Joe Crecca – North Bend POW imprisoned with McCain recalls when plane was shot down
Major Joe Crecca, a veteran of the Air Force remembers in vivid detail the November day in 1966 when his F-4 was shot down.
Major Joe Crecca, a veteran of the Air Force remembers in vivid detail the November day in 1966 when his F-4 was shot down.
Captured and held in a prisoner of war camp for five years, Dr. Kushner’s tale of torture, abuse, survival, humanity, and perseverance was both sobering and moving. As our closing keynote speaker for VMI’s Vietnam symposium ‘The Vietnam War at 50,’ our audience leaves on a powerful note among the several personal stories they heard today.
Although the Vietnam conflict lasted for 20 years – from 1955 to the Fall of Saigon in 1975 – the United States government never officially declared war. Over 3 million people perished in the conflict, and hundreds of American and Vietnamese citizens were held in prison camps as unofficial POWs. The North Vietnamese captured American troops and the South Vietnamese held hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers. These POWs were treated in different but perhaps equally
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
This extraordinary, declassified U.S. Air Force documentary “Return With Honor” pays tribute to those servicemen who became prisoners of war during the Vietnam War. The film focuses on first hand accounts by POWs who describe their methods of resistance, maintaining mental toughness, and most incredibly the innovative communication techniques they developed and used while held captive. The circa 1973 picture opens with General John P. Flynn (mark 00:20), who spent five years as a POW