“The Cookie Caper” In Honor of Col Robert B. “Percy” Purcell, Prisoner
of War: North Vietnam (July 1965 – February 1973)
During his time as a prisoner of war, Lt. Col. William “Bill” Gauntt remembers a Vietnamese soldier pressing a .45 pistol against his forehead and pulling the trigger. “I remember hearing the spring as it was being stretched and then pop,” he said. “On an empty chamber fortunately.” Gauntt told
The Palm Springs Air Museum’s collection of Vietnam-era POW/MIA bracelets has steadily grown since the first bracelet — bearing the name of U.S. Air Force Col. Norman Schmidt — was donated in late February. There are now close to 50 of these bracelets on display at the air museum, thanks
Wallace (Moe) Newcomb, a former U.S. Air Force pilot during the Vietnam War, was 27-years-old when he was deployed from his base in Thailand to strike a North Vietnemese railroad yard during the height of the conflict in 1967. While over the skies of North Vietnam, Newcomb’s F-105 fighter-bomber was heavily
On 12 July 1967; Sgt. Cordine McMurray, then Sgt. Martin S. Frank, SP4 James L. Van Bendegom; SP4 James F. Schiele, SP4 Nathan B. Henry, SP4 Stanley A. Newell, and SP4 Richard R. Perricone were riflemen assigned to a search and destroy patrol operating in the Ia Drang Valley, Pleiku
Capt. Myron L. Donald looks smilingly at this wife on March 17, 1973 at March Air Force base in California, after he placed a lei around her neck as he deplaned following flight from Clark Air Force base. The former POW from Tucson, Arizona, was held by the North Vietnamese
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