The column of buses groaned to a halt near the bomb-cragged hangar at Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport just after noon on Feb. 12, 1973. The men inside were the first 116 American POWs slated for repatriation. Some 700 miles south, another 27 captives of the Viet Cong were scheduled for release at Loc Ninh, South Vietnam. At the head of the line, the first 20 U.S. servicemen sat in expectant silence. For the most part, these were the “Old Timers”—those held longest in North Vietnam’s notorious Hoa Lo prison, sardonically dubbed the “Hanoi Hilton” by inmates. As a matter of code and honor, the men of the “4th Allied POW Wing,” as they had named themselves, agreed that they would accept release only in the order of capture. In the front seat sat the Hilton’s first “guest,” Lt. j.g. Everett Alvarez Jr., 36, a Navy A-4 Skyhawk pilot who became the first American shot down over North Vietnam on Aug. 5, 1964. Beside him was Lt. Cmdr. Robert “Bob” Shumaker, the second-longest held among those assembled. Suddenly a great cheer went up among the men. Someone had spotted the silver and white visage of a C-141 Starlifter, tail emblazed with a medical red cross, coming in for a landing. After eight and a half years of dashed hopes, Alvarez allowed himself to truly believe that the time of his liberation was at hand.
Alvarez had been held captive by the Vietnamese longer than anyone except Army Special Forces Capt. Floyd “Jim” Thompson, captured by the Viet Cong after the O-1 Bird Dog spotter plane he was a passenger in (the pilot was killed) was shot down near Quang Tri, South Vietnam, some four months
