Lt. Col. Harlan Chapman, Vermilion businessman and Vietnam War POW (Campbell)

Lorain County native Lt. Col. Harlan Page Chapman, a veteran who spent seven years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, died on Monday at his home in Green Valley, Arizona.

Chapman, 89, had lived in Arizona with his wife, Frances “Fran” Chapman, since 2015 and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and early-stage dementia in 2017.

Fran said that her husband seldom talked about his time imprisoned in Vietnam, but that it was one of the two main experiences that shaped the man he was.

The other, she said, was growing up in Lorain County.

Chapman was born in Carlisle Township on Sept. 27, 1934 to Josephine and Harlan T. Chapman. He graduated from Elyria High School in 1952 and went on to attend Miami University in Oxford, graduating in 1956.

Read more

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

Maine Gives P.O.W. Warm Welcome (Mark Gartley)

Walking next to his father near a lake he fished as a boy, Navy Lieut. Markham Gartley looked up at the clear, blue sky and filled his lungs with crisp autumn air. The 28‐year‐old pilot noted the colors of the northern Maine woods—the McIntosh reds of the sugar maples, the

Read More »

I’ll Always Be There (Dennis Thompson)

It’s been nearly 50 years since Dennis Thompson was captured by North Vietnamese forces as a prisoner of war. But he still sees the black enclosed room with no light where they kept him. For five years — he counted 1,864 days — the Vietnamese imprisoned him, 850 days of

Read More »

12 POW’s Released (Klaus Zupp)

Twelve captive American G.I.s freed yesterday by Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk were released to Australian today and will fly here iater in the day on the first leg of their journey home, it was announced. One of the freed soldiers was a Hoosier. A spokesman for the Australian Department of

Read More »