At the age of eighteen, armed with a dream of flying and the desire to serve his country, Norman Gaddis enlists in the Army Air Corps in the months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After twenty-four years of service and seventy-two combat missions, he is shot down while in flight in an F-4 Phantom over Hanoi. He spends the next 2,124 days as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hoa Lo Prison, better known as the Hanoi Hilton.This true story follows Retired Brigadier General Norman C. Gaddis through his journey as he endures a thousand days of solitary confinement, physical and mental torture and nearly six years held captive as a POW. Relying on skills gained through his years of training and his love of and faith in both family and country he not only survives, but maintains his sanity and his honor. This is a story of strength, integrity and patriotism; a tale of a truly great American.
Phantom in the River: The Flight of Linfield Two Zero One
In the early afternoon of May 14, 1967, a U.S. Navy F-4B Phantom II fighter jet, flown by Ev Southwick and Jack Rollins, launched from the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier sailing in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam. As part of a massive aerial attack against the
