REPORT OF NAVAL PILOT ON HIS CAPTURE AND TREATMENT BY THE NORTH VIETNAMESE
Retired U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Paul Montague enlisted in 1952. Sixteen years later, on March 28, 1968, he was captured by the Vietnamese armed forces, the Viet Cong. The helicopter pilot was flying his CH-46 Sea Knight when he was shot down trying to pick up a recovery team that
First Lieutenant Loren Harvey Torkelson was from Crosby and was a month shy of his 26th birthday when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam. He was in his second tour of duty as an Air Force F4 Phantom pilot with the 389th Tactical Fighter Squadron when it happened.
Navy Lt. Giles Norrington was making his 22nd reconnaissance flight into North Vietnamese territory when communist rebels shot off the right wing of his RA-5C Vigilante. The plane erupted into a fireball. As Norrington and his navigator, Richard Tangeman, tried to escape, Norrington thought, “It’s taking a long time to
Ronald Ridgeway was “killed” in Vietnam on Feb. 25, 1968. The 18-year-old Marine Corps private first class fell with a bullet to the shoulder during a savage firefight with the enemy outside Khe Sanh. Dozens of Marines, from what came to be called “the ghost patrol,” perished there. At first,
Colonel Benjamin Purcell was executive commander of the 80th General Support Group in Vietnam when his helicopter was shot down on February 8, 1968. He and five other passengers were captured by the Viet Cong. Colonel Purcell was the highest ranking Army officer captured during the Vietnam War. He spent more