A portrait of the Navy pilot, focusing on his ordeal as the first American prisoner of war in North Vietnam
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
Jack Van Loan was a United States Air Force fighter pilot. In 1967, he was flying as wingman for Colonel Robin Olds when his F-4 Phantom jet was shot down. He spent six years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Alongside such legends as Robbie Risner, James Stockdale,
In 1967, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot James Shively was shot down over North Vietnam. After ejecting from his F-105 Thunderchief aircraft, he landed in a rice paddy and was captured by the North Vietnamese Army. For the next six years, Shively endured brutal treatment at the hands of the
“As an American asked to serve, I was prepared to fight, to be wounded, to be captured and even prepared to die, but I was not prepared to be abandoned. It is that one American is not worth the effort to be found, we, as Americans, have lost.” These are
Fred Cherry was one of the few black pilots taken prisoner by the Vietnamese, tortured and intimidated by captors who tried and failed to get him to sign antiwar statements. Post Views: 495
