POW recalls captivity (Bradley Smith)

Navy Lt. Brad Smith was on a bombing run to destroy a bridge in North Vietnam when he was shot down in 1966.

He didn’t see what ripped into his A-4 Skyhawk, but he saw the ground approaching at 600 mph as his crippled jet nose-dived toward the ground.

Smith ejected just in time, but the violence of the lifesaving tactic knocked him out. He awoke 10 feet underwater in a river, and swam to the surface to find a boat filled with black-clad, angry enemy soldiers.

Smith’s nearly seven years as a prisoner of war had begun.

Other Publications You Might Be Interested In

James C. Condon

Mr. James C. Condon, age 79, of Versailles, Ohio passed away on May 30, 2013 at 1:27 a.m. at Miami Valley Hospital. He was born April 8, 1934 in Dayton, Ohio, to the late Russell E. and Clara (Stocker) Condon. He was raised in West Milton, Ohio and moved to

Phillip Butler fought his way through a…

There is little about Phillip Butler’s appearance to suggest a man who has lived by what he calls the “warrior spirit.” Dressed in a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers, Butler wears his snowy white hair closely cut and sometimes walks with a cane. He speaks softly and enjoys a mostly quiet

Lt. Col Terrin Dinsmore Hicks – Together We Served (Joseph Shanahan)

“Capt. Terrin D. Hicks was the pilot and Capt. Joseph F. Shanahan the navigator on a reconnaissance version of the Phantom conducting a recon mission over North Vietnam on August 15, 1968. During the mission, the aircraft was shot down and crashed about 5 miles east of the city of

The harrowing story of David Mott – Vietnam War POW

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