Homecoming or Rude Awakening? (Jose Luna)

Soon after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973, the United States prepared for Operation Homecoming. Five hundred and ninety-one American prisoners of war returned home from Vietnam during the two-month process. Previously, during the war, 129 pows “escaped from,
evaded, or were released by their captors,” including 95 who were paroled early.

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

Nguyen Van Bay and the Aces From the North (Hubert Buchanan)

As an F-4 Phantom pilot, I had tried to kill these men. And they had tried to kill me. I thought it was time we had a talk.

When Major Berger Came Home

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

Former POW recalls captivity in Vietnam on New Year’s Eve 1972, months before his release (Robert Certain)

Retired Air Force Col. Robert Certain was a navigator on the first B-52 shot down during Operation Linebacker II.

‘Political Basketball’: The Strange Tale Of Captured US POW’s, 1968 (Wilmoth,

Weeks after arriving in Vietnam in 1968, Korean War veteran Sergeant First Class Floyd Wilmoth- who enlisted in the US Army in 1953- stepped aboard the river vessel LCU1577 ‘Sunset Strip’. Days later, Wilmouth and his crew were unwittingly embroiled in an international incident between Cambodia and the United States.

The Tiger from the sky (William Austin)

U.S. Air Force Capt. William R. Austin II and his aircraft commander, Maj. Ivan D. Appleby, had out-maneuvered certain death hundreds of times before they got hit. A fighter pilot with the storied “Triple Nickle” 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Austin had flown 80 combat missions over North Vietnam in the