Larry Spencer was born and raised in Earlham, Iowa. He joined the Navy in 1963 and became an F-4 Phantom backseater. He was over the Gulf of Tonkin on February 18, 1966 when his plane was shot down. Larry spent the next 7 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. This story explains how he endured the uncertainty of his situation by keeping a positive attitude and above all, his faith.
The Nixon Library will host three former Vietnam War POWs for a panel discussion celebrating the 50th anniversary of their emotional return home to the United States. These decorated veterans will reflect on their harrowing experiences of survival while imprisoned in North Vietnam and share their perspectives on the past fifty years of freedom. The panelists, all of whom were imprisoned in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison camp, will discuss the challenges they faced during
Retired Air Force Col. Robert Certain, a B-52 navigator and former prisoner of war, worked with MOAA to organize a trip back to Vietnam to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Operation Homecoming and the return of more than 600 POWs from North Vietnam. Seven former POWs as well as family and friends joined Certain to see southern Vietnam and Cambodia and return to Hanoi to see what remains of the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison.
In August 1964, an American pilot was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese. In the following years of the Vietnam Conflict, hundreds of American prisoners of war were interrogated, starved and tortured in Communist prisons. Prisoners of Hope presents the experiences of ten of these individuals who were denied that most valuable and precious possession — freedom. Their stories are filled with suffering and survival, death and deliverance. But above all, they are
Interview with Rick Bates, former US Air Force F-4 pilot, and Vietnam War POW. Rick talks about his experience in the Air Force and as a POW in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
