Surviving Hell (15 page)

In addition to McGovern's overwhelming defeat, other good signs began appearing in the fall of 1972. We received a little medicine; torture abated; we got to stay outside the cells for longer periods at bath time. In addition to our two meals a day and two dishes per meal—soup (cabbage, pumpkin, or green) and bread or rice—occasionally a third dish appeared. It was about a third of a cup of raw sugar.

We were always looking for omens and naturally we wondered why they were giving us sugar. The answer that we liked best was that sugar contains calories. Thanks to our families, the North Vietnamese had begun receiving bad publicity for their brutalization of us POWs. If we were to be released in the near future, our
death camp appearance would validate this charge. So maybe the sugar meant they were fattening us up for release.

Hanoi was hot in summer, cold in winter. In summer the old cellblocks soaked up the heat during the day and radiated it at night. Winter temperatures would get down to 45 degrees. That's not cold in Minnesota where I grew up, but without heat, and sleeping on concrete with a worn blanket, 45 degrees is freezing. As part of improved treatment during the last “big cell” years, we received a pair of green, ankle-length cotton socks. They were not Eddie Bauer, but they were a lot better than no socks at all and cut the chill.

When Christmas had come during those first brutal POW years, it was just another day. We, of course, had no presents, no trees, and no church service to attend. We knew it was Christmas and mentally tried to celebrate the miraculous birth. Once we were in the big cells, we could at least exchange family Christmas stories.

On Christmas 1972 we decided to have a Christmas tree made out of our green socks. Mike Christian came up with the idea and suggested it to the SRO. The SRO thought at least a minute and said, “Let's see if we can get away with it.” We needed rice paste made from steamed rice mixed with a tad of water and squeezed into stickiness. Mike had tested its powers of adherence with one of his socks. He put rice paste on one side of it and pressed it against the wall. After he held it in place a few minutes, it stuck. By experimenting, he found the right consistency of the paste—not too wet, not too dry.

Fortunately, it was unusually mild and we could do without our green socks. Mike collected them and laid them out on his bed slab. He decided to start on the bottom with a double row of six socks, three on each side pointing slightly up like pine tree branches. Above that were two rows of four socks, two rows of two, then one sock pointing straight up at the top center. A 25-sock Christmas tree.

Luckily we got rice on December 24. We saved plenty and started making paste in the afternoon. Mike was diligent, critically checking the viscosity. With toilet paper he made a template on the
wall. We dabbed the paste on the socks and stuck them up. Everyone got into it. We were kids again decorating the tree at home.

When Mike stuck the last sock straight up on top, Jim Seahorn suggested a star. It wasn't long before Jack, the resident artist, had a small star fashioned from toilet paper. There was our tree, star and all. We all stood back and admired it. The tree was the conversation topic all day. In the prisoner-of-war camp setting, the green-sock Christmas tree brought home the true meaning of Christmas. We had been through years of torture and tough times and through it all we supported and depended on each other. Now, in better times and hints that this hell might be ending, we were celebrating the Lord's birth with our brothers. Most of us still remember this as one of the most memorable Christmases in our lives.

The guards saw the tree on Christmas morning and acted like it wasn't there. That was our signal we could make it better. We made various Christmas tree ornaments from toilet paper. Then we had a Christmas gift drawing. Once we each had a name, we created gift cards. The blue pills made decent ink, and we put each name on the card and what the gift was. We promised that when we got home we would send the real gifts. We did.

 

 

But the real reason Christmas was special that year had to do with something that began a week before the holiday on the evening of December 18.

Occasionally during our years in Hanoi, we sometimes heard a “recce” (reconnaissance plane, F-4 Phantom usually) taking photos blast low over Hanoi at or near supersonic. Generally we would hear flak firing at it. But, on December 18, the sound was different—a muffled sound, at first barely audible, and then slowly building. I will never forget the look on each POW's face as we realized what it was. We had often speculated and hoped that Nixon might bring the war to North Vietnam—right into Hanoi—using full airpower. Was this finally it, a month after his reelection and a week before Christmas? Yes!

The roar overhead grew ever louder. Intermingled with the jet
sounds, we heard SAM after SAM blasting off their launch pads. The constant flak sound came from every direction; small arms fire came from the prison area. Beside the heavy B-52 noise, occasionally fighters zipped through—some were Wild Weasels, my old plane, trying to negate the SAMs; some were MiGs going after the B-52s. Next the muffled sound of bombs began. At first far off, then closer, and then on top of us. We knew each bomber carried 72 500-pound bombs. The explosions rippled in continuous waves. We felt certain that the B-52 crews knew from the recce flights exactly where we were and that they were allowed to bomb within 2,000 feet of our camps. (Dropping from some 30,000 feet there was not much room for error.) Plaster fell from the ceilings; the dim lights flickered on and off a few times and then went off for the rest of the night. The large windows high up in our cells were not bricked shut, and we had a view of a patch of sky. We could see the show: bomb explosions, tracers, and periodically the rocket flame of a SAM.

As if talking to the B-52 crews, we shouted: “Get the bastards” and “Finally!” and “The war is over!” Someone yelled, “Remember Uncle Ho's cabin.” (Supposedly Ho Chi Minh had a mountain cabin off-limits to American bombing.)

We were in the middle of it but had no fear. Bud Day summed up everyone's feeling. “If a B-52 is hit and its string of bombs dumps directly on us, it's over.” He continued, “If we survive the bombing, the Vietnamese will sign the accords, and it'll be over.” He ended, “Either way, it's over.”

The bombing lasted 15 minutes or more. Later in the night, a second wave of B-52s arrived, then a third. Finally the sky was quiet. We all talked at once. Would this force the Vietnamese to sign the peace accords the camp radio had talked about for months? Would the B-52s come in again? How would the guards and camp authorities treat us tomorrow morning?

Sleep was short that night as bunkmates speculated in whispers. The guards arrived later than usual the next morning, heightening our speculation that the camp authorities would make us pay for the raids. But when the cell door opened, there were no beatings and only one word: “Bath.” We took our time at the tank and were
not hurried back in. As the prison routine continued throughout the day, rather than animosity from the guard, there seemed to be a feeling of calm. As we discussed events in the cell, we came to the conclusion the Vietnamese too realized that the war would soon be over. They realized that having been reelected, President Nixon did not have to worry about another term and would pull out all the stops. The Vietnamese knew that if they began to brutalize us again, their allies in the “international community” would not be able to protect them from American wrath.

The next night we heard once again the low rumble of jet engines in the distance. Again the SAMs, flak, small-arms fire, and fighters. There were a couple of very loud airborne explosions. Sadly we knew it was a B-52 taking a SAM, and the plane exploding with all the men still on board.

The night of December 20 was the same routine, although even more SAMs were launched, leading us to speculate that if the bombing continued much longer, they would soon run out of SAMs. (Before the U.S. bombing campaign was over they did.) At one point, our window's patch of sky lit up in a brilliant and horrifying explosion as a B-52 took a direct SAM hit right in front of us. About 25 seconds later we felt and heard the explosion.

The Christmas Bombing was officially Operation Linebacker II. It started on December 18 and ended December 29—continuing every night except Christmas. The U.S. flew 3,000 sorties and dropped 40,000 tons of bombs. Fifteen B-52s were lost along with 11 other American aircraft. Linebacker II unblocked the peace talks stalled the previous October and pushed the North Vietnamese back to the table on January 8, 1973. Thirty days after the final bomb, on January 27, 1973, Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho signed the Paris Peace Accords. They required that all prisoners of all combat nations be told within ten days that the war was over.

During our years in Hanoi, we got pretty good at figuring out why the North Vietnamese did certain things certain ways. But at some level, we never really fathomed them. For example, why did they send most of my wife's letters back to her stamped “Deceased” when she knew I had been captured alive? And why, after they signed the peace accords ending the war, did they keep lying
to us? On the morning of the tenth day after the accords were signed, they made the announcement over the camp radio: “There has been no progress in peace talks, the perfidious Americans will not negotiate reasonably.” (The Vietnamese found a few big words, like perfidious, and used them over and over in their broadcasts.)

But then, late that afternoon, the guards opened several cell doors and told us to go outside. For the first time, POWs from several cells stood together. The camp commander walked toward the end of the group, a guard put down a little box and the commander climbed on. The prison yard was pin-drop quiet. The commander simply said, “The war is over. You blackest criminals [a favorite term for us] will be released in four groups 15 days apart.” With no expression, he continued, “The longest-held criminals will go first.”

That was it. We were sent back into our cells. Rather than cheering, back slapping, or jumping—there was silence. I had an apple-sized lump in my throat and tears ran down my cheeks. There were not many dry eyes that afternoon.

T
he last week of February 1973 the first group of POWs was issued civilian clothes and put on a bus headed to Hanoi's Gia Lam airport for the trip home. The three-fourths of us who remained in prison had no way to be sure if they were really going home. It could still be a trick.

I was sick and running a high temperature with chills. They put me in solitary—ostensibly so others would not catch whatever I had. On March 4, I saw others of the “vintage” POWs getting clothes. My heart sank. That was my group. Wasn't I going home, too? An hour later a guard brought clothes for me. I joined the others, including my backseater, Harry. It was the first time we were together in six years. We hugged and searched for words. I had known that he was alive because of the tap code, but finally talking to him again was liberation in itself.

We were loaded on the bus, driven through Hanoi, and taken to a small hangar at Gia Lam airport. As we drove past the tarmac, we saw no American aircraft. The hangar was empty except for our guards and two older Vietnamese men, standing by a table. Again we wondered if it was a trick. But soon we heard the sound of an engine. We looked up and saw a USAF C-141 in the traffic pattern.

A few minutes later we were taken to an area across the tarmac where a crowd gathered. After some chatter between the guards and a high-ranking North Vietnamese officer, we were told to get off the bus and form two lines. We were called off by name, according to our shoot down date.

The C-141 was parked 200 yards to the right and 50 yards straight ahead was a table. Behind the table sat a Vietnamese officer and a United States Air Force colonel. When our name was called we marched forward, stopped in front of the table, and saluted the colonel. He returned the salute and put a check by our name on his POW list. An Air Force enlisted man took us by the arm and escorted us to the tail ramp of the C-141. At the bottom of the ramp, the escort went back to get another POW, and the best-looking nurses in the entire world (and also the first women we had seen in six years) took us into the plane.

Those shot down on the same date went alphabetically. This meant that Harry, who had been 42 inches behind me for 92.5 missions, now went ahead. He looked back at me and winked as he went up the ramp.

We were buckled up, handed a cold beer, and given copies of current magazines, as the C-141's engines started. I was in a litter, but my spirits were higher than my temperature. There was subdued POW chatter until the aircraft taxied, turned onto the active runway, added power, and broke ground.
That
was the instant. Six years of POW emotion spontaneously exploded. We were leaving hell.

 

 

The three-hour flight from Hanoi to Clark Air Base in the Philippines could have been 30 minutes or 30 hours. Several of the C-141's crew members told us we were viewed as heroes and would be welcomed home with open arms. We were not so sure. All of us who had survived the horrible torture of the past few years had gone past giving out just our name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. Would we be welcomed the first week and court-martialed the second week? Would we be allowed to stay in the military?

Our doubts were answered as the plane came to a stop on the Clark Air Base tarmac. We looked out the windows and saw hundreds of Air Force men in uniform and their wives and kids. Everyone, it seemed, had little American flags. Dignitaries were arriving; a red carpet was being rolled out. While we waited for the staircase to get in place, the door was opened, and we got a better
look at the military families there to greet us. Harry looked at them and said, “Jeez, they're fat.”