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United States prisoners of war during the Vietnam War

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Members of the United States armed forces were held as prisoners of war (POWs) in significant numbers during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973. Unlike U.S. service members captured in World War II and the Korean War, who were mostly enlisted troops, the overwhelming majority of Vietnam-era POWs were officers, most of them Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps airmen; a relatively small number of Army enlisted personnel were also captured, as well as one enlisted Navy seaman who fell overboard from a naval vessel. Most U.S. prisoners were captured and held in North Vietnam by the North Vietnamese Army; a much smaller number were captured in the south and held by the National Liberation Front (Việt Cộng). A handful of U.S. civilians were also held captive during the war.

As many as 13 prisons and prison camps were used to house U.S. prisoners in North Vietnam, the most widely known of which was Hỏa Lò Prison (nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton”). The treatment and ultimate fate of U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam became a subject of widespread concern in the United States, and hundreds of thousands of Americans wore POW bracelets with the name and capture date of imprisoned U.S. service members.[1]

American POWs in North Vietnam were released in early 1973 as part of Operation Homecoming, the result of diplomatic negotiations concluding U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. On February 12, 1973, the first of 591 U.S. prisoners began to be repatriated, and return flights continued until late March. After Operation Homecoming, the U.S. still listed roughly 1,350 Americans as prisoners of war or missing in action and sought the return of roughly 1,200 Americans reported killed in action but whose bodies were not recovered.Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). These missing personnel would become the subject of the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue.

Background

On March 26, 1964, the first U.S. service member imprisoned during the Vietnam War was captured near Quang Tri, South Vietnam when an L-19/O-1 Bird Dog observation plane flown by Captain Richard L. Whitesides and Captain Floyd James Thompson was brought down by small arms fire. Whitesides was killed, and Thompson was taken prisoner; he would ultimately spend just short of nine years in captivity, making him the longest held POW in American history. The first aviator captured in North Vietnam was Navy LTJG Everett Alvarez, Jr., who was shot down on August 5, 1964, in the aftermath of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.[2] American pilots continued to be captured over the north between 1965-1968 as part of Operation Rolling Thunder, the sustained aerial bombing campaign against North Vietnam. After President Lyndon Johnson initiated a bombing pause in 1968, the number of new captures dropped significantly, only to pick up again after his successor, President Richard Nixon, resumed bombing in 1969. Significant numbers of Americans were also captured during Operation Linebacker between May and October 1972 and Operation Linebacker II in December 1972, also known as the “Christmas Bombings.”

During the first six years in which U.S. prisoners were held in North Vietnam, many experienced long periods of solitary confinement, with senior leaders and particularly recalcitrant POWs being isolated to prevent communication. Robinson Risner and James Stockdale, two senior officers who were the de facto leaders of the POWs, were held in solitary for three and four years, respectively. The POWs made extensive use of a tap code to communicate, which was introduced in June 1965 by four POWs held in the Hỏa Lò prison: Captain Carlyle “Smitty” Harris, Lieutenant Phillip Butler, Lieutenant Robert Peel, and Lieutenant Commander Robert Shumaker.[3] Harris had remembered the code from prior training and taught it to his fellow prisoners. The code was simple and easy to learn and could be taught without verbal instructions. In addition to allowing communication between walls, the prisoners used the code when sitting next to each other but forbidden from speaking by tapping on one another’s bodies.[4] Throughout the war the tap code was instrumental in maintaining prisoner morale, as well as preserving a cohesive military structure despite North Vietnamese attempts to disrupt the POW’s chain of command. [4] During periods of protracted isolation the tap code facilitated elaborate mental projects to keep the prisoners' sanity.

U.S. prisoners of war in North Vietnam were subjected to extreme torture and malnutrition during their captivity, especially from late 1965 to October 1969, when the torture regime abated to a great extent.[5] Because this development coincided with the death of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh in September 1969, many POWs speculated that he was personally responsible for their mistreatment. Torture was used principally to extract military intelligence from newly captured prisoners and later to coerce POWs into participating in anti-war propaganda. During one such event in 1966, then-Commander Jeremiah Denton, a captured Navy pilot, was forced to appear at a televised press conference, where he famously blinked the word “T-O-R-T-U-R-E” with his eyes in Morse code, confirming to U.S. intelligence that U.S. prisoners were being harshly treated. Two months later, in what became known as the Hanoi March, 52 American prisoners of war were paraded through the streets of Hanoi before thousands of North Vietnamese civilians. The march soon deteriorated into near riot conditions, with North Vietnamese civilians beating the POWs along the two-mile route and their guards largely unable to restrain the attacks.[6]

Despite several escape attempts, no U.S. prisoner of war successfully escaped from a North Vietnamese prison. On November 21, 1970, U.S. Special Forces launched Operation Ivory Coast in an attempt to rescue 61 POWs believed to be held at the Sơn Tây prison camp 23 miles west of Hanoi. Fifty-six commandos landed by helicopter and assaulted the prison, but the American prisoners had been moved some months earlier and none were rescued. While the raid failed to free any POWs and was considered a significant intelligence failure, it had several positive implications for American prisoners. The most immediate effect was to affirm to the POWs’ that their government was actively attempting to repatriate them, which significantly boosted their morale. Additionally, soon after the raid all acknowledged American prisoners in North Vietnam were moved to Hỏa Lò prison to prevent their rescue by U.S. forces.[7]

The post-raid consolidation brought many prisoners who had spent years in isolation into large cells holding roughly 70 men each. The increased human contact further improved morale and facilitated greater military cohesion among the POWs. At this time, the prisoners formally organized themselves under the 4th Allied POW Wing, whose name acknowledged earlier periods of overseas captivity among American military personnel in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. This military structure was ultimately recognized by the North Vietnamese and endured until the prisoners' release in 1973.[8]

Notable Vietnam-era POWs

References

  1. ^ Michael J. Allen, Until the Last Man Comes Home, (University of North Carolina Press, 2009), pg. 57.
  2. ^ Alvin Townley, Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam's Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2014)
  3. ^ “Return with Honor: The Tap Code,” PBS American Experience, 1999.
  4. ^ a b Ernest C. Brace, A Code to Keep: The True Story of America’s Longest Held Civilian Prisoner of War in Vietnam (St. Martin’s Press, 1988) ISBN 0-7090-3560-8. Cite error: The named reference "“Brace”" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  5. ^ Jon A. Reynolds, “Question of Honor,” Air University Review, March-April 1977.
  6. ^ "People & Events: The Hanoi March," PBS American Experience
  7. ^ Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley, Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia 1961-1973 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998)
  8. ^ John G. Hubbell, P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973 (New York: Reader’s Digest Press, 1976).
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