The Air & Space Forces Association recognized American prisoners of war during its 2023 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, as part of the association’s ongoing commemoration of the end of the Vietnam War.
Of some 170 individuals who appeared on stage throughout the three-day conference in National Harbor, Md., five were Airmen who collectively endured 6,697 days as prisoners of war.
August 25, 1972 dawned hot and muggy in Vietnam. Pilots of Fighter Squadron 161, stationed aboard USS Midway (CV 41), readied their aircraft and went over the day’s flight plan. Their mission was an early evening MiG combat air patrol over North Vietnam. Lt. John “Jack” Ensch would serve as
“I was a prisoner of war of the North Vietnamese 2,428 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes (nearly 7 years) . I calculated it on a Hewlett-Packard calculator one day. ” Before the January, 2006 dinner meeting of the Golden Gate Wing, the last time CAPT Cole Black was at the
Almost 50 years ago this month, they began to arrive. It was called Operation Homecoming, and it saw 591 American military prisoners of war finally free after years of often brutal captivity in Vietnam. Over several weeks in February and March of 1973, they were returned to military bases in
“There is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war, and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in military or personal life to assure