Captured Read online

  To the American POWs

  who returned with honor

  and to the families

  who never forgot

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Capture

  Chapter 2: Ha L Prison

  Chapter 3: The Zoo

  Chapter 4: Pigeye

  Chapter 5: The Interview

  Chapter 6: Parade

  Chapter 7: Back to the Zoo

  Chapter 8: Little Vegas

  Chapter 9: Alcatraz

  Chapter 10: 1968

  Chapter 11: Change

  Chapter 12: Camp Unity

  Chapter 13: Homecoming

  Epilogue

  Bibliography

  Endnotes

  Photograph and Map Credits

  Index

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  ON BRIGHT MORNINGS, Jerry watched the sunlight trace a path across his floor. Its transit always proved brief, lasting just the fleeting moments rays could angle through the iron bars of his cell’s lone window. When the patch of light disappeared, he turned to the cockroaches, ants, and occasional rats that scurried across his floor; their movements brought his static world rare variety. He silently observed mosquitoes alight on the sill, on the walls, and on his arms. Sometimes, he found energy to swat them away. Other times, he’d passively watch them suck their fill. If he squashed their bloated bodies, his own blood would splatter across his arm, leg, or whatever body part the mosquito had chosen for its meal. Blood would mingle with perspiration. He’d wipe up the mess with a dirty sleeve.

  The temperature rose as the sun crossed the sky and stoked the Southeast Asian humidity. The hot air inside the walls hardly ever stirred; it was so thick he sometimes had trouble inhaling. He sipped his ration of water frugally, knowing the cup had to last most of the day. The ration never could replace what he sweated out, but he somehow managed. He moved as little as possible. He spent most days lying on a mat atop a raised concrete sleeping platform. The leg stocks at the platform’s end reminded him of the punishment that typically accompanied upholding his sacred Code and refusing to submit to his captors’ will. His ankles had spent time in the stocks before. When a man’s honor is all he has left, he does not surrender it easily.

  Jerry could only control what he said or wrote. The prison’s cadre of guards and officers, the Camp Authority, governed everything else. His existence did not seem his own. Only the Camp Authority determined who and what passed through the padlocked door into his little room. They brought the greasy soup he had to eat. They brought him scraps of toilet paper; they dictated when he could bathe or empty his stinking latrine bucket. Worst, they opened the peephole at will, spying on him as if he were a lion in a zoo—an old grizzled lion, at that, he thought. And he knew their methods could best his willpower. If they wanted him to talk, to confess, they eventually succeeded. But never without a fight from their prisoner.

  He owned nothing. The scant personal items in the room—the porcelain cup, ragged clothes, bamboo sleeping mat, and washcloth—were all issued. Guards called the scraps he collected in his cell, in the courtyard, and in the latrine contraband. A scavenged nail might become a prized possession until he’d lose it during an inevitable cell inspection. Yet, for those moments, harboring something forbidden gave him a soaring sense of victory. Most moments just brought silence, melancholy, and an unchanging view of four drab concrete walls, a filthy concrete floor, and a plaster ceiling lit day and night by a dim bulb.

  The sounds drifting over the big wall outside and through his window reminded him that life went on for everyone else. The soft chatter of merchants, the grunt of trucks shifting gears, the crunch of tires on dusty pavement all signaled the progression of life beyond his tiny, sequestered world. Life for Jerry drifted more toward simple existence than anything resembling the previous life he remembered. Although after interminable months locked away, he found himself doubting those memories. Was the life he recalled really his? What was real? What was just concocted by his desperate imagination?

  The world he’d formerly known had, from his perspective, stopped spinning on July 18, 1965; he knew that much. Now, nearly one year later, he had little knowledge of that world. He couldn’t trust the news passed along by the Camp Authority or the propaganda broadcasts piped into his cell. Yet he puzzled over what he did hear about the war and politics at home in the United States. He wondered if his family, friends, and shipmates even knew he was still alive. He’d begun to doubt he’d ever see them again.

  A full year had passed since he last hugged his wife and seven children. He could still picture them in the front yard, framed by May flowers—he was sure it was May, May 1965—as he left for a deployment to the South China Sea. He’d promised he’d be home for Christmas. He sailed eastward aboard the aircraft carrier USS Independence, transiting the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Indian oceans to arrive off the coast of North Vietnam. Just one day before assuming command of his squadron, he’d lost his aircraft, been forced to eject, and wound up imprisoned in Hanoi, the enemy’s capital. He spent Christmas alone, trying to picture his family opening presents without him. He hoped his youngest children would remember their father; he hoped his wife would wait for him.

  To his family, he was becoming a memory. To the American military, he had become a prisoner of war. To the North Vietnamese, he was a war criminal. They constantly reminded him his trial was near; he would pay for crimes committed against innocents during an undeclared war. To himself, he remained an American naval officer, true to his Code. But he’d begun to wonder: Could his enemy strip that away too?

  When evening came, he listened to the flop of sandals as guards left the grim corridors of cellblocks and went home, went to dinner, went somewhere of their choosing to live their lives. Perhaps they’d see their families, drink with friends, or simply read a book. Their leaving offered Jerry another reminder of these things denied him.

  Rat-tat-a-tat-tat.

  He heard the faint sound of knocking. His spirits lifted. He knew another American was nearby. With guards gone, they could communicate.

  Rat-tat-a-tat-tat. It came again. It was the old five-beat “shave-and-a-haircut” jingle.

  Jerry swung his wasted body to the floor and knelt near the wall. He placed one end of his drinking cup to his ear and the open end to the wall. He rapped his knuckles twice. Tat-tat—“two bits”—he tapped in reply. Two American prisoners of war had, in code, just reassured each other they were not alone, at least not tonight.

  He learned Air Force ace Robbie Risner now occupied the adjacent cell. Thank God Risner knew him as Jerry, not Jeremiah as his captors called him. That small comforting knowledge restored a measure of humanity to his life; he was with a friend.

  Jerry brought a dilemma to Risner. The commandant of the prison, a man the Americans called “Cat,” had told Jerry that the next day, May 2, 1966, he would speak to a reporter. Cat demanded Jerry comply. He demanded Jerry parrot the North Vietnamese perspective. More torture would accompany any refusal, deviation, or especially any misbehavior on air. Jerry had been through the ropes—quite literally—enough to know the sincerity of the threat.

  Via coded taps, he explained the situation to Risner. What should he do? Should he go? Should he cooperate? Should he continue to resist?

  When Jerry joined the US Navy, he’d sworn an oath never to make disloyal statements, never to visit dishonor upon his fellow servicemen, never to say more than the minimum to any foreign captors. Yet he feared more torture would kill him. How could he abide by the Code and survive? How could he turn this circumstance to his advantage? He and Risner tapped back and forth. After a period of deep thought, Jerry ta
pped, “I’ll go, and blow it wide open.”

  He and Risner offered a prayer together. Jerry signed off by tapping code for G-B-U: God bless you, a deeply meaningful term among the American prisoners of war. Then he lay down for his 288th night in North Vietnam’s Ha L Prison. He fell asleep, confident in himself and his plan.

  The next morning, a guard entered his cell and ordered him out. Jerry hated himself for the flicker of gratitude he felt as the guard released him from his confines. Anything beat the crushing monotony and loneliness of that infernal chamber—even the presence of an enemy. He left the cell and entered the courtyard. He quietly relished the open space around him. Then he focused on his mission. His shuffling steps gained purpose. The prisoner became a man once again.

  Guards loaded their captive into an idling jeep. The gears engaged and Jerry Denton rolled toward a rendezvous with a foreign journalist who would unwittingly broadcast his secret message. The message Jerry sent would become one of the most ingenious and perhaps most desperate communications ever sent via television. He prayed someone in America would notice.

  JERRY STOOD AT HIS SHIPBOARD desk and slipped off his US Naval Academy ring. “Class of 1947,” it read. Nineteen years and two months had passed since the ceremony where he jubilantly tossed his hat into the air with his classmates and became a naval officer. Between his graduation and this day, Sunday, July 18, 1965, he had married his high school sweetheart and fathered seven children. In just two days, he would realize his dream of commanding an aircraft squadron at war.

  He placed his ring in a drawer. Next to the ring, he placed his wedding band and a patch from his uniform. The patch read “CDR Jeremiah Denton” and bore the anchor and wings that marked him as a naval aviator. Commander Denton always removed these personal items before a mission. Doing so served as humble acknowledgment that a remote possibility of being shot down did, in fact, exist. No naval aviator, especially a veteran commander like Jerry, ever truly thought an enemy missile could catch him. On a ship, Jerry Denton was a good officer. In the air, he was exceptional. Like most military aviators, he felt best in a cockpit. A thrill ran through him as he closed his cabin door and set out on the day’s mission. He had no doubt that he would put his rings back on when he returned that afternoon.

  Jerry’s brown boots paced down narrow passageways of the aircraft carrier USS Independence. In the navy, only aviators wore brown boots; everyone else’s were black. Jerry’s distinctive boots were part of the trappings that built the spirit and ego of a naval aviator. These men were special.

  The soft hum of machinery and hiss of ventilation helped him relax and focus on the mission ahead: another bombing run over North Vietnam. He walked the familiar route to the flight deck, climbed the usual ladders, and reached the last bulkhead. He opened the hatch.

  Noise, fumes, sunshine, and heat immediately assailed him. Jerry shoved on his helmet and pulled down its dark visor. He still squinted against the brightness of midday in the South China Sea. The summer sun roasted steel, concrete, rubber, and men on the expansive four-acre flight deck, which felt conspicuously like a frying pan. Sunlight gleamed off the blue water, white aircraft, and glass canopies. His helmet provided little defense against the cacophony of jet noise. The moment a steam-driven catapult sent an aircraft howling off the bow, another aircraft would land near the ship’s stern. It would ram its engines to full power in case its tailhook failed to snag one of four arresting cables strung across the deck. The air trembled with deafening noise.

  Heavy exhaust made the humid air thicker still; air crew wore wet bandanas to help them breathe. Jerry felt sweat break out instantly; he noticed heat seeping through his boots. He hastened to his A-6 Intruder, nimbly weaving between taxiing aircraft, jet blasts, and whirling propellers; surviving on a flight deck was a vital art he’d had to master. Jerry knew one could be killed more easily on the deck than in the air.

  Jerry arrived safely at his assigned aircraft from Attack Squadron 75, nicknamed the Sunday Punchers. He saw crewmen securing fourteen Mark 82 500-pound bombs to the Intruder’s wings. To bear such a load, engineers had made the all-weather attack aircraft a big one. It weighed more than 60,000 pounds—30 tons. It stood sixteen feet tall. At six feet, Jerry’s head barely reached the middle of the big plane’s two distinctive gaping air intakes, which made the jet look like an oversized walrus missing its tusks.

  Next to the plane, Jerry felt small. In the cockpit, he felt powerful. No average pilot could handle a beast as large and fast as an Intruder, fly it off a moving ship, then land it back on a ship in any weather, day or night. In fact, Jerry and his fellow navy fliers didn’t even call themselves pilots. They were better. They were naval aviators—air warriors—and they were invincible.

  Jerry and his bombardier-navigator, Bill Tschudy, conducted their preflight checks. Then Jerry gingerly worked the throttles to taxi the Intruder toward the bow, past the ship’s massive superstructure, which bore a white “62,” marking Independence as America’s sixty-second aircraft carrier. A series of air crewmen in brightly colored shirts, goggles, and headphones guided Jerry to the catapult. Several men locked the Intruder into the mechanism that would momentarily drag the plane down the deck and sling it off the bow as if it weighed nothing.

  Jerry Denton sat at the tip of a mighty spear. In his aircraft, he became an instrument of foreign policy. All the efforts of the United States Navy ultimately went toward launching him from this ship so he could drop bombs on an enemy target. Countless instructors had spent long hours training him. Veteran captains commanded their destroyers, submarines, and frigates to protect Jerry’s aircraft carrier. Every man aboard Independence played a role in launching this heavy-laden plane off the deck with Jerry at the controls. Jerry and his fellow aviators existed at the very center of a loud, expensive, and highly dangerous enterprise.

  Many flight instructors warned students their aircraft would try to kill them; pilots were always battling both their machines and physics. Especially in the 1950s and 1960s, they often lost. During Jerry’s early career, longtime aviators had a 23 percent chance of dying in a crash; nearly half could expect an emergency ejection. Yet these men each felt in total control and ascribed any crash to a mistake. Jerry Denton didn’t make mistakes. He always came home.

  From his cockpit, Jerry looked to his left and saw a yellow-shirted officer spinning his hand in the air, signaling for full power. Jerry pushed the throttle forward. Behind him, his engines thundered. The Intruder bucked against the locked catapult. Jerry checked his rudder, elevators, and ailerons—the surfaces that controlled his aircraft’s flight. All functioned perfectly. He gave a quick salute to the officer: He was ready. Jerry gripped the yoke with his left hand and the throttle with his right. The officer dropped to one knee and pointed his hand down the deck, giving the signal to launch. The catapult engaged. It yanked the Intruder forward and, three seconds later, slung it off the deck at 150 knots, or 170 miles per hour.

  Four months earlier, in March 1965, the US military launched Operation Rolling Thunder, an air campaign designed to drop so many bombs on North Vietnam that its government would cease supporting Communist insurgents in South Vietnam. The operation was part of America’s strategy to support South Vietnam and contain Communism, the political system the American government perceived as the nation’s greatest threat. The administration of President Lyndon Johnson believed in the Domino Theory—that Communism would topple democratic governments like dominoes, one after another, expanding the influence of China and the Soviet Union country by country across Southeast Asia and the globe. Granted, the government supported by the United States in South Vietnam was neither democratic nor popular, but at least it wasn’t under the influence of Communist powers. Vietnam had become the latest proxy conflict in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union.

  Jerry had flown more than twenty Rolling Thunder missions since arriving off the North Vietnamese coast in June 1965, and he grew more frustrated with e
ach assignment. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara permitted bombing only of certain targets as they tried to deter and intimidate North Vietnam without escalating the conflict into an all-out war. They often selected targets like parking lots, bridges, and depots instead of strategic bases, factories, and ports. Jerry and his squadron mates felt they routinely risked their lives for little gain. Thus far, Rolling Thunder had not deterred the government of Communist Party Chairman H Ch Minh in Hanoi. North Vietnam continued to support Communist guerrillas—known as Việt Cộng—in South Vietnam. By the end of 1965, America would have committed nearly two hundred thousand troops to the growing conflict.

  From his cockpit, Jerry could see little difference between North and South Vietnam. His shadow flicked over flooded fields of rice in North Vietnam that looked just like paddies south of the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ—the no-man’s-land that separated the two countries just south of the seventeenth parallel. He quickly found the M River and followed it inland toward his target, the Than Ha Bridge, which the North Vietnamese used to pump supplies south to the Việt Cộng.

  “Rainbow flight from Rainbow leader,” Jerry radioed to the twenty-seven aircraft arrayed behind him. “Target at ten o’clock … Rainbow leader rolling in.”

  Jerry pushed the yoke forward and nosed the Intruder toward the bridge and nearby battery of antiaircraft artillery. His bombardier-navigator, Bill Tschudy, readied the ordnance. Suddenly, an explosion shook the aircraft. Flames and smoke enveloped its wing. Warning lights flashed; the radio went dead. Another hit. The plane jerked and rolled right. Jerry stood up in his seat and jammed the left rudder pedal with such force that he snapped a tendon in his leg. Adrenaline masked the pain. The plane kept rolling. The engines stopped responding. Jerry lost control. He feared only seconds remained until the aircraft combusted.

  When the Intruder righted itself momentarily, Jerry punched Tschudy in the shoulder: Time to eject, he signaled. Both men pulled their ejection handles. Tiny charges blew off the canopy, and a second later, Jerry and Bill rocketed upward in their ejection seats. They left the air-conditioned quiet of the cockpit and entered a hot cloudless sky boiling with explosions and alive with noise. Jerry tumbled through the air until his parachute deployed. He hung limply beneath a canvas dome and looked about. He watched his crippled aircraft flying away trailing thick smoke. He saw Bill in the distance beneath an open chute. Below him, the lightly forested ground, rapidly filling with infantry, came closer. Falling from one world into another, Jerry felt like Alice in Wonderland.