AMERICAN BATTLE MONUMENTS COMMISSION

Andrew Matyas

Lieutenant Colonel,
United States Air Force

505th Troop Carrier Group
22nd Tactical Air Support Squadron

Entered the Service from: New Jersey
Died: February 18, 1968
Buried at: Robbinsford Cemetery
Robbinsford, New Hampshire

Awards: Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Air Medal

LIEUTENANT COLONEL ANDREW MATYAS was born on September 21, 1922. His home of record is Camden, NJ. He had two brothers, Edward and William, and three sisters. Andrew Matyas graduated Camden High School in 1946. He attended Rutgers University and by 1949 had earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in political science.

Andrew Matyas enlisted in the US Air Force and attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During World War II, he flew combat missions with the 8th Air Force in Europe. Recalled to duty in 1952 during the Korean War, he was assigned for a year a Thule, Greenland. Later, he flew B-47s with the 307th Bomb Wing out of Lincoln, Nebraska.

In Vietnam, he was assigned to the 22nd Tactical Air Support Squadron, 505th Troop Carrier Group, 7th Air Force at Binh Thuy. He flew as a spotter of enemy forces. He was a Bomber Forward Air Controller assigned to fly O-1 aircraft but he served only 17 days in combat. Lieutenant Colone; Matyas was killed in action on February 18, 1968, during a mortar attack on the Binh Thuy air base in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam.

Over the course of his career, Lieutenant Colonel Matyas was awarded over two dozen medals including, the Air Medal, Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Matyas was survived by his wife, Anna, and two daughters, Mary Ellen and Lynn Ann.

There is a memorial at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, dedicated to the graduates who were killed or missing in action from the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Colonel Matyas� name is listed among those killed in action..

Col. Matyas Rites Set

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at McGill's Funeral Home in Dover, N.H., for Air Force Lt. Col. Andrew Matyas, former Lincoln resident who died Feb. 18 in South Vietnam.

Col. Matyas, who flew as a spotter of enemy forces, was killed during a mortar attack on the Binh Thuy air base in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam.

During service in World War II, the Korean War, and in Vietnam, Col. Matyas had received 24 service ribbons and decorations, including the Air Medal, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart.

During WW II he flew combat missions with the 8th Air Force in Europe. Recalled to duty in 1952 during the Korean War, he was assigned for a year at Thule, Greenland. Later, he flew B-47s with the 307th Bomb Wing in Lincoln. He and his family lived in Lincoln from 1957 to 1963.

Col. Matyas, a native of Camden, N.J., was assigned to Air Force Headquarters in Alexandria, Va., in 1963, and had been stationed in Vietnam since October.

Survivors include his wife, Anna; daughters Mary Ellen and Lynn Ann; brothers Edward, Somerdale, N.J., and William, Collingswood, N.J.; sisters Mrs. William Rapp, Morestown, N.J.; Mrs. Richard Stasiewiez and Mrs. Benjamin Stridick, both of Cherry Hill, N.J.

Memorial services will be held Thursday at Fort Belvoir in Alexandria, Va.

Andrew Matyas

Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force

Lieutenant Colonel,
United States Air Force