Trampling the Serpent: Vietnam POW: Revealing True Character

By John Fer Colonel USAF-Retired

Vietnam is sometimes called the land of the rising serpent, or dragon, because its geographical landmass resembles a serpent (or dragon) in an upward configuration. In this book, taken from Colonel Fer's personal experience of more than six years of Communist incarceration at the hands of the North Vietnamese, one learns of his surprising, actually shocking, awakening from the idyllic world of an idealistic, future-oriented combat pilot backward into the ancient world of warfare, where brutality toward POWs was the norm. Wounded by shrapnel when his EB-66C aircraft was shot down by surface-to-air missiles on February 4, 1967, he recounts his seventy-three months of captivity, which brought him face-to-face with mistreatment and deprivation and Communist charge that he was a war criminal and subject to tribunals. It was also a world of deprivation that ignored any considerations of treatment according to international diplomatic agreements or international humanitarian law. A bachelor when he was captured, and denied any communication with them for over three years, Colonel Fer articulates his parents' actions in trying to learn his fate for the nearly four years it was unknown to them. Throughout his imprisonment, his resistance to brutal treatment and intense Communist attempts to indoctrinate him with anti-Americanism, Colonel Fer relied on his three faiths: in God, in America, and in his fellow POWs. The release of the POWs in 1973 was a joyous international event of immense proportions, and he describes his return to America on March 8, the attention, and the numerous requests for speaking engagements and other public appearances. The events of his return also eventually brought his marriage to Nancy, whom he still holds in great reverence. Colonel Fer describes his experience as a POW as "the best thing that ever happened to [him]" because it brought clarity of how to better understand America and its people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662438455

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Trampling the Serpent: Vietnam POW

Revealing True Character

John Fer Colonel, USAF-Retired

Copyright © 2021 John Fer

Colonel, USAF-Retired

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-3844-8 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-6624-3845-5 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

About the Author

For my mother and father, Ernest and Millie; my late brother, Pete, and his late wife, Maggie; and the hundreds of other faithful American wives, fathers, mothers, and families whose unwavering faith sustained them throughout years of anxious uncertainty, that one day those Americans who fought in Vietnam would return from a place not too distant from the infernal regions over which the descendants of Pluto rule.

And for the families of all those who gave the last full measure of devotion in service to America, especially those of my crew, Woody Wilburn, Herb Doby, and Russ Poor.

You will tread on the lion and the adder,

the young lion and the serpent you will

trample underfoot.

—Psalm 91:13

Preface

The history of prisoners of war, or captives, is as old as the history of war itself. In primitive times, captured warriors were considered the personal property of the captor, to do with as he pleased—often with brutality and an uncertain future. Belligerents held captives in custody for a range of reasons: collecting military and political intelligence, isolating them from enemy combatants still in the field, publicizing military victories, punishing them, prosecuting them for alleged war crimes, exploiting them for their labor, and recruiting, or drafting, them for combat. Not infrequently, as in Korea or North Vietnam, prisoners of war and captives were at the mercy of enemy indoctrination, to re-educate them in their political beliefs. During the Middle Ages, when the concept of ransom was developed, it became beneficial to capture wealthy soldiers who could purchase their freedom. Holding prisoners required expenses for their upkeep; therefore, they were not kept unless it was expedient for the captor to do so. Soldiers of little status or wealth were killed to reduce the enemy's numbers.

Although the life of a combatant captive has never been an easy one, there were periods in human history when POWs were treated humanely, a practice that was a matter of common decency, even instinct, bordering on the golden rule. Prior to formal agreements on prisoner treatment, a relatively young policy in the context of warfare over the many millennia, one might say in some cases the treatment was chivalrous—especially for officers. The establishment of camps themselves, holding large numbers of captives, did not always exist, costing as it were an investment of men, time, space, and money. Most frequently, national culture, politics, and other circumstances, such as retaliation, dictated how captives were treated. In the ancient world, when armies fought in the field the winner, determined by the destruction of the opposition army, most often slaughtered the survivors, and if the victors chose not to, their captives were made slaves. Rape and pillage were prevalent. The Bible tells us that at Jericho Joshua ordered all survivors, men, women, and children, along with all sheep and oxen to be killed. Then he burned what was left of the town, saving only silver, gold, and vessels of brass and iron. His action was pretty much the norm for war throughout most of recorded history: massacre, subjugation, enslavement, and pillage as standard practice. It was not uncommon in ancient China to slaughter all captured soldiers of the defeated army. Sun Tzu writes in The Art of War another viewpoint, that captives should be treated well, with magnanimity and sincerity so that they may be used by us—but often induced by bribes, threats, or torture to disclose plans. He adds, Let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns. During WWII, quite often capture by the Japanese dictated summary execution, given the dishonor associated with becoming a captive. Among combatants in the history of ancient warfare, there was no innate cultural inclination to construct POW camps to hold captives.

The earliest known purposely built prisoner-of-war camp was established at Norman Cross, England, in 1797 to house the increasing number of prisoners from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars—housing about 5,500 men. Norman Cross was intended to be a model depot providing the most humane treatment of prisoners of war, and the British government went to great lengths to provide food of a quality at least equal to that available to the locals. Most of the men held in the prison were low-ranking soldiers and sailors, including midshipmen and junior officers, with a small number of privateers. About one hundred senior officers and some civilians of good social standing, mainly passengers on captured ships and the wives of some officers, were given parole d'honneur outside the prison and were afforded the courtesy of their rank within English society.

"The extensive period of conflict during the American Revolutionary War and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815), followed by the War of 1812, led to the emergence of a cartel system for the exchange of prisoners, even while the belligerents were at war. A cartel was usually arranged by the respective armed service for the exchange of like-ranked personnel. The aim was to achieve a reduction in the number of prisoners held, while at the same time alleviating shortages of skilled personnel in the home country."

At the start of the American Civil War, a system of exchanges and paroles operated, and captives agreed not to fight until they were officially exchanged. Meanwhile, they were held in camps run by their own army, where they were paid but not allowed to perform any military function. The system of exchanges was suspended by President Lincoln in 1863 when the Confederacy refused to exchange Black prisoners. Both the North's and the South's POW camps shared a common denominator: deplorable sanitary conditions brought about by the lack of any policy on either side concerning the camps and their administration.

It was during the nineteenth century that increased efforts were made to improve the treatment and processing of prisoners. Emerging conventions precipitated several international conferences to be held, starting with the Brussels Conference of 1874, with nations agreeing that it was necessary to prevent inhumane treatment of prisoners and the use of weapons causing unnecessary harm.

Although no agreements were immediately ratified by the participating nations, work was continued, which resulted in new conventions being adopted and becoming recognized as international law that specified that prisoners of war be treated humanely and diplomatically.

"The 1907 Hague Convention IV, the Laws and Customs of War on Land, covered the treatment of prisoners of war in detail and were further expanded in the 1929 Geneva Convention on the Prisoners of War and were largely revised in the Third Geneva Convention in 1949, and governed my treatment under the North Vietnamese."

"Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention protects captured military personnel, some guerrilla fighters, and certain civilians. It applies from the moment a prisoner is captured until he or she is released or repatriated. One of the main provisions of the convention makes it illegal to torture prisoners and states that a prisoner can only be required to give their name, date of birth, rank and service number (if applicable)."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has a special role to play with regard to international humanitarian law: in restoring and maintaining family contact in times of war, particularly concerning the right of prisoners of war and internees to send and receive letters and cards. However, nations vary in their dedication to following the law, and historically the treatment of POWs has varied greatly. During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (toward Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war. The German military used the Soviet Union's refusal to sign the Geneva Convention as a reason for not providing the necessities of life to Soviet POWs, and the Soviets similarly killed Axis prisoners or used them as slave labor. The Germans also routinely executed, under the Commando Order from Adolf Hitler, Western Allied commandos captured behind German lines. North and South Vietnamese forces were not cast as participants similarly: one (the North) actually the invader overseeing what was viewed by the uninformed and willfully blind as a civil war, and the South, suffering a relentless and unlimited, ideologically-driven onslaught, defending their legally established government, were not consistently amenable to providing the niceties to prisoners taken during the conflict.

My life as a North Vietnam War POW is framed by the foregoing because it is important to understand how the treatment of war captives is still not consistent with legal expectations, fundamentally international humanitarian law, regardless of whether or not a nation has signed the 1949 Geneva Convention or not. This explanation helps to explain the attitude of the Communist interrogator in a comment he made in a quiz (interrogation), A prisoner's lot is not a happy one, and echoed in paraphrases on buttons and stickers created during our captivity by supporters in America: POWs Never Have a Nice Day.

As the responsibilities of the captor nations changed and evolved over the years, so have the responsibilities of the individual prisoner. By 1952, the United Nations Command recognized that a prisoner of war can still be an active soldier determined to fight on, implying that surrender need not necessarily be an offer of peace. In 1953 United States soldiers were issued orders that anyone taken prisoner is duty-bound to try to escape. The Code of Conduct, issued as an executive order by President Eisenhower in 1955, requires the military prisoner to give only name, rank, service number, and date of birth. Among its six articles are those that require the captive to continue to resist and make every effort to escape and aid others to escape, if possible. An escaping prisoner siphons off personnel from one mission (guarding POWs) to engage in another (searching for escapees). Following the release of the Vietnam War POWs in 1973, some former captives, and non-captives, called for a review of the Code—as did some of the Pueblo captives.

There are two facts laid out in the foregoing: the time/event line of the long history in the sorry, unchanging life of prisoners of war, and validation of my belief that signing or verbalizing intent to comply with protocols ensuring humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war (declared or undeclared), in the final analysis, is meaningless unless the signatories unequivocally abide by its moral and literal intent. Violations will continue only if those committing the atrocities are held accountable and punished. My survival in North Vietnam was accomplished despite the Geneva Convention perversions.

I engaged in the Vietnam War for several reasons: belief in the right of a people to choose their own form of government without coercion, love of flying, the experience of combat, the comradery. I believed in the traditional American policy of coming to the aid of allies if the president so orders, in this case, the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), whose people had the right to choose a life free of Communism. That cannot be said about politicians, the elite classes, and those who fled, whose selfishness came before the brave who fought and died in service to America.

My subsequent shoot-down, capture, and seventy-three months of captivity in pursuit of this commitment remain the single most important event of my life. This memoir is my testimony to faith, resilience, and optimism.

Introduction

To survive, a nation must commit its unequivocal and unwavering support of those who sacrifice for those who won't.

Nearly twenty years ago, at my home in California, I received a letter postmarked Houston, Texas, from a Mr. Jimmie Byrd. Looking at the return name and address, I racked my brain to recall anyone I knew from Houston by the name of Byrd or, in fact, anyone by the name of Byrd. The letter was addressed, hand-printed, to Colonel John and Nancy E. Fer, 120 Converse Street, Sumter, South Carolina 29150, United States of America. The street name should have been Conyers rather than Converse, so when the letter arrived in Sumter on its initial leg, the postal clerk printed the word key, followed by an arrow pointing to the name Fer, after which the words Try Conyers were printed. Because I had moved from Sumter and the Conyers Street address in the spring of 2001, the post office in Sumter forwarded the letter to me at our new residence in my hometown of San Pedro, California.

The efficiency of the Sumter post office personnel was typical of their commitment to serve the people in a city I dearly love. So when I hear negative comments about our postal service, I am reminded of this letter and the journey it took, passing through many hands to get to its destination—in stark contrast to the mail service I received in Hanoi, and a tribute to the professionalism of the USPS employees at the Sumter, South Carolina, station. I would not have received the letter from Deputy Sheriff Byrd but for their diligence. It sure makes up for the illegal and mean-spirited denial of delivering my mail to the Hanoi Hilton. Jimmie's exact letter, dated December 18, 2001, 0945 hours, read thus:

Colonel,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Deputy Jimmie R. Byrd, Unit #4853, District IV Patrol, Harris County Sheriff's Department, Houston, Texas, United States of America.

My family was on vacation in the Texas Hill County this past summer. As women will do, we were in several antique stores in the city of Brenham, Texas.

In one of these small stores I saw a POW-MIA bracelet. It did not set [sic] well with me that this sacred amulet was for sale. I bought the bracelet in hopes of getting it back to the American patriot's family.

I dared not hope that you had come back from harm's way. I am looking forward to returning this bracelet to its rightful owner.

Please call me and I will send the bracelet immediately. I am looking forward to hearing your voice.

May God bless you, sir, and may God bless America.

Your friend,

Deputy Jimmie R. Byrd

As my scribbled notes on Jimmie's envelope reveal, at 0600 hours PST on 4 Jan 02, I did indeed call Jimmie, and his wife answered the phone. I introduced myself and asked if her husband was home. He was, and for more than twenty minutes, I had a wonderful talk with him about his work, his family, and how he got the bracelet.

Jimmie Byrd's purchase of the bracelet was not only a patriotic act on his part but also one of respect for all Americans who served in Vietnam. From our telephone conversation I could tell that he understood service and sacrifice as each day he patrols the streets to uphold law and order. Beyond that, in contemporary context, Deputy Sheriff Byrd contradicted what has become usual: forgetting how America was made safe by the efforts of a few. What appeared as the crass dismissal of achievements viewed as no longer relevant or newsworthy called for someone like Jimmy to step up. When I thought about it, no one ought to be surprised that he was a Texan. He defined in the clearest terms his unique and enviable Texas values to somehow right the insult he felt when he saw my bracelet in that secondhand store.

Every story that has a good beginning and a good ending is especially gratifying to read about. And Jimmie's story certainly deserved a good ending, one that will be when I send him a copy of this memoir. It's my hope that others who read it will find that it fulfilled the good beginning and a good end. It's my hope readers will find it has a happy ending as well.

In the following pages, I have articulated the most important event in my life—an admixture of atrocities, heroism, pathos, and humor—not only in order to illuminate the events for the present but also, if they should be read by future generations, for some appreciation of what it meant to serve America within prison cells and behind broken-glass-topped walls, of my experiences in North Vietnam, in such a way as to underscore an individual's will to survive and return with honor.

The narrative is my story, as I lived it and as I observed events and individuals with whom I came into direct contact, saw with my own eyes, or communicated by one means or another. And except for a few, there is not one POW who would hesitate to lay down his life for his friend.

God doesn't give us problems or troubles; those are negative words that describe personal life collisions with obstacles we might have some difficulty overcoming. God gives us challenges and opportunities—crosses to bear that are never heavier than we can carry. These are collisions that require positive assertions on our part. In North Vietnam, it meant confronting those challenges and opportunities head-on. The crisis of combat and the challenges arising for individuals engaged in it have a way of stripping away the facade that each of us may have erected, revealing a significant attribute that in Hanoi was essential: character. Character isn't an outcome of the brutal treatment. The trials and tribulations do not develop it. Character is brought out by inhumane treatment. Behind the trite analogy that high school football coaches used to pedal, that the game builds character, is the reality that playing football, just as in any demanding endeavor, brings out character. Toward that end, becoming a POW brought out my character.

Sometimes our lives are temporarily interrupted, and we must take a side road to accomplish something that God has in mind for us. On the day I was shot down, God probably sent a sign saying, Put on hold any plans you think you have for the future, Fer. I've got something I want you to do before you charge ahead with your carefully charted course! He was going to give me a chance to demonstrate my character and assess my life and future. Ironically, prison is the ideal place for a person to make a personal assessment—despite all the mistreatment, my POW life fit into that scenario very well.

What I have done in the following pages is weave the fabric of my life from the moment I was born through the period thus far since my release from captivity. The POW personalities in this memoir are actual people, some of whose names have been fictionalized, others because they have passed. I have also used salty language in a few places because vulgarity or profanity describes the events or situations in a clearer context.

An editorial in the Wednesday, January 30, 1974, Wall Street Journal, nearly a year after my repatriation, put our involvement in perspective, providing a contemplative possibility for the present:

It may be years before Americans can view the Vietnam experience from a detached perspective and until then most no doubt will feel that US involvement was at best a mistake. A few will continue to claim that it was far worse—a manifestation of US moral degeneracy.

But in fact it was a historic conflict between two antithetical brands of morality, of which the US brand is superior by any historical measure. To begin the process of acquiring a better perspective, and restoring some of what was lost in national self-esteem, we would suggest a look at the war still relentlessly underway in Indochina, a year after American forces have left and a supposed cease-fire signed.

Among the POWs, not everyone was religious in the formal sense, but most were practitioners of a Christian's devotion (other faiths were represented) to his fellow man. It is God to whom I give all the credit for my survival: spiritually, mentally, and physically. This is my story.

Chapter 1

Tactical Air Command

To fly, fight, and win!

My big break to get into Vietnam combat came by pure chance in the fall of 1965 after a series of unrelated events beginning after completion of pilot training, and an assignment on July 22, 1963, to Beale AFB, California, as a B-52 copilot. En route to Beale, I was to attend the three-week survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) course at Stead AFB just outside of Reno, Nevada. On the evening of August 22, 1963, while I was at SERE, we soon-to-be copilots got a visit from the head of Strategic Air Command (SAC) personnel informing us that we were going to be diverted to another assignment, also as copilots, but in B-47E Stratojets. This short-notice change came about because SAC needed copilots to fill the slots vacated by upgrading several of the current B-47E copilots to aircraft commanders in the same aircraft. I was happy because the B-47E did not strike me as a lumbering hunk of aluminum with a large crew but, rather, like an oversize fighter plane—and with only a crew of three.

Some of the copilots in my class had hardships, such as already having sent their families to the original B-52 assignment bases, along with their household goods. As a bachelor, I had no particular encumbrances, so I made plans to head for Plattsburgh AFB, New York. But first, there were a couple of intermediate stops at specialized schools: nuclear weapons delivery and gunnery schools at McConnell and Shilling AFBs, respectively. I left the next day.

After the schools, I hopped into my Austin-Healey sports car and headed for Plattsburgh. On arrival, I learned I was going to be a copilot in the PACCS (postattack command and control squadron), flying a variant of the B-47 designated the EB-47L, the mission of which was to be, in case of a nuclear attack on the United States, an airborne electronic link between SAC's continually airborne Looking Glass communication aircraft and command posts on the ground. I got an on-base checkout, started flying sorties, and sat alert (seven days on, four days off). My aircraft commander was a strange duck—fired as the wing safety officer and put back on a crew, mine. Each time our crew drove past the B-47Es sitting alert, he would remind us, We're never going to war, which told me he was no loss for the bomb squadrons—or the country. On a crew-check ride, one of the tachometers went to zero on the takeoff roll, but the stan-eval (standards-evaluation) pilot indicated to say nothing because he didn't have much confidence my aircraft commander could handle the situation safely. Besides, a cross-check of the other engine instruments showed they were in the green.

I wasn't in the PACCS very long when, because of more sophisticated systems, the L was phased out and I found myself assigned to the 530th Bomb Squadron, sitting alert at home for a week and, for three weeks at a time, on reflex to RAF Brize Norton in the UK—one week on alert, one week off, and one week back on alert. Sometimes we flew the bombers home and, at other times, rode the KC-135. With the announced aging B-47E phaseout in the fall of 1965, I was in for yet another assignment. The B-47E did not have a long future compared to that envisioned for the B-52s, with its various missions—including one in Southeast Asia (SEA) with the Vietnam War expansion. Not long after the phaseout was announced, and just before SAC was to decide my future, again, we began ferrying B-47Es to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona for mothballing. During this drawdown period, crews were being reassigned to a variety of jobs. Some aircraft commanders and senior copilots went to F-105Ds. My former navigator in PACCS went to Titan ICBMs, also in Arizona.

When my assignment came down, I learned I was going to the Tactical Air Command (TAC) C-130 troop carrier wing at Lockbourne Air Force Base (now Rickenbacker AFB), Ohio, with temporary duty (TDY) en route, to Sewart Air Force Base, Tennessee, for crew training. Although not a fighter, I resigned myself to flying multiengine airplanes again—after all, it was a TAC billet. No doubt I would be getting into the Vietnam War, but as a copilot in the C-130. With that view, I looked positively at getting assigned to SEA and flying combat support—at least, in a way, it would be operating in the war theater, somewhat an answer to my prayers. I had been trying to get there even while flying on a crew at Plattsburgh. An Academy classmate and I had discussed volunteering to fly the A-1E Skyraider, even to the extent that I wrote to another classmate and requested that he ask his father, a general, to see if he could make it happen. My classmate told me, rightly so, that his father did not engage in manipulation of the assignment process. I realized after the fact that it was inappropriate to even attempt such a maneuver because it put my classmate on the spot; short of that, my break came by pure chance during the B-47E phaseout.

Between signing out of Plattsburgh and reporting to Sewart, and before I was granted fifteen days of leave in September (I'd asked for thirty days), I learned of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) announcement through the Air Force Military Personnel Center (AFMPC) that NASA and the Air Force were looking for astronauts and volunteers for the space program, including the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). Requirements were stiff, and I couldn't meet the NASA minimums; but I did find a niche in the qualifications for the MOL: a minimum of five hundred hours' flight time—there was no mention whether it had to be left-, right-, front-, or back-seat time. I had just a bit more than the minimum time and thought it was worth a try, even though I did not have great confidence I would be picked up, being a first lieutenant. On the other hand, I thought it would be an exciting experience just to be in the mix. I filled out all the paperwork, got my records together, including medical, and sent the package through our base personnel to Headquarters Air Force and continued on with the B-47E at Plattsburgh, all the while expecting my fate would still be a permanent change of station (PCS) assignment to Lockbourne AFB—ironically, a former B-47E base, which I accepted by signing the appropriate papers. In the small window of time between the announced retirement of the B-47E and my receiving the TDY assignment orders to Sewart AFB in the early fall of 1965, which I acknowledged in writing, I prepared for what I thought was inevitable. But the hand of God was about to intervene. In any event, the good news was that I'd be out of SAC—I felt stifled by the rigid, autocratic organizational structure fathered by General LeMay, no doubt heightened because I was what my father described as impetuous, a lieutenant impatient to fly in the Vietnam War. On October 6, 1965, a message came down to base personnel from AFMPC directing cancellation to C-130s pending the outcome of the screening of astronaut/MOL candidates. When the message reached our wing commander, the word spread like wildfire: John Fer is going to be an astronaut! But realistically, I did not get ecstatic. I knew the odds of my selection for the MOL were long. Nevertheless, in the deep recesses of my mind, I began to fantasize about orbiting the Earth; after all, stranger things had happened. I thought, again, What an exciting opportunity! With that in mind, I continued with the B-47E drawdown, and in December 1965, our crew flew one to the boneyard.

Because I was leaving Plattsburgh and not returning, I needed a caretaker for Herman, my miniature dachshund, and the logical home for him was with my parents in California. But I needed a safe and humane way to get him to San Pedro. So when the D-M trip came along, I figured it would be best to take him on the plane to the West Coast. I pumped him full of tranquilizers and laid him across my shoulders just behind my helmet in the copilot's seat, the nice, warm sun shining down on him through the canopy, expecting him to sleep all the way.

Unfortunately, the excitement was so great that the tranquilizers had no effect on Herman and he squirmed and crawled all over me and around the copilot's area like a gerbil on a treadmill, all the way to D-M. I did not let the aircraft commander know about Herman's restlessness during the trip—just praying that he wouldn't fall onto the jump seat above the entrance hatch. After we landed and parked the airplane, we went into base operations and transferred possession of the aircraft to the D-M folks, and leaving my crew, I went to the transient aircraft desk to inquire about an aircraft headed in the direction of San Pedro. I found a KC-135 headed to Norton AFB in San Bernardino and learned that Tom Dolan, a former USC track and cross-country teammate, now a flight surgeon at Plattsburgh, was on the manifest. Tom was from LA, so I asked him for a ride to San Pedro en route to a visit with his family. I had a convenient coincidence tossed in my lap.

My intent was to surprise my folks and spend some time with them in San Pedro, but when I got home I learned from my sister-in-law that they were headed east to take care of family business (my uncle had recently passed away) and to see me—a trip they neglected to tell me about (perhaps it was to be a surprise). I visualized my passing them overhead: me heading west and they heading east.

While I was home, I decided to pay a visit to my former professor of aerospace studies (PAS) at USC, Colonel Carl Swartz, who was now the military representative at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach. Since my ROTC days at USC and my subsequent appointment to the Academy, I had kept Colonel Swartz apprised of my career. During our conversation, I told him about the MOL application and that I had not heard anything yet. Without prompting, he picked up the phone, called AFMPC, and put me on the line. The colonel on the other end was cordial and explained, You were not selected for the MOL, so we sent your name back to SAC. My heart sank, and I thought, Here I go, back to SAC, with no idea of what assignment I will get now! I thanked him and hung up. Colonel Swartz then called SAC and put me on the line again. I repeated my concerns for an assignment, and the officer I spoke with said, You have an RB-66 to PACAF. The Pacific Air Forces. Just the opposite of the SAC conversation, I tried to control my elation, thanked him, and hung up. An assignment to PACAF meant combat in Southeast Asia! It would be in the reconnaissance version of the bomber that, coincidentally, was originally built at Douglas Aircraft Company, where I worked in the Torrance, California, plastics division during the summer of 1957 while a student at USC and Colonel Swartz had been my PAS. Colonel Swartz called the Douglas publications library and had them send him a copy of the Dash 1 (the aircraft flight and systems manual) for me. When I opened it up, I couldn't believe my eyes: there was only one pilot! I still have that Dash 1. The rest of my vacation and trip back home to Peru, New York, the small town near Plattsburgh AFB, where I shared a house with Walt Herter, an Academy classmate, was very enjoyable—my folks hadn't arrived in Peru yet because they were en route from Washington, DC. When they arrived, they'd have a cost-free place to stay. It was a good reason to buy a TV, so I went out to the small electronics store in Peru and bought one (black-and-white). In the meantime, events were moving apace on my new assignment. On December 22, 1965, SAC sent a message confirming my PCS. Orders were cut, with a notation that after RB-66 flight school, TAC would send me PCS to an assignment in PACAF; next stop: Shaw AFB, South Carolina, reporting February 28, 1966, for RB-66 checkout.

I left Plattsburgh on February 21, in time to start training on March 1, with two interim stops: the first to see Colonel and Mrs. Gardiner Gibson, USAF, the parents of my Academy classmate Captain Bob Gibson, USMC, in Washington, DC, and then Bob and his family, who were assigned to MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station) Cherry Point, North Carolina. Bob had already served a tour in Vietnam as a Hawk missile battalion commander, so we had an evening of interesting talk.

Most of the Shaw training was in the RB-66 photo aircraft, even though in Southeast Asia I would be flying the EB-66C, the electronic countermeasures version, with a back-end crew of four electronic warfare officers (EWOs). The RB had just me and a navigator as a crew. We flew a lot of low-level photo missions and did some instrument training as well. It was great to fly an overhead traffic pattern again. The radio call In the pitch might not have been exactly like doing it in the RF-4C or RF-101 (both assigned to Shaw), but it was still a lot of fun. The crème de la crème, however, was air-to-air refueling—it was a sense of great satisfaction to plug into the KC-135 basket and literally fly formation below the tanker while taking on a load of fuel.

At Shaw, the atmosphere was very relaxed compared to SAC, and I found it to be a comfortable one. Life in TAC seemed carefree and, above all, fun. There were several other former SAC aircrew members in my class as well. I spent a lot of time in the officers' club stag bar with my squadron guys as well as the RF-101 and RF-4C pilots. Bill Lundberg, one of our class navigators, became a drinking buddy of the base commander and convinced him that he, another pilot, and I ought to live in the transient family quarters, conveniently located just out the back door of the club, rather than in the bachelor officers' quarters. The base commander agreed, and we jumped at the chance to have more space in which to live—and throw parties (which we did). It was a great time to be a first lieutenant and one of only two who flew the RB-66. Coincidentally, the other was an Academy classmate.

Finished with my checkout on June 10, 1966, I headed to Takhli, Thailand, my base of assignment, via the snake school (jungle survival) at Clark AB in the Philippines. Living in the jungle was a real experience. At night, the movement of small animals sounded like a herd of elephants—probably only mice and ants! The most interesting side of jungle survival was the escape and evasion (E and E) part. Our class was loaded on the back of a military truck, driven into the jungle, and dropped off. The object was to race into the jungle and try to evade the Negritos (indigenous natives), who would be given a five-pound bag of rice for each captured American. If captured (always the intent), we'd then be taken to a compound and turned over to our instructors for a simulated incarceration and interrogation.

The truck stopped and we were dropped off the truck (I suspect the same place for each class), and I started running like hell to get as far away as possible from the pursuing Negritos. Riding in the truck, I had noticed dozens of them lining up on the ridgelines along our route of travel—and for good reason: they were watching where we got off the truck and knew where to capture us. It didn't take long for one of the smiling natives to catch me, a big disappointment. We were walking along the trail in the direction of the interrogation compound when, as we approached a small ravine, I decided to make my escape by leaping into the unknown. It was truly a leap into space—I had no idea what lay at the bottom. As I hit the jungle growth, I saw a green flying snake travel from one bush to another (I was told in the classroom that they were quite poisonous). I made my way to the bottom and, sweating like a fat guy in a sauna, climbed up the far side. Feeling liberated, I scrambled to the top. As I crested the hill, I came face-to-face, literally eyeball-to-eyeball, with a smiling Negrito. He probably saw me not as an American but a five-pound bag of rice: hot, sweaty, and ready to call it a day. So much for freedom! I stumbled through a simulated interrogation, which was low-key instructive to a degree, and soon back to the CABOOM (Clark Air Base Officers' Open Mess).

After replenishing vital fluids with great quantities of San Miguel beer and talking with classmates in my EB-66 class, I ran into Tuck MacAtee, an Academy classmate who was ferrying an F-100 to the depot on Taiwan. There was another classmate, my good friend and one of my very first Dooley summer roommates, Dick Bird Parker, who was assigned to C-130s at Clark. Bird and I were also teammates on the Academy track and cross-country teams. It was great to see him again, and we had a good visit, including sightseeing at Lake Taal and the presidential palace. At the CABOOM, in the dining room, the food and music were very much to my liking: thick steaks and Glenn Miller. Those who had been there for some time told me that the Filipinos loved American music and imitated it as much as they could. The club was a happy place to be, associating with guys flying combat. Chuck Yeager dropped in one night, and it was a thrill just being in the same room. I do not think words can describe what we found in such surroundings that brought together aircrew members involved in all phases of combat and combat support. Perhaps it was the romantic in me, or acquired growing up building and flying model airplanes, reading aerial combat stories, and listening to Academy instructors who flew combat.

When I arrived at Takhli in late June of 1966, I was impatient to start flying and groused about the delays, one day so obviously that the operations officer overheard me and patiently told me to just bide my time. And so I began the slow process of checking out in the C model: pilot, navigator, and four Ravens (EWOs) in the back. Missions were two-ship flights with the C model leading—quite an honor for a first lieutenant.

My first flight, a passive electronic intelligence mission, for orientation, on July 15, 1966, was with the squadron commander one night, skirting the Cambodia border, during which we did not expect any enemy activity. We were in a C, with a navigator and four EWOs, and just listening for any unusual electronic signals, particularly from any possible SAM sites. It was a passive electronic signals-gathering mission since we didn't expect any threats from defenses in Cambodia. I didn't have much to do but watch, sit behind the aircraft commander in a seat generally unused because there was no equipment to operate—on the B model there is an EWO that sits in a similarly located seat and operates jamming equipment. The entire flight was quiet, the night weather beautifully calm, and after an hour and a half, we returned to Takhli.

Eventually, all the squares were filled, and on August 30, 1966, I was declared combat ready. My assignment was to fly both active and passive EB-66C electronic missions over North Vietnam. The EWOs operated the electronic equipment in the back-end (in approximately where the bomb bay was originally located) compartment to interpret the electronic signals' character, whether they were a threat to us or the fighter-bombers making the strikes. And if they were, to take action to identify them, confirming the direction from which the signals came or charting new ones.

I led my first flight north to Route Package Six Alpha (6A), north of Hanoi, on July 16, 1966. There were also some off the coast of Haiphong in the Tonkin Gulf. One night I was leading a flight to Haiphong, and as I cut across the DMZ, the constant speed drive sheared a gear, which then caused the engine to overspeed beyond 100 percent and the EGT (exhaust gas temperature) to shoot up. Rather than abort the mission, which was in support of a night strike, I pulled the power back to under a 100 percent, got the EGT in the green, continued to the offshore orbit, and finished up the mission. It was really a no-brainer, even though we didn't have an escort and, as the past showed, not much of a threat—the North Vietnamese didn't have a good night fighter-intercept capability; we had the gear to detect and, if necessary, jam any threat signals. Our flight path did take us into a triple-A and SAM-2 (surface-to-air-missile) threat area on our route across the DMZ, but I knew we could handle it. Not long after that flight, the squadron commander, in response to a directive from Seventh Air Force, told the aircraft commanders to write up our most significant combat mission up north for a possible award or decoration. When I first got the order, I thought, This is ridiculous! Write up my own award or decoration? I know wars produce egocentric individuals who do such things, but I wasn't one of them: the mission comes first, and all else, good or bad, is secondary, particularly when you consider all the crap the Thud (F-105D and F-105F) drivers flew directly into on almost every mission. However, an order is an order, so I wrote up the Haiphong mission and submitted documentation to the awards and decorations officer. As it turned out, I wrote it up so well that we got a DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) for it.

As aircraft commander, I held the responsibility and authority, regardless of my rank, to command the airplane from the time we were assigned to fly as a crew until the day we no longer shared that relationship, of accomplishing the mission and getting the highly trained crew safely back home. But rank would become a factor in the not-too-distant future. Early in my assignment to Takhli, after I had checked out in the airplane and the various route packages, as a first lieutenant, I led flights to the target as the mission commander, even though number two, my wingman, the EB-66B jam-only airplane, might be commanded by a captain or above. As a first lieutenant, I was one of the two youngest EB-66C aircraft commanders in the squadron, qualified to lead flights over the north in Route Package 6. All flights, to the extent possible, were led by the C model because we had more capability: four EWOs on board who could perform not only passive listening but also selective jamming, depending on the changing threat—and could also make cuts on known sites or new radar/SAM sites that the North Vietnamese might move into an area. My qualifications to lead, however, were soon challenged.

As the air offensive over the north intensified, the need for additional aircrews grew. Unfortunately, with the increased number of arrivals of highly experienced EB-66C pilots in-country, resentment increased because the two first lieutenants, and, then, as the junior captains, were leading since they had more combat/in-country experience. However, with more and more experienced and senior pilots and other aircrew members arriving in theater from bases that were eliminating the RB-66s as the RF-4s came into their respective squadrons, the fall of 1966 was to see the end of that resentment. Checkout procedures were revised, following a complaint from the B squadron commander, that he did not appreciate being led on missions by a first lieutenant. The new procedures specified that as soon as aircraft commanders had ten missions over North Vietnam, they would be qualified to be flight leads—and flights were constructed so that there was always a lead who outranked me and the other first lieutenant, both of us soon to be junior captains but still subordinate in the pecking order! Nevertheless, I went at flying with great zeal, whether I led or not. On the ground, my attitude was positive, and I brought that to any additional nonflying duty assignment I was given—perhaps assuming too much. As an inexperienced ops duty desk officer (routinely rotated among the pilots), I learned a lesson in command one day when another primary C model aborted and I took it upon myself to call the O club and tell the spare crew they were to come back and launch. The ops officer was not a happy camper about my initiative—only he or the squadron commander had the authority that I usurped. And he let me know it in a rather-gentle way!

When the mission schedules were posted, I restrained any demonstrative zeal because the old-timers who just arrived knew I had more missions over the north, something I didn't want to show I was better than they were—that took care of itself. Most of the more senior officers were professional in their treatment toward me, but there were a few who resented my speaking up, asking questions, briefing them on life support procedures, or making suggestions. I probably was not alone, because chances are, these sorts were not universally respected by their peers either.

On one other night mission to Haiphong, the Ravens wanted to see if there were any SAM threats near the DMZ (SAM sites were drawn on the charts only if they were detected electronically and photo-confirmed), so we planned the mission to cross slightly north of that point and chum for any threat activity in the southern part of North Vietnam. We tempted them to come up by taking up greater spacing in the air after takeoff, giving the SAM controllers the idea that we were not just a two-ship EWO mission but perhaps a flight of several airplanes—we painted a big picture on the scope. And sure enough, we brought them up and obtained the coordinates of an unknown threat, which we logged on the charts and debriefed when we got home.

Things were going along well during that early summer of 1966, with us suffering no losses until July 20, when SAMs knocked down one of our C models in Route Package 6A—doing the same thing we were doing, in the same general location, on February 4, 1967. We lost Bill Means and his crew on the twentieth because the primary aborted and Bill launched as the spare. When the squadron commander announced the loss of Bill and his crew to the squadron, the aborting (primary) aircraft commander expressed openly, almost gleefully, in a crass and vulgar way his profound relief at escaping Bill's fate. Those of us present agreed it was a tasteless performance. I met some of Means's crew later when I became a POW in Hanoi, and we shared some thoughts common to our last missions.

After announcing the loss, our squadron commander recommended we send a letter or postcard to our families saying we were okay. Mine merely said, Mom and Dad, just a short note to say all is fine, Wed eve, 20 Jul 66. They probably did not understand the reason behind the card, I'm sure.

Chapter 2

Into the Pocket

Beauty is born of suffering. Wisdom is the child of grief.

—Will Durant

Except for the grounding after my landing accident on October 19, 1966, I enjoyed every day and every mission of my Takhli assignment. For want of a bolt, I was looking at 90 and 9 (ninety missions and a nine-month assignment) instead of the preaccident of 80 and 8 (eighty missions and an eight-month assignment)—that grounding was a real bummer at that time. Officially, my Takhli assignment was for one year or one hundred missions over the North, but the assignment could be shortened by allowing the reduction of the year by one month for every twenty missions flown over the North. I have no idea who came up with that formula, but with an expected assignment not too far off and the joy of flying, I didn't care. When LBJ's bombing halt in 1968 took effect, the tour was standardized at one full year. My grounding put me behind my EB-66C classmates in terms of finishing up my tour and heading to MacDill AFB for the AT-33 lead-in assignment that I very much looked forward to. The very early mornings, at the split second just before the leading edge of the sun eased its way over the horizon, were especially gorgeous—a veritable explosion of color, as the far horizon was first a silhouette without any color and then became more and more clearly defined in shape and color.

I preferred the early-morning missions because the predawn sight of F-105D/F Thunderchiefs heading north just ahead of us created an exciting environment: engines starting, taxiing with beacons flashing and navigation lights glowing, presenting a spectacular display of color, culminating with the variegated supersonic flames coming from their tailpipes as they lit their afterburners and raced down the runway ahead of me with their clusters of 750-pound bombs hanging from the airplanes in what looked like a very unstable arrangement, and sometimes carrying missiles to knock out SAM batteries. The beauty of the colors was in stark contrast to the violent ugliness coming their way in the target area. But on the morning of February 4, 1967, because I was scheduled for an afternoon takeoff, I missed the sunrise I usually saw when I had a 0500 takeoff. On this particular day, February 4, I got up about 0830, shaved, showered, got into my flight suit, and strolled from my hooch (the open bay hut in which I lived) over to the officers' club to have brunch: cheeseburger, ice tea, and a bowl of reconstituted ice cream. The waiters and waitresses were all Thai, some of whom were Thai Air Force dependents. The women (actually, you could call them girls [pu yings] inasmuch as they were quite young) were more efficient and understood food requests much better than the men (pu chais).

Whenever a young Thud bachelor pilot failed to return after a mission, some of these waitresses would get very emotional; a few would outwardly cry. The girls had a most unusual reaction when one of them learned from another pilot at the table they were serving that a pilot they were fond of hadn't returned from a mission. They would squat down next to the table and put their head down in profound grief. On the other hand, when a pilot was gone for a good while, either on R and R (rest and recuperation) or for some other reason, and returned, they were joyful. A waitress might say a pilot's name and exclaim, You come back! giggling in a most musical-sounding joy. Each day I read the Pacific Stars and Stripes, not only for news, but also to see if there were any men I knew who were shot down—besides those from Takhli whom I knew already were lost. Of course, none were ever listed as captured—those that were I would meet sometime in the future in Hanoi.

We would all stumble through our Thai, even though the waitresses spoke reasonably good English, and we would kid them and carry on conversations when they served our meals. The kidding was good-natured and lighthearted. Their teeth were beautiful, and when they smiled, their faces lit up. I often wondered in prison how the one or two I had enjoyed joking with and sometimes talking seriously with about some subject of common interest had reacted when our crew was shot down. These reminiscences were all part of a very enjoyable part of my career and melded with the more serious events building toward my last mission.

The February 4 mission briefing was scheduled for 1100 hours, and as that time approached, I called the squadron duty desk for transportation. I went outside to wait for the bread truck and a ride to the squadron. I got there about 1030 hours and looked over the mission folder, taking note that this was not to be my usual crew. I was going to have a new navigator, Major Jack Bomar, with whom I had not flown before. Jack was the newly appointed head of the squadron navigation shop. He was top-notch, a terrific golfer, and a model airplane enthusiast like me. Besides Jack and me, the four in back included Captain Russ Poor in position 2, First Lieutenant Jack Davies in 1, Woody Wilburn in 3, and Herb Doby in position 4. Looking at a plan view of their compartment, one would realize the seating positions were numbered beginning with 1 at the left front, 2 at right front, 3 left rear, and 4 right rear.

Major Wilburn had substituted himself for Armand Klinger, one of my usual Ravens, at the last minute, ostensibly to give Herb Doby a position 4 (critical position) check ride—i.e., a position 4 evaluation. Woody would occupy seat position 3, to Herb's left. In view of the route package we were flying into, 6A, a very heavily defended area north of Hanoi, one could question the wisdom of conducting such a check ride under those circumstances. The Ravens were such a special group of guys that I made the assumption, given the intel briefing and missile order of battle, that Woody knew what he was doing, and after all, he was chief of the electronic warfare officer (EWO) section. Under the usual circumstances, Raven 4 occupied the key Raven position, having responsibility to coordinate the activities of the others in the back end, besides his own.

Jack and I briefed the mission, within the frag parameters: Route Package 6A; target(s), Thai Nguyen supply depot, troop barracks (JCS-60), escorted by four F-4C escorts. After hitting the IP, we would fly the first leg from west to east and, reaching the easternmost point of the orbit, turn left to establish the next leg from east to west. We'd stay on station, flying the racetrack, with alternating diagonal legs until the last strike airplane was off the target(s)—depending on the mission's actual duration, we may or may not have needed to refuel on the return trip to Takhli.

The rest of the briefing was routine and uneventful. The mission, like most in far-north route packages, would be comprised of two airplanes: mine, the EB-66C, with both active jammers and passive electronic intelligence (ELINT) gathering capabilities, and the EB-66B model with its three-man crew of pilot, navigator, and EWO, with only a jam-only capability, called barrage jamming, covering specified frequencies. I briefed the EB-66B crew even though I was the junior aircraft commander of the two-ship flight and not the mission commander.

We were scheduled to take off at 1330 hours. The mission briefing by the various sections was routine, with emphasis placed on specific threats and highlighted for us. Jack and the Ravens got together and discussed the package 6A mission profile, the orbit flight plan, the length of the orbit legs, the turn points, and the alternating racetrack and figure eight tracks—this was to confuse the enemy radar operators. The B crew was included in the briefing in order to coordinate our efforts in support of the strike aircraft. To be precise in designing our C orbit, the navigator and Ravens had to take into account two major limiting factors: the US self-imposed Chinese buffer zone, which ran twenty-five nautical miles south along the entire Red Chinese southern border with North Vietnam, and the thirty-nautical-mile range of the surface-to-air missiles, the SA-2s. The buffer zone had been established to prevent intrusion into Red China and creating an international incident. When I had started flying in the summer of 1966 with a navigator who had been in my training class at Shaw, we inadvertently entered the buffer zone; although monitored by an EC-121 in the Gulf of Tonkin, call sign Ethan Alpha/Bravo, we had received no warning over the radio. We had been warned not to enter the buffer zone, so our slipup caused us great anxiety. Given the White House direction of the war, and McNamara himself, my navigator was more terrified of entering the buffer zone than of penetrating the red rings. Our practice was to go right up to the edge of the red rings, in effect, pressing the optimum for jamming.

When Jack and the Ravens were done, I called them together and gave the emergency brief, with emphasis on what our action would be if we were under attack from SAMs, or Soviet-made MiG airplanes. I reiterated salient aspects to the B crew.

The mission commander was the EB-66B pilot, Major Charles Wilson, who had about ten or eleven missions over the north compared to my fifty-three, reversing the former procedure of the EB-66C as the lead, regardless of rank, in my case as a first lieutenant, since August 1966, when I got the requisite ten missions up north. With the fall 1966 policy change, the mission commander was to be the senior officer regardless of the airplane he might be flying. This position as commander gradually changed when new pilots who were ranked captains and above arrived at Takhli and I had not yet been promoted to captain (December 6, 1966). So as a first lieutenant, I could not be mission commander. As I was promoted to captain on December 6, 1966, the chances of my becoming the mission commander were still slim to none. The growing importance of ECM support as the air war over the north heated up made it necessary to bring in pilots from around the world and from staff jobs. Most of the EB-66-B/C-qualified pilots had more time in the airplane than I did. With an increase in the number of crews came more airplanes as well. These old head pilots let it be known that they had no intention of playing second fiddle to a junior captain (which I was at the time of the last mission) and that they would lead—a point the B squadron commander made abundantly clear to my squadron commander.

After our two crews were briefed by intel, by life support, by tanker support, and by me on the F-4C escort rendezvous, my crew sat and talked, waiting until it was time to head out to the plane. Wilson was flying the B model, a jam-only aircraft, so it didn't appear they had as much to talk about as the six of us, and he wandered aimlessly around the squadron before we went out to the airplanes. Then something bizarre occurred, something unexpected and out of the ordinary: a Major Killebrew, also new to Takhli, came over and gave me some fatherly advice as to how to approach the mission (as though I hadn't flown in Package 6A before). I accepted his advice politely without comment. When he finished, Wilson walked over to us and got into an