Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War (22 page)

The paper was such a dark copy that Dieter could barely make out the words, but he was able to decipher enough for him to stop reading it before he reached the halfway point. It stated disagreement with the “murderous policies” of the United States and confirmed that American pilots were attacking innocent women and children.

Shaking his head, Dieter pushed the paper across the table.

The province chief picked it up and put in front of Dieter again.

Dieter again pushed it back across the table.

“Americans are imperialists and we are peace-loving people. You have seen the villagers—did they hurt you? Has anyone hurt you here? We are all your comrades and we want to help you. The United States are the aggressors. We will help you and you can stay with us.”

Dieter looked up, incredulous. “Stay with
you
? Why the hell would I want to stay here with you? I have a home and a country.”

“You can come to Hanoi,” the chief said, his voice rising. “You can go to China and see for yourself. You can fly for the Chinese.”

“No thanks.”

“Sign the paper and you will be released in ten days.”

Dieter shook his head.

The province chief stood up. He went over to the guards, spoke to them quietly, and then walked off as if he had an appointment at the office.

Finally unleashed, the guards came for Dieter with a vengeance. They grabbed him, tied his hands behind his back, took him outside, threw him to the ground under a big tree, and started kicking him. At first he tried to fight back, but that only enflamed them, so he went limp. They tied his ankles together, threw the end of the rope over a limb and hauled him up until he was swinging headfirst off the ground. The thrashing started in earnest then, with rifle butts and bamboo sticks.

Dieter saw stars, then passed out. He came to when water was thrown in his face. They beat him again until he passed out, and again brought him back for more punishment. He lapsed into and out of unconsciousness. When he came to, he could make out “blurry feet and legs” kicking dirt in his face as the blows were delivered to his body. He was grabbed from
behind by his hair and pulled up nearly level with a grinning guard’s sweaty face. Dieter struggled to get air against the flow of blood and fluids running down his throat and pouring freely from his nose and mouth. Then he blacked out again.

When he came to he had been cut down from the tree and was lying in a fetal position on the ground in a pool of bloody mud. He wondered if he was dead, but then he felt pain and knew he wasn’t. A sharp kick in the back caused him to cry out, and a bucket of water was dumped over him. He tasted blood, and told himself to swallow it all because he couldn’t afford to lose any more if he ever wanted to go home.

A villager approached, leading a water buffalo. Dieter’s hands were tied in front of him, and the other end of the rope was looped around the curved horns of the sedate beast. A crowd had gathered in anticipation. Someone slapped a stick on the buffalo’s flank to get it moving, and it reluctantly moved. More slaps, and it went a little faster. Dieter, trotting behind, managed to keep up with the animal. The animal was halted, and Dieter’s legs were tied at his ankles. More slaps to the flank, and Dieter struggled to stay upright by hopping, as in a sack race; the soldiers and spectators thought this was hilarious. Someone then knocked Dieter off his feet, and the buffalo was slapped harder. As Dieter was dragged over sharp rocks and brush that sliced his skin, he tried to protect his head by tucking it between his outstretched arms. When the spectacle was over, Dieter could barely stand. He was half-dragged back to the province chief, who wordlessly placed the confession and pen in front of Dieter.

Dieter picked up the pen and “threw it at him.”

The province chief took the unsigned paper and walked away.

Shortly after sunrise the next morning, Dieter and his two guards, traveling with a dozen guerrillas, left Yamalot, heading southeast. They marched all day and late in the afternoon stopped at a village, hoping to spend the night. But the head of the village informed them that there was no extra food, and it was impossible for them to remain. They continued on toward the next village, at the top of a mountain. Climbing the steep jungle trail in total darkness, the party stayed together by having each man drape his arms over the shoulders of the person in front of him. The local guide, leading the way, seemed to know every bend of the trail with his eyes closed.
Dieter’s hands, which had been kept tied behind his back all day, were freed so he could lean over the shorter Bastard.

A day or two before their arrival in Yamalot, Dieter had noticed something that had given him a “sudden surge of hope”: a small built-in mirror in a tobacco box that Bastard always kept in the left breast pocket of his shirt. Dieter knew if he had a mirror and could escape he could get into the open and signal a plane overhead.

As they jostled along in the dark, Dieter’s chest was pressed against Bastard’s back whenever they tripped on roots or slid on the slippery footing and bumped into each other. He had no problem sliding his left hand down to Bastard’s pocket that held the tobacco box. Finding the pocket buttoned, he worked on it until the button came undone. Then, he lifted everything out of the pocket. Keeping his chest against Bastard and his right arm over Bastard’s shoulder, he brought his left hand back and worked fast. There were rolled cigarettes and paper money, which he dropped to the trail. Opening the box, he let the coarse tobacco fall out. He worked the mirror loose with his fingernails, and it finally came out. He slipped the mirror into his own pocket, which was half filled with rice. Needing to throw away the box but afraid it might strike a rock and make a noise, Dieter pretended to slip. He fell with a loud grunt, and flipped the box into the bushes.

It had been a close call because by then they were only twenty feet from the top of the hill, where the group stopped to rest. Bastard, reaching for a smoke, found his pocket empty. He lit a cigarette lighter and walked back on the trail, searching the ground. Dieter was afraid he would find the discarded items, but Bastard returned empty-handed and angry with himself for the loss.

Several hours after sunset they entered a village at the top of a low-slung mountain. While the other members of the party scattered throughout the village to find places to sleep, Dieter and his two guards went into an empty hut that had no walls and only a lean-to roof. Dieter’s boots were taken away, and the three men climbed onto a sleeping platform with Dieter tied down in the middle. All three were soon asleep.

About midnight Dieter was awakened by a guard’s foot smacking against his leg. He pushed the foot back, and the guard didn’t wake up.
This happened two or three times. By then, Dieter knew that Laotians were “very heavy sleepers.” He sat up slowly, and looked at the two snoring guards. Deciding that now was the time to escape, he quietly worked to untie the rope on his wrists until he was unbound. Each ankle was tethered by rope secured underneath the platform. Lying down again, he used every bit of his strength to raise both legs upward, pulling hard against the rope. As the slipknots tightened painfully around his ankles, the rope underneath finally gave way. The platform creaked with his every moment, and he covered the sounds he was making with “fake snoring.” As the guards continued their heavy sleep, he slid down from the platform and took the rope off his ankles. Nearby he found his boots, and the rucksack with most of his belongings. He also grabbed a machete and tiptoed outside. He went about 200 yards before putting on his boots, then followed a trail down the mountain. At the bottom he came to a dry creek. Wanting to get off the trail, he followed the creek bed under the light of the moon. An hour later he spotted a familiar tree that had grown crookedly over the creek, and realized he had circled the base of the mountain and was back where he had started. Deciding it was a waste of energy to wander around aimlessly in the dark, he found a protected place to spread out his sleeping bag, climbed inside, and went to sleep.

He awoke at daybreak. Nearby was a karst mountain, looking like a giant camel’s hump covered with moss. Its sides had sparse vegetation and were interspersed with sharp ridges and irregular rock formations. At its top was a plateau. Dieter had done some climbing in the California mountains and knew it would be a difficult ascent of perhaps 2,000 feet. But if he could make it, the top would be a perfect place for signaling aircraft with Bastard’s mirror. There would be no need for him to come back down again, as a helicopter could lift him right off the plateau.

The climb was unlike anything he had done in his life. Not until he started up the rocky side of the mountain did he discover that its edges were as sharp as razors. At times it was fifty feet straight up, and he crawled upward with the toes of his boots on one thin ledge after another. Then, it would be a steep drop of thirty feet down the other side to get to the next rocky spire. The terrain was a “series of hundreds of ridges,” everything was straight up or down, and descending was as difficult as climbing. As he
went higher, he heard voices below yelling,
“Americali. Americali
.” He figured the men would never come up here searching for him; and, hidden as he was among the rocky ridges, they would not spot him from below.

Dieter reached the top at noon; he knew the time because the sun was directly overhead. The plateau was only four by six feet and made of limestone. Somehow, through tiny cracks in the stone, orchids had sprouted. He could see for miles in every direction and it all looked “just beautiful” from above the canopy of vegetation. The sky was cloudless, and the sun beat down unmercifully. There was no place to sit that wasn’t sizzling hot and razor sharp, so he took off a boot and used it for a cushion. He practiced with the mirror, catching the sun’s reflection and bouncing it off a nearby ridge. Then he waited for the planes to come. It had been ten days since he was shot down. He had heard his buddies in their Spads several mornings since then. The morning launch off the carrier would already be coming over Mu Gia Pass, which he could see off in the distance. That is, the planes would be there
if
they were coming to Laos today.

The relentless heat and the lack of shade and water made the wait nearly unbearable. Dieter took off his jacket and shirt and draped his nylon bag over his head to block the sun. Several jets passed overhead, flying so high that they left contrails as they streaked toward Thailand, no doubt returning from a mission over North Vietnam. He tried to reflect the sun at them, but they were much too high. Later, two Air Force F-105s came by lower and Dieter tried signaling them. One “dipped a wing” and made a half circle. Dieter was sure he had been seen, but nothing came of it and the jets flew on.

That day, the low-flying Spads never came.

By the middle of the afternoon Dieter was severely dehydrated. Spotting a succulent plant growing on a nearby ledge, Dieter climbed over and used the machete to top it. He had seen natives on the trail harvest plenty of plants for liquid, but as soon as he sucked on the plant there was a tingling sensation in his mouth like “an injection of Novocain.” When his mouth swelled shut and his cheeks went numb, he thought he would suffocate. Although his nose was tingling, too, he could still breath through his nostrils. Then, the poisonous reaction dissipated as quickly as it had occurred, and the swelling and numbness receded.

Dieter, with his head spinning and his “vision…off,” knew he would die on the plateau if didn’t get down and find water. He started down but was already so weak that he fell, landing on his back in a deep crevasse. After recovering, he had to scale thirty feet in order to resume his descent. Clinging frantically to vines to try to control his descent, he nevertheless endured a series of falls. When he came off the mountain, he stumbled toward a putrid waterhole which he had passed that morning and which seemed to be the only one in the area. Once he reached it, he collapsed in the “brownish, scum-filled water” and “drank and drank.” When he heard shouting, he looked up to see a group of Pathet Lao surrounding him.

Dieter was yanked from the water. His hands were tied behind his back, and the rope was looped around his neck and ankles. When it was pulled taut, constricting his throat, he gagged. Bastard, yelling “like a madman,” began beating him with a stick. When one angry soldier tried to club him with a rifle butt the gun discharged, firing a bullet into the stomach of a comrade and killing him. A third soldier shot the first one in both legs. Dieter lay on the ground, thinking he himself would soon be dead as bullets whizzed past so close he felt their heat.

When order was restored among the soldiers, Bastard went back to work on Dieter, loosening the rope around his left arm and inserting a stick. Bastard twisted the stick and Dieter cried out in pain, his screams sounding like stifled gurgles because the rope was strangling him. When Dieter felt as if his arm had been ripped off, Bastard loosened the rope and inserted a second stick in the tourniquet knot. He twisted it again and again until Dieter felt pain such as he had “never known before.”

Time no longer registered for Dieter; he was aware only of pain. He was later dragged down a trail, hung upside down from a tree, and beaten until he passed out. When he came to there was a puddle of blood on the ground under him. He now tasted on his lips the honey which a guard had smeared over his face while he was unconscious. Someone had dragged over an active ant nest—“as large as a watermelon”—and positioned it under the tree. Dieter was lowered until his head dropped onto the nest of “thousands of angry black ants.” Drifting into and out of consciousness, Dieter no longer felt much pain, “only numbness.”

After he was lowered from the tree some hours later, he was pushed blindfolded down a trail. Helped up a ladder leading to a platform off the ground, he was pulled into a small cave. The blindfold was removed and he was lowered upright into a hole about seven feet deep and three feet across that was partially filled with water.