On March 16 and 27 of 1973, two Army counterintelligence agents were released from North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camps as part of Operation HOMECOMING. Captured during Tet Offensive operations in Hue on February 1, 1968, the two spent more than five years as prisoners of war in North Vietnam.
On January 31, 1968, during the Lunar New Year celebration known as Tet, communist forces attacked numerous cities throughout South Vietnam simultaneously. Most of the attacks were suppressed quickly, but fighting in the town of Hue near the demilitarized zone continued into early March. In the midst of the attack in Hue, North Vietnamese forces overwhelmed five members of the local U.S. Army counterintelligence field office. Although the American soldiers put up a significant fight over a 48-hour period, four of the agents were captured and one, Cpl. Barry Wolk, was killed.
