News-Info-Alerts

Re: Prisoners of War Endured

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: August 16, 2002

"Prisoners of war endured

By: CANDICE GRIMM, Staff Writer August 16, 2002

PIGEON FORGE - In 1998, a prisoner of war museum opened at the Andersonville National Historical Site in Andersonville, Ga., the site of the Civil War POW camp in which 12,920 Union soldiers died during a 14-month period.

It's a fitting site for a museum which not only tells of the horrors endured by American prisoners of all wars, but gives a glimpse through replicas of the conditions in which POWs of all wars were held.

In a Celebrate Freedom! presentation Wednesday morning at the Pigeon Forge Holiday Inn, Alan Marsh, cultural resources specialist at Andersonville, told an audience of 50 or so about the fate of POWs in Vietnam - America's most controversial war.

Marsh said the first Americans were captured in 1954 in South Vietnam. They were held three weeks and interrogated before being released.

During the entire Vietnam War there were 771 POWs, 60 civilians and 2,585 missing in action. Historically, Marsh said, America has done more than any other country to get back its POWs.

Marsh explained that a succession of foreign rulers over hundreds of years allowed Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh to capitalize on the Vietnamese hatred of foreigners, resulting in the deplorable treatment of POWs.

The death rate in South Vietnamese POW camps was 20 percent, compared with 5 percent in North Vietnam, because of the prisoners being moved around so much, having little food, disease, injuries during interrogation and the pressure to confess and to sign anti-war propaganda.

Marsh told that most POWs were pilots who had been shot down and were held in camps that prisoners nicknamed The Hanoi Hilton, The Plantation, Briar Patch, The Zoo, Alcatraz and others. Held longest was Floyd Thompson , who endured nine years; and the second longest held was Edward Alvarez, who was a captive for eight years.

African Americans were singled out for abuse because of prejudicial treatment at home that the Vietnamese felt might make them agree with their captors and make them sign statements against America.

Maj. Fred Cherry was the highest ranking black POW. He was shot down in 1965 and spent 57 continuous weeks in solitary confinement as well as being tortured for 97 straight days.

Treatment of American POWs in Vietnam was exposed in a number of ways, one of which was the drawings of journalist Mike McGrath. Marsh displayed slides of two McGrath drawings depicting methods of torture.

The world also learned about the treatment of our POWs when the Vietnamese put Capt. Jeremiah Denton before their cameras in 1966. While Denton was denying poor treatment with his words, he was using his eyes to blink the word TORTURE in Morse code. Another propaganda scheme which backfired on the Vietnamese was when Cmdr. Dick Stratton was filmed bowing first to a panel of men, but going on to bow to the blank walls beside and behind him. The American public took his actions to be those of a man gone insane during captivity.

Another form of torture was that the men were forced to listen to loudspeakers broadcasting propaganda five hours a day, with the propaganda sometimes coming from Americans like Jane Fonda.

Marsh quoted former POW Pat Mendoza as having said that our freedom as Americans gives us the right to disagree with our government, but those who disagree should not be in the country of our enemies and be associated with enemy troops.

Marsh said after POWs were forced to listen to Fonda's statements, they had to sign a statement saying they agreed with her and if they didn't, they were beaten, and some died.

The light at the end of the tunnel began to be seen in 1969 when Ho Chi Minh died and treatment of POWs improved slightly.

A 1970 raid staged to gain freedom for POWs in Son Tay Prison was thought to have failed because the Vietnamese had removed all the prisoners. However, Marsh said the raid scared the North Vietnamese because Americans had come to get their POWs. As a result, most POWs were taken to Hanoi where they had contact with each other and that contact actually provided a huge moral booster.

A 1972 bombing by America provided another moral booster to POWs who could hear the bombs being dropped and historians believe it was the catalyst which brought the release of POWs in 1973 - Operation Homecoming.

Marsh ended his presentation by saying, "Most of us don't know what it's like to lose our freedom for a day, much less nine years.

"That's because veterans have paid the price for us - some came home, some did not. Their sacrifices are the reason why we can truly celebrate our freedom."
A display of POW memorabilia and items from World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War is also available near the lobby in the Holiday Inn.

Candice Grimm can be reached at cgrimm@themountainpress.com.


©The Mountain Press 2002 "