Fifty Years After Their Release, Former Vietnam POWs Journey Back to Hanoi
My friend Captain Jerry Coffee spent seven years and nine days in Hanoi as a prisoner of war in the Communist prisons of North Vietnam. While flying reconnaissance missions over North Vietnam, piloting his jet fighter, Captain Coffee was shot down by enemy fire. After parachuting to safety, he was captured by
For weeks the returned P.O.W.s had been stepping from “freedom birds” onto the television screens—most of them saluting crisply, walking smartly, looking physically fit and acting mentally alert. As the nation’s early apprehensions faded, a new idea set in: perhaps the P.O.W.s had been humanely treated after all. That illusion
On April 19, 1967, Maj. Leo Thorsness (pilot) and Capt. Harold Johnson (EWO) led a Wild Weasel formation on a mission against the Xuan Mai army barracks about 30 miles southwest of Hanoi. After they silenced one SAM site and destroyed another, enemy anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) shot down the accompanying
The 560th Flying Training Squadron honored three former Vietnam veterans during the 47th Annual Freedom Flyer Reunion at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph March 25-26. The annual reunion allows Air Force combat pilots who were shot down in the Vietnam War, many suffering long periods in captivity as prisoners of war,
Only a month earlier, they were prisoners of war. Since their release, Navy Lieut. Robert Frishman and Seaman Douglas Hegdahl have been recuperating at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The third released P.W., Air Force Captain Wesley Rumble, 26, whose fighter-bomber went down over Quang Binh province in