Commander George Coker was one of the “Alcatraz 11,” a group considered by the North Vietnamese to be the resistance leadership, even though he was a junior officer. The Alcatraz 11 were moved from Hao Lo to a separate facility “Alcatraz” in 1967. Among them were Jim Stockdale and Bob Shumaker. Like Shumaker, Coker was a key communications link in the command structure at Hao Lo and the other Hanoi prisons. He also has the
Shot down on a secret mission during the Vietnam War, Major George “Bud” Day was captured and resisted severe torture as a POW in the “Hanoi Hilton” from 1967 to 1973. Three years after his release, on March 6, 1976, Day was presented with the Medal of Honor along with fellow POW Admiral James Stockdale.
The Vietnam War lasted almost 20 years. It was the first war the U.S. had lost. However, the return home of the Prisoners-of-War was widely celebrated. They were held captive for almost nine years, the longest of any American war. Those pilots who survived shootdown were held in secluded prisons, hidden from the outside world except for occasional propaganda films.In 1992 I received permission from the Vietnam government to return to Hanoi and the prison
Colonel Bob Waggoner (Ret), a towering but gentle man and fly fishing guide, was shot down over North Vietnam and spent 6 ½ years as a POW, including time at the Hanoi Hilton with John McCain. This is his story from an interview my son did for a History Day Project in 2009.
Inspect the savage sufferings and breaking points the American captives endured at the hands of their Vietnamese captors during the Vietnam Conflict as we touch down on Southern & Northern Vietnam camps as well as other outpost sites deep in the Indo-Chinese borderlands with Aldo scouring stories from firsthand accounts of real hard-boiled prisoners of war — including collaborators with the enemy. ——— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ———— — 0:24 Northern prisoner camps
