Air Force Maj. James R. “Jim” Berger spent over six years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war after his FC-4 jet was shot down on Dec. 2, 1966. He was released 50 years ago this past February. His release made front-page news in The News-Gazette in the weeks that
James Yoshikazu Nagahiro was born in 1932 in Honolulu, Hawaii. He attended Mid-Pacific Institute and after two years at the University of Hawaii, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was selected for the Aviation Cadet Program in 1953. Nagahiro served as B-52 pilot and instructor pilot with the
The scene was the courtyard of a prison camp near Hanoi called Planiation Gardens, and the time was August, 1971. Eight young American enlisted men going to vash dishes passed a group of senior officers who were out shaving. The eight had made statements against the war and developed rather
For nearly a year, Kailua resident Emilia Thomas never knew that her husband, a Marine Corps aviation observer, was alive after being shot down in Vietnam and being held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. “That’s the only thing that still bothers me,” said retired Marine Chief Warrant Officer
Kenneth L. Coskey, a retired Navy captain and aircraft pilot who served five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, died June 29 at the Avalon assisted living facility in McLean, where he had resided for the last four months. He was 83. He had Alzheimer’s disease, his