Deneen Sines

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Ted B Braden

Photo of Ted labelled "Vietnam 1966"

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Mid Georgians To See Exhibition By Sky Divers

The following appeared in The Macon News on Friday May 20th 1960 on page 8.

Robins Air Force Base - The famed Army paratroopers from Ft. Campbell, Ky., will be the feature attraction of Armed Forces Day Open House here Saturday.

One of the three sky divers is a Ft. Valley native, Sgt. Frist Class Alva J. English. He is a member of the 101st Airborne Division and the Parachute Club of America, a nationwide organization devoted to parachuting as a sport.

His parents, Mr. and Mrs. R. M. English, watched their son make a parachute jump for the first time at last year's Open House observance. Sgt. English, a 12-year paratroop veteran, now has over 300 jumps to his credit.

Other members of the Ft. Campbell Sport Parachute Club to jump Saturday are SFC Robert R. Wightman and Sgt. Ted B. Braden.

There are now more than 10 military clubs engaged in sport parachuting, or sky diving, the Army's newest sport. Sky diving is body control during free fall, during which the jumper reaches a speed of 120 miles per hour. By means of exact co-ordination, the diver can manipulate his body into patterns such as the figure eight. After his steerable parachute opens, the sky diver guides himself toward a ground target.

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Ted B Braden

A photo taken of Ted Braden when he was a child.

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The following appeared in The Columbus Ledger on January 17th 1950 on page 17: There will be sold at public outcry to the highest and best bidder for cash before the Court House door of Muscogee County between the legal hours of sale. on the first Tuesday in February, 1950, the following property to-wit: One 1946 Club Coupe Mercury automobile, Motor No 96A1318394 Said property was found in possession of Hardaway Motor Co. and levied on as the property of Ted B. Braden Jr. to satisfy a foreclosure on conditional bill of sale against him in favor of Federal Services Finance Corporation from the Superior Court of Muscogee County, Ga. This the 30th day of December, 1949. E. F. Howell, Sheriff, Muscogee Co., Georgia January 16, 17, 24, 31, 1950.

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Daniel Pinna

I want to build a place where my son can meet his great-grandparents. My grandmother Marian Joyce (Benning) Kroetch always wanted to meet her great-grandchildren, but she died just a handful of years before my son's birth. So while she didn't have the opportunity to meet him, at least he will be able to know her. For more information about what we're building see About AncientFaces. For information on the folks who build and support the community see Daniel - Founder & Creator.
My father's side is full blood Sicilian and my mother's side is a combination of Welsh, Scottish, German and a few other European cultures. One of my more colorful (ahem black sheep) family members came over on the Mayflower. He was among the first to be hanged in the New World for a criminal offense he made while onboard the ship.

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Staff Sergeant Ted B. Braden

The following appeared in The Leaf-Chronicle on Thursday February 6th 1964 on page 18. It reads:

STAFF SERGEANT James F. Fowler Jr., in a free fall at 8,000 feet above Fort Campbell's Yamoto Drop zone, calls to his teammate, Staff Sergeant Ted B. Braden: "Hey, Ted - you forgot to brush your teeth. And this is National Dental Health Week! Cut over this way - I'm bringing your toothbrush.

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Ted Braden Jr.

From "Ramparts" magazine in an article the magazine published about Sgt. Bradens exploits in Africa. Ramparts ceased publication in 1975.

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The following is a description of the book about Ted B. Braden Jr., beginning with a review: "You make a strong argument based on good circumstantial evidence. Ted Braden looks to be a strong suspect" - Michael E. Anderson, Former F.B.I. Assistant Special Agent in Charge - Enron Investigation Ted B. Braden was “the perfect combination of high intelligence and criminality.” - Jo Ann, Ted Braden’s sister-in-law November 24th, 2021 will mark the 50th Anniversary of the only unsolved skyjacking case in American history. The case, nicknamed “Norjack” by the FBI as it involved the hijacking of a Northwest Orient 727 Airliner, would create a folk hero, if not a legend, of a mysterious man who would be immortalized by the name D.B. Cooper. This fascinating case has garnered a myriad of colorful and interesting suspects. One of the “dark horse” suspects who emerged over the years was a member of the most elite Special Forces unit created by the United States Government to serve during the war in Vietnam: a secret and covert unit called the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG). This rather benign-sounding name served as a thin veil, masking what was known to a few as the “black ops” unit in Vietnam. Many of the soldiers who served in this elite unit consider one of their own to be the infamous D.B. Cooper who hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305; demanded a ransom of $200,000 in cash; and jumped out of the lowered aft staircase of the plane into the stormy night, never to be seen again. It was even stated by some of the most highly-decorated members of MACV-SOG, legends such as Major John Plaster and Sergeant Billy Waugh, that one man in SOG had the parachuting expertise, the know-how, and, most of all, the “balls of steel” to pull off the D.B. Cooper skyjacking. This man was Ted B. Braden. Raised in the Mid-West during the Great Depression, young Ted could not have foreseen that the trajectory of his life would be set by events happening thousands of miles from his boyhood home. At age 16, Braden joined the army to fight in World War II, a decision that led to a twenty-year on-again/off-again military career marked by dangerous covert operations; C.I.A. intrigue; desertion, arrest, and incarceration (only for him to be freed without trial under mysterious circumstances); Cold War mercenarism; and ultimately, distrust in a government for whom he could have surrendered his life. The story of Ted B. Braden, master parachutist and soldier of fortune, trained by Uncle Sam in the art of war but not in the art of peace, is the quintessential American story - the story of the men of his generation and of a war that defined that generation. Ted Braden was an enigma as a person, driven by a brilliant, unorthodox mind that struggled to adapt to a society based on law and order and routine. He was a true super soldier who was suspected of having mental illness, most likely from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was a tortured soul with the burning frustration that he could never parlay his soldiering skills into big financial gains. He was fearless in his military endeavors to the point of risking lives but was endowed with natural instincts of survival that kept him and the men under his command alive. It is tragic that a man like this is no longer alive to share his story. It is tragic that a man like this never will be fully understood. He had an ability to be very kind and very cruel, an ability to be very forthright and very cunning, an ability to be very committed as a soldier and very adrift as a civilian. Was he the man who fearlessly leapt out of a Boeing 727 with $200,000 strapped around his body on a rainy Thanksgiving Eve in 1971? We may never know, but even if Ted Braden is not D.B. Cooper, he is one of the most fascinating people whose story you never knew - until now.

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Posted on February 23, 2012 on The Mountain News - WA Ted Braden One of the most intriguing aspects of the resurgent investigation of DB Cooper in recent years is the information provided by commandos from Vietnam, now that their covert activities have been de-classified. Plenty of troopers from the Special Operations Group of the Materials Assistance Command-Vietnam are talking to journalists and writing their own accounts of the illegal wars fought in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam during the larger conflict in South Vietnam from 1962-1975. Two topics come blaring forward. First, the DB Cooper skyjacking has all the hallmarks of a SOG operation in terms of the planning, equipment and execution. Secondly, two leading commanders of SOG units, SgtM Billy Waugh and Major John Plaster say that within their ranks a rogue SOG trooper by the name of Ted Braden is widely thought to be DB Cooper. Braden’s military career is filled with mystery and intrigue, including the assertions by some in his command that he was a professional intimate of General John Singlaub, one of the founders of the CIA and a leading figure in the Iran-Contra affair during the 1980s. Further, after Braden went AWOL in Vietnam in 1966 and was caught by the CIA trying to join the commando forces in the Congo civil war, he was incarcerated at Fort Dix, NJ. According to the officer responsible for inmates at Dix, Braden was later released by the personal intercession of the Army Chief of Staff, General Harold Johnson. Braden’s whereabouts afterward are still hotly debated. This picture of Ted Braden Jr. is from Ramparts magazine and was in an article the magazine published about Sgt Braden’s exploits in Africa. Sadly, Ramparts ceased publication in 1975.

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Written by William Kennedy on December 8, 2022 The identity of D.B. Cooper has now been revealed, according to the new true-crime documentary "I am DB Cooper," via the film's official website. It remains to be seen whether the film's assertion is correct that Washington state resident, Rodney Lewis Bonnifield, is in fact responsible for the unsolved skyjacking, based on his own admission, per GoSkagit.com. In 1971, a man traveling as Dan "D.B." Cooper hijacked a plane, then jumped with a parachute and a bag of ransom money from a Boeing 727 over the Pacific Northwest wilderness, never to be seen again, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. Since then, a number of suspects have been considered the real Cooper, with Bonnifield's name now on that list. One person that's long been of interest to serious "Cooperites" is Ted Braden. Based on Braden's military background and criminal past, in the opinion of some Cooper experts, he could have pulled off the heist What keeps some D.B. Cooper investigators returning to Ted Braden is that his experience in the military and his service in two wars could have trained him to both make and survive the difficult parachute jump Cooper is known to have made. According to Epik Fails of History, Braden was part of the 101st airborne in World War II, and later served in Vietnam. Whether the real Cooper survived the jump in the dark over a remote area of the Pacific Northwest wilderness is another matter. According to Epik Fails of History, based on his apparent experience, Braden was an expert skydiver. While in Vietnam, Braden reportedly deserted the military and tried to find work as a mercenary in the Congo. Eventually, Braden was arrested and returned to the U.S. where he was honorably discharged from the military. Darren Schaefer of the Cooper-themed podcast "The Cooper Vortex" said that Braden was one of his top Cooper suspects. In his lifetime, Ted Braden also had a lengthy criminal record, which landed him in jail by the late 1980s, according to Epik Fails of History. Another unconfirmed aspect of the Ted Braden-D.B. Cooper theory is that Braden may have even been a CIA operative, per The Oregonian/OregonLive. According to What Culture, around the same time the real D.B. Cooper stole the money and disappeared, Braden himself stole $250,000 in an unrelated crime. Did Braden commit the hijacking or was it instead Rodney Lewis Bonnifield, as the 2022 film "I am DB Cooper" claims, based on his own confession (via GoSkagit.com)? According to Eric Ulis, a high-profile Cooper researcher, odds are it was neither, nor is it likely that any other leading Cooper suspects were guilty. "Honestly, I believe it's a guy who's a complete unknown … I've seen nobody who checks all the boxes. It's somebody who's flown under the radar for 50 years," Ulis said (via The Oregonian/OregonLive). According to Ancient Faces, Braden died in 2007 at the age of 78. In 2016, the FBI announced on its official website: "Following one of the longest and most exhaustive investigations in our history, on July 8, 2016, the FBI redirected resources allocated to the D.B. Cooper case in order to focus on other investigative priorities."

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Kathy Pinna

I'm a Founder of AncientFaces and support the community answering questions & helping members make connections to the past (thus my official title of Founder & Content and Community Support ). For me, it's been a labor of love for over 20 years. I truly believe with all of my heart that everyone should be remembered for generations to come. I am 2nd generation San Jose and have seen a lot of changes in the area while growing up. We used to be known as the "Valley of Heart's Delight" (because the Valley was covered with orchards and there were many canneries to process the food grown here, which shipped all over the US) - now we have adopted the nickname "Capital of Silicon Valley" and Apple, Ebay, Adobe, Netflix, Facebook, and many more tech companies are within a few miles of my current home in San Jose (including AncientFaces). From a small town of 25,000, we have grown to 1 million plus. And when you add in all of the communities surrounding us (for instance, Saratoga, where I attended high school, living a block from our previous Mayor), we are truly one of the big cities in the US. I am so very proud of my hometown. For more information see Kathy - Founder & Content and Community Director
My family began AncientFaces because we believe that unique photos and stories that show who people are/were should be shared with the world.

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