State Department Biographic Register 1944; American Foreign Service Journal, Photographic Supplement, November 1936, Page 51 (photo of Meily); “John J. Meily,” Findagrave.com, Memorial ID: 207223362; Ancestry.com records.]
§
Francis P. Corrigan, Jr.
Airplane Crash – Laos 1961
Francis Patrick Corrigan, Jr., was born in Larkspur, California, on April 4, 1925. He served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II. As a U.S. Navy Reserve officer, he was called to active duty during the Korean War, serving first on destroyers and then as an air naval gunfire liaison officer with Marine ground units, earning a Bronze Star with Combat “V” for acts of valor during combat. After the war, he completed his degree at the University of Hawaii.
He joined the United States Information Agency in August 1956 as a Foreign Service officer, serving first at the U.S. mission in Taiwan. He then served as a Branch Public Affairs Officer in Luang Prabang, Laos, from 1957 until his death in 1961. On March 31, 1961, in Hong Sa, southwest of Luang Prabang, Laos, Corrigan was passenger on a small plane making one of his regular tours of the districts in Northern Laos which fell within his area of responsibility. That day’s mission included dropping leaflets to undermine public support for the Pathet Lao (communist forces). The plane crashed into a tree on take-off, killing Corrigan and injuring two Lao passengers. He was 35 years old.
At a later memorial ceremony attended by over 1,000 Laotians, Buddhist monks said prayers over his coffin and the provincial governor laid a wreath saying, “From his Laotian friends, their eternal regrets.” In 1961, USIA Director Edward R. Murrow presented a posthumous Distinguished Service Award to his widow Flora Maye Corrigan. He was also survived by son Raymond Corrigan and adopted Laotian daughter Katy Corrigan. He is buried in Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in San Rafael, California.
[Sources: Time Magazine, April 14, 1961, Page 32 (includes photo of Mr. Corrigan); Department of State Biographic Register, May 1960; “Laughter in the Shadows: A CIA Memoir,” Stuart E. Methven, Naval Institute Press, 2014, Pages 82-83; USIA Distinguished Service Award (Posthumous) nomination, April 1, 1961 (Corrigan family records).]
§
William H. Lewis
Cerebral Malaria – Ghana 1963
William Howison Lewis was born on March 30, 1917, in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Howard University in 1938 and earned a master’s degree there in 1943. During World War II, he served on the National War Labor Board and later was a Department of State civil service employee. He joined the U.S. Information Agency as a Foreign Service officer in 1954 serving in New Delhi, Lucknow (northern India), and Washington, D.C. His final assignment was in Accra, Ghana, were he died of cerebral malaria on September 21, 1963. He was 46 years old.
[Sources: “Official of Ghana is Buried,” New Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 5, 1963, Page 3, online at Newspapers.com; Department of State Biographic Register 1964 (data as of September 1963).]
§
John A. Nuhn
Vehicle Accident – Thailand 1964
John Alfred Nuhn was born in Washington, D.C. and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the reserves after the war. He graduated from George Washington University in 1947. After working for the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Navy, he joined a predecessor agency to USAID in 1954 as a Foreign Service Reserve Officer. After his first tour in the foreign assistance mission at U.S. Embassy Athens, he transferred to U.S. Embassy Bangkok as USAID Deputy Assistance Director for Finance. He was killed on October 23, 1964 while returning to Bangkok from inspecting a USAID project site when the government jeep he was riding in was struck by a truck. His Thai driver was also killed, and two USAID American colleagues were injured. He died at age 45, leaving a wife and eight children aged 4 to 17.
[Source: USAID employee newspaper "Front Lines," Vol. 11, No. 24, October 30, 1964]
§
Wayne A. Wilcox
Airplane Crash – France 1974
Wayne Ayres Wilcox was born on July 13, 1932, in Pendleton, Indiana. He grew up in North Liberty, Indiana, graduating from Perdue University in 1954. After serving two years in the U.S. Naval Reserve, he got a Ph.D. from Columbia University where he chaired the political science department. He authored four books and also served as research analyst at Rand Corporation and a consultant in the State Department.
He joined the U.S. Information Agency in 1971. Serving as cultural attaché at U.S. Embassy London, he was returning to post on March 3, 1974, after attending a conference in Pakistan. His Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to London made an intermediate stop at Orly Airport in Paris. The flight crashed shortly after takeoff killing all 355 passengers and crew. The dead included his wife, Ouida, and children Kailan and Clark who were returning home to London. He was 41 years old. He was survived by children Shelley and Spencer who had remained in London. He is buried in Thiais Parisian Cemetery. The crash remains one of the 10 most deadly in aviation history. His colleagues founded an AFSA Scholarship in his family’s honor.
[Sources: “North Liberty Man, Wife, 2 Children Die in Crash,” Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana, March 5, 1974, Page 31; Foreign Service Journal, April 1974, Page 36; Foreign Service Journal, May 1974; Pages 24-25; Wayne Ayres Wilcox, Findagrave.com, Memorial ID 196224559.]
