“The Cookie Caper” In Honor of Col Robert B. “Percy” Purcell, Prisoner
of War: North Vietnam (July 1965 – February 1973)
‘Save Me Some Trout,’ Suring POW Writes By gerry Mcdowell Press-Gazette Staff Writer SURING “I hope you save a few of those trout in the pond for me.” This was a message in the Christmas letter from Capt. Gerald Gerndt, whose parents. Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth Gerndt of Suring, are
First came a knock on the door, then the bad news, then a request for silence. Don’t tell anyone that your husband/father/son/brother has become a prisoner of war. That was the way it went early in the Vietnam War. U.S. government officials didn’t want to antagonize the North Vietnamese captors,
Ted Sienicki was an Air Force Weapon Systems Officer in May 1972, when his F-4 was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he was forced to eject over North Vietnam. He spent 11 months as a prisoner of war. This weekend he will be in Hudson, Massachusetts, where the American Heritage Museum is
News stories about the Vietnam conflict were a daily staple in the spring of 1968 when I joined The Patriot Ledger as a copy reader on the news desk. I soon learned that the year before a Quincy native, Lt. Cmdr. Richard Stratton, had been captured after he was forced
It was the hardest thing Lt. Col. John Yuill had to do after the B-52 Stratofortress he and five crewmembers were flying in over Hanoi, Vietnam, was struck by two surface-to-air missiles on Dec. 22, 1972, during their third mission in four days as part of Linebacker II. It was