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.
This extraordinary film about American POWs is one of a series of “Air Force Now” magazine type movies made for the U.S. Air Force in the 1970s and 1980s. This particular episode focuses on the return of Prisoners of War (POWs) from Vietnam after the war. It was apparently made in either late 1973 or early 1974, after Operation Homecoming took place. Operation Homecoming took place from February 14, 1973 to April of that year,
LANCE P. SIJAN IS THE ONLY UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY GRADUATE TO EVER RECEIVE THE CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR. THIS DOCUMENTARY PORTRAYS THE CAPTAIN’S LIFE, DEPICTS THE PERIOD OF HIS LIFE AFTER EJECTING FROM HIS DAMAGED AIRCRAFT OVER NORTH VIETNAM, AND THE TIME HE SPENT AS A PRISONER OF WAR (POW). DEMONSTRATES HOW HIS FAMILY VALUES INTERSECTED WITH THE AIR FORCE’S CORE VALUES OF “INTEGRITY FIRST, SERVICE BEFORE SELF, AND EXCELLENCE IN ALL WE
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
