On June 24, 1972, U.S. Air Force Captain David B. Grant was flying a mission couple posing for picturefrom Thailand into conflict-ridden North Vietnam when his F-4 Phantom took a direct hit and exploded. The fuselage was separating when both Grant and his “back-seater,” Bill, ejected through the fireball. They landed without injury, about two miles apart. They would not see each other again until days later when they became cellmates in the infamous North Vietnamese prison known to American POW’s as the Hanoi Hilton.
Grant and his father, Colonel A.G. Grant, share a dubious distinction. As a young lieutenant flying B-17’s during WWII, A.G. was shot down over Belgium and spent a year and a half as a POW in Stalag Luft I. A.G. and David are the only father (WWII) and son (Vietnam) to have been POWs from those conflicts.
