John McCain, the Arizona Senator who died on Saturday, lived much of his life in the public political eye — but Americans started to learn about his famous courage at a time he was notably absent.
The saga began 51 years ago. As TIME reported in 1967, North Vietnamese planes had, for the first few years of the war in Vietnam, posed relatively little risk to American pilots. That changed as the pace of war accelerated and the eyes on both sides turned to the skies.
A prisoner of war for seven years, a University of Wisconsin alum spoke to a group of UW Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets Tuesday, telling a jarring tale of courage, honor and service. Originally trained as a navigator, Col. Don Heiliger became an official pilot when the Air
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
Retired Navy Capt. Charles Gillespie Jr. of San Marcos, who was shot down over Vietnam and spent 5 1/2 years in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW prison, was identified Thursday as the pilot killed in a civilian plane crash, officials said. Gillespie, 60, was flying a turboprop plane 80 miles northwest
When Lieut. David Matheny drove home for lunch the other day, he saw that his wife’s car was gone. He turned around and left without even going in. Lieutenant Matheny was a prisoner of war in North Viet nam for about six months. Most of that time was spent in
Donna Bowers was a teenager in the early 1970s, when she received her POW bracelet. The name on the bracelet was Col. Leland Hildebrand. There was a date with the name: 12/18/71. Those bracelets were worn in honor of American soldiers missing or taken prisoner in the Vietnam War. That’s something we