Captured and at the mercy of an increasingly cruel enemy, German-born US Navy pilot Dieter Dengler was left with no choice but to attempt a daring escape from the Pathet Lao prison camp in which he was being held during the Vietnam War. The fateful decision was made only after he and six other POWs had overheard plans to get rid of them as soon as the guards ran out of food. Dieter would choose to take matters into his own hands – deciding that he would be [QUOTE] “alive and free—or dead.” After twenty-three days on the run through the dense Laos jungle, he was the only one of the group to successfully return to his home country from the camp after the ordeal, making him the first POW airman to escape in the Vietnam War..
Robert Wideman – Two weeks of hell – A POW’s story.
On November 17, 2013 Robert Wideman sat down and told of his experiences in the Vietnam War. Robert, born in Montreal, Canada and raised in upstate New York and Cleveland, OH, served in the Navy. A pilot, he flew 120+ missions into Vietnam off the carriers Enterprise and Hancock. On May 6, 1967, his plane was shot down over North Vietnam and Robert became a POW for the next six years. In this clip, he
