Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War (25 page)

The second prisoner out of the hut wore ragged clothes and a jacket made of small pieces of different material. He emptied out a bamboo container filled with urine, then gave a little wave to Dieter. A beard covered much of his face, but when he smiled at Dieter he showed a mouthful of bad or missing teeth. His name was Prasit Promsuwan. He was a Thai civilian working for Air America as an air freight kicker, a job that entailed pushing out of a transport plane crates and sacks of cargo dropped by parachute to friendly forces and villagers.

Two other Thai prisoners emerged from the hut. One, Prasit Thanee, had the same first name as Promsuwan, so he was referred to by his last name. At twenty-three, Thanee was the youngest of the group, and also the tallest and biggest. Since he understood Laotian, it was his job to eavesdrop whenever possible on the conversations of the guards, then pass along any important information to the other prisoners.

The third Thai—all three Thai were cargo kickers—was Phisit Intharathat, formerly a paratrooper in the Royal Thai army and a veteran of eighty jumps. He came to the door of Dieter’s hut and introduced himself. To Dieter’s surprise, Phisit took out from a porcelain bowl he was carrying a toothbrush and toothpaste and began brushing his teeth.

Also stepping out from the hut was To Yick Chiu, a Chinese civilian who was a native of Hong Kong and was known as Y.C. He was in his early forties, of smallish build, with graying hair and a deeply wrinkled face, and dressed in khakis. Y.C. was a radio operator for Air America. “Take it easy, man,” he said softly to Dieter before heading down Latrine Hill.

The last prisoner from the adjacent hut was the third American held in the camp: Eugene “Gene” DeBruin, who had a long red beard and light skin dappled with freckles. He, too, wore a patchwork jacket. In his early thirties, DeBruin was the second eldest in a Wisconsin farm family of ten. After serving as an enlisted man in the air force, he had enrolled at the University of Montana and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in forestry. After spending three summers in Alaska as a smoke jumper, he was in search of new adventures and had hired on with Air America. He was sent to Southeast Asia in August 1963 as a cargo kicker. Only a month later, he found himself parachuting not into a fire, but out of a flaming aircraft.

For the crew members Gene DeBruin, Y.C., and the three Thai, that fateful day—September 5, 1963—started out as a routine one in Air America’s hush-hush air-freight delivery service over Laos. Around 7:00
A.M
., the two men in the cockpit—the pilot, Joseph C. Cheney, forty-three, of Ellensburg, Washington, and the copilot, Charles G. Herrick, forty-four, of Buffalo, New York—fired up the twin engines on the C-46 Commando, a World War II–vintage transport plane with its left rear door removed. After taking off from the airport in Vientiane—the Laotian capital under the control of the pro-western Royal Lao government, engaged in a nationwide civil war with the communist Pathet Lao—and making a brief stop to pick up a cargo of rice in bundles that weighed 600 pounds each, they completed their first drop over southern Laos with “no sign or hint of enemy AAA.” They went back to load up a second time and completed that cargo drop, also without incident. When they departed for their third supply mission of the day, it was nearly 4:00
P.M
. Flying the same route they had taken earlier, they were heading for the drop zone when puffs of smoke from antiaircraft fire surrounded the plane. A violent explosion rocked the aircraft, and the right engine caught fire. The pilots shut down that engine and turned for home. In less than a minute the right wing was ablaze, and the order came from the cockpit for the crew to bail out. The four crewmen jumped as the two pilots fought to maintain control. Heavy flames were then seen to engulf the aircraft, which exploded “in a giant fireball,” killing Cheney and Herrick instantly.

The idea that Air America crewmen had been prisoners in Laos for two and a half years had seemed preposterous to Dieter, but as soon as he saw them he “started to believe.” Their clothes—old, worn, stitched haphazardly—told a story. And there was more. The years were etched on their faces, and in their sunken, haunted eyes there was a sadness that could not be hidden by their brief smiles and friendly greetings.

In the short time the men were allowed to walk around the yard before being herded back into their hut, each came over to speak briefly to Dieter. In different ways, the Air America crewmen asked the same question:
Is the war winding down? How are the Geneva peace talks going? Is there talk of prisoner exchanges?
They were obviously living on false hopes, and it pained Dieter to tell them that the war was not winding down, but escalating. More troops and ships were being sent to the combat zone, he explained, and U.S. Navy and Air Force planes at that moment were hitting North Vietnam.

Phisit, the former paratrooper, brought Dieter his own toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, explaining that the guards had received a shipment of Chinese dental supplies and there were enough to go around. He also gave Dieter a bamboo cup and a spoon made from a coconut shell.

After the guards had secured the other prisoners in their foot blocks for the night and checked on Dieter, he went to work freeing his feet. Sliding around on the floor, he found two sticks, probably left over from when the hut was built. One was long and the other short and thin. The pin that locked the foot blocks was tapered toward the bottom. He first tried driving it out by holding the smaller stick against the pin at the bottom and hammering it with the longer piece. With only one good hand, however, he couldn’t get the leverage he needed. He thought about how disadvantaged he was going to be when it came time to escape if his left hand and arm were still useless. Trying another approach, he shoved the longer stick into the wall between logs, and lifted up the blocks so that the end of the stick was pressed against the pin in the bottom. Using his good hand, he pushed down on the blocks until the pin came out the top hole. He slipped his feet out, grateful that he wouldn’t have to sleep in the blocks. He would just have to be sure to get himself back into them whenever he heard the guards approaching.

In the morning, a fat guard the prisoners called Jumbo opened the door to Dieter’s hut. He released Dieter from the foot blocks, which he had managed to get back on only seconds earlier, with the pin halfway in place. Leaving Dieter’s door open, Jumbo went to open up the other hut.

Dieter went into the yard, where he was soon joined by the others.

Gene was full of questions, first wanting to know who had won the last World Series. Dieter, who was not a baseball fan, did not know. Then Gene asked if it was true that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Dieter confirmed this, adding that he had been shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Next, Gene wanted to know if anyone had produced stainless steel razor blades yet. A bemused Dieter said yes.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said Gene, obviously disappointed. “That’s what I wanted to invent when I got out of this hellhole.”

When the guards ordered everyone inside again. Dieter tried to go with the other prisoners but was directed back to his own hut. Duane said not to worry—he would soon be with the rest of them.

Around mid-morning the worst guard in camp—dubbed Little Hitler by the prisoners—announced that the new prisoner was to be interrogated by the North Vietnamese. Prasit, who was fluent in Vietnamese, would go with Dieter to translate. Dieter’s heart started beating faster. He could think only of his previous interrogations, which had soon lapsed into beatings and torture.

Little Hitler and several other guards escorted Dieter and Prasit outside the compound, where four North Vietnamese soldiers were sitting on a pile of logs. One of them held a notebook and pencil.

After giving his name and rank, Dieter was asked what kind of plane he flew. He wondered if this was a kind of test, as he was certain that the wrecked Spad had been found. He talked it over with Prasit, and they agreed it would be best if Dieter said something. He told Prasit to say that if they untied him he would draw a picture of his plane.

After being untied, Dieter used a twig to scratch in the dirt the outline of an aircraft with questionable aerodynamics. His creation had nine propellers: four engines on the right wing and five on the left. A concerned
Prasit suggested he add another engine on the right wing to balance the picture, but Dieter decided against making any changes when he saw the man with the notebook carefully copying the design.

When Dieter was asked how many men the plane held, Prasit counseled him, “Tell them the truth. Maybe they didn’t believe your nine-engine aircraft.”

“I was alone,” said Dieter, again thinking that if they had found his aircraft they would know this. “I was the only pilot and there were no crew members.”

The soldiers seemed to accept at “face value” everything Dieter told them. His hands were retied and the guards took him and Prasit back to the compound. Along the way, Little Hitler gave Dieter a kick in the back, apparently in retaliation for his being “let off too easy.”

Back in his hut, Dieter thought more about escape. Having already learned that “one percent of the problem” was getting away, and ninety-nine percent was “what to do once you are out,” he had accepted the practicality of waiting for the monsoons. The other prisoners said that the heavy rain usually lasted for three months, and during the wet season there would be plenty of drinking water in the jungle. Food, however, would be a problem. Sliding over to the wall, Dieter asked Duane if they had ever tried saving some of their rice. They had, Duane explained, but it had soon rotted and turned green. In that case, Dieter said, the rice would have to be dried by being spread out on some material. Duane asked what they would do in the event of a surprise inspection by the guards. Being caught hoarding food would be a serious matter; the guards would suspect that the rice was being saved for a possible escape, and in any case would take it for themselves. Dieter was determined to figure something out—the idea of “rotting away for years” as a POW or waiting until he was too weak to escape was unacceptable. He had been escaping and surviving all his life. So much of what he had done during his life—from growing up in postwar Germany right through his escapes from the simulated POW camp at Warner Springs—was preparation for the survival challenge he now faced.

Shortly after the prisoners were let into the yard that afternoon, the crack of a nearby rifle shot was heard. An ashen-faced Duane came hurrying up the hill from the latrine, with a line of guards behind him. Duane
was holding his head above one ear, and his neck was bloody. The guards herded everyone—Dieter included—into one hut. Duane, scared as well as furious, explained that he had no sooner gotten his pants down than a guard nicknamed Nook had yelled at him to get up. Before Duane could stand or even say anything, Nook had fired his rifle. The bullet scraped Duane’s head just above his right ear. Upon inspection, the wound wasn’t deep and the bleeding had slowed, but another quarter of an inch and Duane would have had a bullet in his brain. Everyone sat back, struck silent. Dieter was sure they all had the same thought: that any minute here “could be our last.”

Later that day, Dieter moved his sleeping bag and utensils to his new home, and he became a permanent member of the larger group of prisoners. His cell mates gave him an official welcome by raising their bamboo cups, filled with foul-smelling water, in a toast.

An hour later, the guards put the prisoners in the foot blocks for the night. Also, using old French handcuffs, which had a wrist ring at either end connected by two metal bars, they cuffed the men in pairs. Dieter was locked to Prasit; his left wrist was in the cuff and the metal bars extended across to Prasit’s right wrist. As Dieter started to think about a way to release the internal spring that he knew kept the handcuffs locked, Prasit reached down in his skivvies and took out a rolled-up piece of rag that contained a key. Dieter was to learn that anything worth hiding went into one’s underwear, as that was a taboo area never searched by the Laotians. All the prisoners had sewn little pockets inside their undershorts to keep contraband. Prasit slipped the key into the keyhole and had Dieter keep pressure on the connecting bars so the spring would not make a loud click when the cuffs opened. Prasit turned the key, and the cuffs snapped open with little noise. The key was passed to the others, who did the same. The other prisoners then deftly slipped out of their foot blocks, having figured out how to do so some time ago.

Phisit explained they had made other keys—one from a quill and another out of wood—but these always broke after being used a few times. About six months after their imprisonment, they got the idea of melting down an empty toothpaste tube—in those days they were at a prison camp where they had been allowed to have a small fire inside their hut. The hot liquid
was poured into a mold in the ground. After it dried, an empty ammunition clip was used to “scrape and shape” it so that it would fit inside the keyhole. Their homemade key had worked with all the handcuffs the guards had used since—the Air America crew had been kept in five prison camps in Laos—and from then on they had been able to unlock their handcuffs. With their hands and feet free at night, they could sleep more comfortably. They always kept their handcuffs and blocks nearby so as to get back into them quickly in the event of a surprise visit. But such visits were rare at night, given the lack of lighting in the compound—the guards had no flashlights—and the superstitions of the Laotians, who periodically left offerings at trail heads to satisfy the ghosts they believed roamed the jungle at night. They were deathly afraid of the dark. When one of the guards had to go outside to relieve himself he would not go alone; another guard came along, and they held hands like frightened children. At sunrise, the prisoners made a point of getting back into their shackles before the guards showed up to unlock them.