Jay Hess was 14 years into his Air Force service.
The fighter pilot, in the cockpit of an F-105 Thunderchief, was dropping 600 pound bombs in the heavily defended area around Hanoi, in north Vietnam. Hess finished the steep dive, released his bombs and began to pull out when his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. With no way out, he pulled the ejection handle.
Ever-vigilant, our archivist pursued the lead and discovered that Everett was a 1965 graduate of St. Albans. Wilkerson found his phone number and gave him a call, and they had a long conversation. Soon Upper School history teachers Ben Labaree and Robert Shurmer were exchanging emails with Everett, leading to
More than five months in which he had no control over his life, Keith Lewis found a world of virtually unlimited possibilities when he emerged from captivity in early 1973. Keith Lewis, an Air Force veteran from Jasper, Alabama, is greeted as he arrives Tuesday for a ceremony for Vietnam
Everybody says we had nothing to do, but we did have something to do, we had an obligation to fulfill,” Lieut. Col. Alan Lurie said recently. “That was to follow the Code of Conduct, to resist the North Vietnamese attempts to exploit us. And that was full‐time job in that
Retired Navy Capt. Collins Henry Haines refers to the years 1967 to 1973 as the time he spent in jail. Between June 8, 1967, and March 3, 1973, Haines, an F-8 Crusader pilot, was moved between a series of North Vietnamese prisoner camps, where he endured torture, disease and isolation. “We