Former San Pedro POW recalls captivity with John McCain (John Fer)

Isolated, they tapped on walls to communicate with each other in the beginning.

Later, with a little more freedom granted, they played bridge together, shared some of the rotating Sunday chaplain duties and encouraged each other with the recitations from movies, books and poetry.

The memories, now half a century old, are still fresh in John Fer’s mind as he recalled life in the North Vietnamese prison camp with John McCain and others who were held captive for several years.

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

Vice Adm. Edward Martin, 83, Vietnam POW

Edward Martin wound up in the hands of the North Vietnamese much the way Sen. John McCain and Vice Adm. James Stockdale did — the Navy commander’s A-4 Skyhawk was hit by enemy fire during a bombing mission and downed just southeast of Hanoi. And like McCain and Stockdale, his

Read More »

Vietnam POW speaks to 15th Wing senior leaders (Thomas Norris)

The 15th Wing opened Readiness Day, where senior leaders discussed maintaining optimal mission readiness, Aug. 24 here, at Hollister Auditorium, with a speech on individual readiness and resiliency from a former prisoner of war. Retired Air Force Col. Thomas Norris, then a captain, was shot down Aug. 12, 1967, after dropping bombs

Read More »

Dennis Chambers Remembers Vietnam

In August of 1967 I was shot down on my 101st mission near Dong Hoi, just north of the Demilitarized Zone. I was the co-pilot on an F4C. Both the pilot and I survived the crash and spent the next five and one-half years in a Communist prison in Hanoi

Read More »

From the Moon to Hanoi (Theodore Stier)

Many people will write tributes today to the Apollo 11 astronauts on the fortieth anniversary of man’s first steps on the moon, including a lot of “where were you?” memoirs (I was thirteen, and glued to our television set, trying to decipher the fuzzy images being transmitted over CBS to

Read More »