Five years ago I wrote “Jack, Will You Sing Again?” — a story about Col. Jack Tomes, a POW for six and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, a notorious camp for POWs in Vietnam known for its brutal treatment of American prisoners. Spence Field brought Jack to Moultrie
On April 19, 1967, Maj. Leo Thorsness (pilot) and Capt. Harold Johnson (EWO) led a Wild Weasel formation on a mission against the Xuan Mai army barracks about 30 miles southwest of Hanoi. After they silenced one SAM site and destroyed another, enemy anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) shot down the accompanying
He remembers being shot down like it was yesterday. On July 18, 1965, U.S. Navy Lt. Commander William M. Tschudy and his co-pilot Commander Jeremiah Denton were on a mission over Vietnam’s Song Ma river, with instructions to bomb North Vietnamese ships that were unloading supplies. At first, they thought
For weeks the returned P.O.W.s had been stepping from “freedom birds” onto the television screens—most of them saluting crisply, walking smartly, looking physically fit and acting mentally alert. As the nation’s early apprehensions faded, a new idea set in: perhaps the P.O.W.s had been humanely treated after all. That illusion
Tayden and Crixus Dengler never met their legendary grandfather, a Navy pilot captured as a prisoner of war in Laos who escaped his captors. But at a ceremony aboard the USS Turner Joy on Monday, the children witnessed firsthand Dieter Dengler’s lasting legacy. Dengler’s name was added, along with four