CHAPTER 2

THE LONG LOOK BACK

PRISONERS IN PROFILE

Learning Objective: To develop an awareness ofthe commonalities of spiritual development of those inconfinement and their capabilities to use thisdevelopment to survive.

The captivity experiences of Americans inVietnam constitute the closest available model fromwhich events and lessons of wartime imprisonmentmay be drawn. If all 651 accounts of captivity could betold one after the other, 651 distinct and highlypersonal stories of survival would emerge. Some ofthese stories have been published in written form,while others have been related to dozens of fascinatedaudiences. Regardless of the form, each prisoner’sstory concludes with a consciously developed, clearlystated “lessons of life.” A small sampling of thesestories, with their associated “lessons,” follows.

CDR TIMOTHY SULLIVAN, USN, (RET)

Commander Sullivan was shot down over NorthVietnam in 1968 while a LTJG serving as a RadarIntercept Officer (RIO) in a fighter squadron. He wasimprisoned for five and a half years, during which timehe was moved from prison to prison. He was 24 yearsold at the time of capture, and 29 years old at the time ofhis release in 1973.

Upon capture, and in the weeks immediatelyfollowing, Commander Sullivan felt, primarily,disgust and hatred for his captors. Initially, at least,these strong feelings were enough to keep him going;but eventually, he discovered that hate could notsustain him indefinitely. Over the long haul, he reliedupon a combination of factors to help himself survive.While he noticed that one overriding factor, such asreligion, or patriotism, or family, carried some of theprisoners through captivity, he found that his ownsense of hope alternated among these factors at varioustimes. First, as his feelings of hatred dissipated, hissense of and appreciation for Navy tradition andhistory increased. He figured that he was not the firstAmerican to be captured, and he was probably notgoing to be the last.

The realization that he was part of a long line ofpeople who had made sacrifices for their countrybecame important to him. Second, he thought a greatdeal about his parents, and discovered that thesethoughts of his family helped sustain him. Third, hisreligious faith gave him a way of understanding theuniverse, i.e., why things were the way they were.Because it is one of life’s extreme circumstances,captivity requires some way of making sense ofsituations that defy reasonable attribution and problemsolving.

In Commander Sullivan’s case, his religious faithcontributed a whole pantheon of values, which, in turn,determined his responses during the particularlystressful times.

What exactly were these values, and where didthey come from? For Commander Sullivan, they werewhat he describes as “basic family values”: how hisfamily taught him about the world, and the people in it.This basic sense of security helped him deal with thegreatest fear he experienced as a POW, the fear of theunknown. The scariest aspect of captivity for him waswhen his captors changed the “game plan,” after he hadarrived at some knowledge of his limitations, and howfar they could push him.

Immediately after he was shot down, he was placedin the same cell with an Air Force Colonel who was invery bad shape, both physically and mentally.Determined to resist his captors at any cost, this manwas in almost a full body cast, which went from oneshoulder, around his ribs, and down one leg.Understanding the “game plan” meant realizing that ifthe captors wanted information badly enough, theywould, eventually, be able to obtain it. Resisting at allcost was, for the vast majority of the prisoners, not anoption. The ability to face the realistic limitations ofresistance, and to experience forgiveness from one’sfellow prisoners when one’s limits were exceeded, hadto draw heavily from an essential and deeply rootedsense of self-esteem and personal worth.

Over time, Commander Sullivan has found that heintellectualizes his captivity experience more, and thathe has become more detached from it emotionally. Theinevitable distance which time has placed between him

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and that period of his life has, however, contributed theinsight he needs in order to direct one of the Navy’ssites for SERE training. As he observes class afterclass of students experience the hard lessons ofevasion, capture, and interrogation, he has come to asignificant conclusion: what individuals need in orderto cope with such a situation, they have acquired longbefore they join the Navy. Those who have neverreflected on their life and their values prior to SERESchool will discover the need for that reflection veryquickly. Commander Sullivan knows this well. Hewas there for five and a half years.

CAPT JAMES A. MULLIGAN, USN (RET.)

Captain Mulligan had served in the Navy for 24years when he was shot down over North Vietnam on20 March 1966. Stationed aboard the USSENTERPRISE as Executive Officer of VA-36, he wasflying his A-4 Skyhawk just south of Vinh, when hewas struck by a Surface to Air Missile (SAM), and wasforced to eject. He was immediately captured by NorthVietnamese regulars, and then transported to Hoa LoPrison in Hanoi, the infamous Hanoi Hilton. As one ofthe more senior Navy POWs, he endured torture,abuse, and miserable conditions for nearly seven years,until his release in February 1973.

What prepared him to survive a captivityexperience, which included 42 months of solitaryconfinement? In response to that question, CaptainMulligan cites the process of receiving a liberaleducation, i.e., undergoing the intellectual preparationnecessary to find out who he was. He recalls that thefirst time he ever heard the Code of Conduct, hethought to himself, “Why do we need this? Why is thisnecessary? Isn’t this basic to who and what we are?Doesn’t everybody know this?” The answer, as hediscovered during his years in the Navy was, no, noteverybody does unders tand what in tegr i ty,commitment, and loyalty mean. For Captain Mulligan,imprisonment in North Vietnam was a supreme test ofthose values embodied in the Code of Conduct, valuesof right and wrong. Captivity was an experience inwhich a prisoner had to live off of whatever was in hishead. When it was all over, Captain Mulligan was ableto recall some of what he felt on the day of release, asdescribed in his book, The Hanoi Commitment:

This was the only good day I would ever havein North Vietnam, and it would only becomegood when I boarded that plane and flew out ofthis damn country. I had spent 2522 days hereand I hated every damn one of them. They

were firmly etched deep in my mind. Icouldn’t forget them even if I wanted to. Theywere as much a part of me as an arm or a leg. Inone way I had been a loser for all of those days,yet in another way I had much to be thankfulabout. For out of the miseries had comestrength; out of the suffering, compassion; outof hate, love. If nothing else, I would comehome a better man than when I entered there.Life would be more meaningful in everyaspect from now on. Freedom, integrity, moralcharacter had new and stronger meanings forme. I knew that I could face the future withfaith and hope. I had learned firsthand that inlife’s darkest hours in Hanoi, God’s grace hadshone down upon me. In my heart I knew thatduring my captivity I had lost all the battles,but had won the war because I had done mybest. I had paid the price. I had day by day putmyself on the line for what I believed in.Alone and in solitary, when no one knew andno one cared, I and the others had fought thegood fight. If nothing else, I cared, and theycared. There was no easy way. When the chipswere down we did what we had to and we paidthe price with physical and mental pain. Nowthat it was over, we could go home with headsheld high. We would walk erect as free mentaking our rightful place in a free world. Theman who appreciates freedom the most is thefree man who has become a slave. We wereleaving Hanoi, slaves no more.

Captain Mulligan recalls that the greatestchallenge he faced during his imprisonment was theprocess of living out his convictions and beliefs aboutwho he was in the face of the loss of self-respect. Priorto captivity, he had experienced and understood divineforgiveness; he also knew of human forgiveness; but hedid not really know, nor had he fully experienced,personal forgiveness. Survival in the dehumanizingenvironment of Hoa Lo Prison was criticallydependent on his ability to forgive himself, and thencome back to fight another day.

Indeed, it was self-forgiveness and inner fortitudethat enabled the POWs, as a unit, to win a moral war in1971, even though victory came at the expense of ahard won battle for group living. Following Christmasof 1970, the North Vietnamese began housingprisoners together in rooms of 45 to 50 each. For manyof the prisoners, this move marked the first time theyhad ever met one another face to face. Nevertheless,they were willing to risk small cells and solitary

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confinement once again for the sake of the right toworship. As Captain Mulligan recounts what was laterreferred to as the “Church Riot,” the Vietnamese“became upset” when each room conducted Sundayworship services. Apparently, group worship posedsuch a threat, perhaps because of the evident spirit ofunity that resulted, that all such services weresubsequently forbidden.

As the senior POWs met to discuss what actionthey should take, most favored the politically “smart”course: not making an issue of the worship services,lest the Vietnamese retaliate by moving everyone backinto small or solitary cells. Captain Mulligan took theopposite position, that making a moral stand on thefreedom of religion took precedence over politicalstrategy. In the overall assessment of what would belost and what would be gained, he concluded, “Wedon’t have a choice.” The agreement of the group wasunanimous. Because he and the other prisoners wereconfronted daily with time slipping away, time whichthey were missing with their families, especially theirchildren, Captain Mulligan and others developed theirown special responses to the question, “If you had justfive minutes to spend with your kids, what would youpass on to them?” His answer was:

1. Live a life of order, i.e., as to the priority ofthings.

2. Live a life of discipline, i.e., absoluteself-discipline to do what is right, and not to dowhat is wrong.

3. Live a life of moderation, i.e., there is plenty togo around — share the wealth!

As for himself, what are the lessons which 42months in solitary confinement gave him the time tothink through and assess?

• With God all things are possible (Matthew19:20).

• Permissiveness is the corruption of Freedom.

• Anarchy is the corruption of Democracy.

• Immorality is the corruption of Morality.

A free democratic moral society has the right aswell as the obligation to resist the incursions of thoseperversions, which would lead to its destruction. Afree society requires order, discipline, and moderation.Thus it follows that rights and freedoms demandcorresponding duties and obligations from all citizens.

Man is an imperfect creature living in an imperfectworld but he should always strive to be better than he is.In this struggle he should never, never, never, give up!

Jim Mulligan May 1984

CDR GEORGE COKER, USN (RET.)

Commander Coker was stationed aboard the USSCONSTELLATION with VA-65 when he was shotdown over North Vietnam on 27 August 1966. As oneof the “early shoot downs,” he observed somedifferences between himself and those prisoners withwhom he came into contact after 1970. What did heobserve, and what did survival as a prisoner of warconstitute for him? Commander Coker recalls thatthose who functioned best in captivity were strong inthree areas of belief: God, country, and family. Whilethe enemy, he found, could repeatedly attack one’scountry, and might attempt to manipulate one’sbehavior regarding God and family, there was nothingthey could do to change one’s faith in these areas, if onetruly believed in their efficacy. The enemy had no wayof proving or disproving belief.

Consequently, for Commander Coker, it becameimportant to separate what it meant to “do well,” fromwhat it meant to “survive,” as a prisoner. “Doing well”meant doing what was morally correct. The capabilityto make morally correct decisions derived, for him,from:

• The Code of Conduct, which provided a quickwrap-up, a reminder, of moral values;

• A sense of duty to one’s country;

• His basic upbringing and nurturing set of values;

• One’s training as a military member;

• Remembrance of past ceremonial observances,such as parades and changes of command; and

• The Senior Ranking Officer (SRO) concept, i.e.,a respect for rank.

“Surviving,” on the other hand, merely meantphysical survival or existence. It was possible to “hangon” physically, without behaving morally, or doingwhat was morally correct. In order to continue to fightthe war in Hanoi, and to win, it was imperative to “dowell.”

Commander Coker observed that the “latershootdowns,” those captured after 1970, oftenreflected a “qualified/modified resistance” posture, adifference in attitude that undoubtedly reflected the

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gradual shift in cultural values taking place in thiscountry at the time. For POWs, who were living inconditions where the external trappings of culture hadbeen stripped away, and for whom values and attitudeswere all that was left, this was a particularly noticeableand disturbing difference. The “modified” posturemaintained that not everything is worth suffering for, ifconceding a few principles here and there meantreceiving more humane treatment at the hands of one’scaptors. Why knowingly subject oneself to abuse inconditions which were already miserable by anystandard? The politically smart course was toaccommodate to the enemy at certain points in order toensure that one would, in the end, make it home.

The case for expediency, however, was challengedby those who valued “doing well” over merely“surviving,” a challenge which often stood in directopposition to one’s basic instincts of fear andself-preservation. As justification for his moralconviction to resist the enemy, Commander Cokerraised the question, “Why should I deny what I believein because I’m afraid? My decision is to be what I am.It’s up to the other person to decide what to do aboutthat.” When measured against a standard of moralcharacter, Commander Coker learned, the case forexpediency was found wanting. At least in Hanoi,moral expediency would not have won the war.

CAPT GILES R. NORRINGTON, USN (RET.)

When he was shot down over North Vietnam on theSunday afternoon of 5 May 1968, Captain Norringtonrecalls, he could not have foreseen that he would bespending the next four years, ten months, and nine daysof his life as a prisoner of war. Even less likely could hehave known that, during that period, he wouldexperience not only the toughest of times, but alsosome good times, when he would grow as a person, andcome into touch with himself and his comrades. Uponrepatriation in 1973, at which time he was debriefed for29 and a half hours on his nearly five years as a POW,Captain Norrington found that talking about whathappened was an extremely helpful, purgingexperience. Since that initial debrief, he has continuedto refine his perspective on how he and his fellowprisoners coped with seemingly unsurvivableconditions.

The context for captivity, he explains, originatesfrom a series of traumas, beginning with physiologicaltrauma. Most of those shot down arrived at the prisoncamps wounded, either from injuries incurred as aresult of damage done to the airplane, or from injuries

sustained during ejection. However, physical woundswere only one part of the picture. One’s entire systemexperienced an all-encompassing shock from thedisorienting effects of shootdown, and the humiliationof capture. Thus, in addition to the physical pain ofbroken legs, arms, ribs or, as in Captain Norrington’scase, debilitating burns, the dehumanizing effect ofbeing paraded through villages where NorthVietnamese were allowed to vent the full extent of theirhatred and anger at the prisoner, resulted intremendous psychological shock. “Males”, observesCaptain Norrington, “as conditioned by their familiesand the demands of society not to fail, and whenoccasionally they do fail at something, are ill equippedto deal with that failure. Further, although aviators areused to teamwork in flight, squadron or Air Wingoperations, they are in large measure, independentcreatures ill-prepared for the dependence that POWslearn is the very essence of their emotional survival.Yet, the capacity to acknowledge failure, the faith inoneself to bounce back, and the ability to rely on andsupport others, were critically important instincts andskills for POWs to develop.”

The result of these personal and interpersonalchanges was that, as a group, the prisoners becamemore than brothers, they became very much like“mothers” to one another. Like a mother, they nurturedeach other, both physically, as when a fellow prisonerwas in poor health or badly injured; and emotionally, aswhen a fellow prisoner’s guilt and remorse over hisinability to endure torture at all costs requiredconfession and forgiveness. In order to fill, literally,years of space creatively, and as a way of escaping themisery of the present, one simply had to get to know theother person. Communication, in which one waswilling to be vulnerable, was essential, not for the sakeof exchanging information, but for emotional contact.

As he recounts the lessons learned during thoseyears, Captain Norrington cites a greater appreciationfor those around him, and an enhanced awareness thatall resources — one’s own, one’s country’s, and one’scomrades’ — belong to God. Through this awareness,he discovered gifts and tools he never knew he had,tools which enabled even the wounds of captivity toheal.

COL JERRY MARVEL, USMC (RET.)“LAST FLIGHT” 27 MAY 95

Colonel Marvel was stationed with VMAW-533out of Chu Lai when he was shot down on the night of24 February 1968. An A-6 pilot with 12 years in the

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Marine Corps, he was on his second tour in Vietnam.In the process of ejecting from the airplane, he brokethree vertebrae. For the first 18 months of captivity, hewas in solitary confinement. The only emotion heseemed able to experience at first was anger, and hespent a great deal of time wondering, “Why me?” Oneday, he received an answer to his question: he heard thesound of an A-6 being shot down, and he realized thathe was alive. Now that the initial shock and angerassociated with capture had begun to dissipate, whatwas going to enable him to survive?

It was a strong sense of pride in himself whichbecame the principal survival factor for ColonelMarvel. As he recalls, he was determined not to doanything to disgrace himself, his family, or the legacyof morality and integrity which he hoped to pass on.However, he knew that he could not have cultivated thissense of pride apart from his relationships with otherprisoners. Long lasting and unique in their quality andcloseness, these relationships provided him duringcaptivity with the emotional grounding he needed tocontinue the fight.

One of the greatest challenges he faced wasadhering to the Code of Conduct. As a function of histraining, he was aware of the kind of treatment hemight expect from the enemy, and he was familiar withsurvival techniques; but he was not particularlyconversant with the Code of Conduct. As did the otherprisoners, he rapidly discovered that he could not makeit on the “Big Four” alone: name, rank, service number,and date of birth. His captors had a way of prolongingtorture to the point that the prisoner would almost, butnot quite, pass out. They were professionalextortionists, and their job was to extract informationfor intelligence and propaganda purposes, one way oranother.

Eventually, Colonel Marvel recalls, most of theprisoners became adept at knowing what kind of lie theenemy was most likely to believe, and at what pointduring the interrogation session they were most likelyto believe it. It was a mistake to give up information toosoon, because the enemy was suspicious of an easymark; but at some point, each one needed toacknowledge that he had reached his limit. This way ofmanipulating the enemy was about the only recourseavailable. Nevertheless, Colonel Marvel found itdifficult for his sense of pride to concede even the lies,for he still felt as though he had disgraced himself andhis country. Being a prisoner of war appeared toconstitute the quintessential “no-win” situation.

During his first few months of captivity, thepredominant impression he had was, “No one has anyidea I’m here,” and this further aggravated his sense ofloneliness and defeat. Once he became a part of thecommunications network, however, he realized howmuch his mind was capable of exaggerating anddistorting reality, and concurrently, how crucial it wasfor him, especially in solitary confinement, todiscipline his mind. As a result, he rigorouslyscheduled his time in such a way that he devoted onehour each to such functions as, some type of physicalexercise, a topic of study, a subject for reflection, or aproject for planning. As many of the prisoners who hadwives and children back home had to do, ColonelMarvel learned to discipline himself to restrict histhoughts about his family, lest he enter a downwardspiral of despair from which there was no way out.Each prisoner was emotionally vulnerable in adifferent area of life. Whatever area this was –– and formost, it was family –– it had to be disciplined.

“At the time,” recalls Colonel Marvel, “we thoughtwe were getting passed by, that we were living in avacuum,” but this was not so: “We gained more fromthat experience than we could ever know.” What werethe lessons that captivity in enemy territory could teacha community of military men? Colonel Marvelanswers, “We had to work with each other, we had toget things done, and we had to cooperate.” These, headds, have been timeless lessons, not by any meansrestricted to survival under adverse, hostile conditions,but applicable to any job or family situation. Mostimportantly, they were lessons which relied heavilyupon, and reinforced, personal pride and honor.

CAPT KENNETH COSKEY, USN (RET.)

Captain Coskey was Commanding Officer ofVA-85, stationed aboard the USS AMERICA, when hewas shot down over North Vietnam on 6 September1968. Looking back at his four and a half years ofcaptivity, he recalls that, at the beginning, time seemedlike an eternity. How did he get through this initialperiod, and what changes in perspective did heexperience during the years that followed?

Contributing to his initial shock at the point ofcapture were three factors: physical pain anddeprivation; interrogation; and the fact that threeweeks elapsed from the time he was shot down, to hisarrival in Hanoi. Probably as a result of this ratherlengthy period preceding actual imprisonment, aperiod which most of the other prisoners endured aswell, almost two months went by before Captain

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Coskey reached a state of acceptance of hiscircumstances. He even remembers how reaching thatstate of acceptance felt, and when it happened. On oneparticular morning, he woke up, looked outside, andnoticed that the sun was shining, and that it was abeautiful day. At that moment, he recalls, “I knew Iwas going to make this thing.” Communication withother prisoners helped him immeasurably in reachingthis point of acceptance. He also found himself turningto prayer as a way of releasing what he could notcontrol, from the most major concern, e.g., the welfareof his family, to the seemingly mundane, e.g., takingcare of a cold.

As months turned into years, the hope that “wewere going to be out of here in six months” became asignificant sustaining factor. During fourteen monthsof solitary confinement, when, from day to day, thefuture extent of prolonged isolation was uncertain,Captain Coskey found that his thoughts werepreoccupied mostly with family. As a way ofdisciplining his mind, which, in solitary confinement,became a necessity, he was able to dredge up all thenames of his grammar school class, and alphabetizethem. Eventually, he was able to recall 50 names fromthose eight years of his life. These periods of disciplinewere interspersed, inevitably, with daydreams aboutescape and freedom.

One period of time during his captivity particularlystands out in Captain Coskey’s memory, not onlybecause he reached a new level of acceptance andunderstanding of his circumstances after he camethrough it, but also because he has never fullyunderstood why it happened. For almost three months,he completely withdrew, not to the point that he wassuicidal, but that he simply did not want tocommunicate with anyone. He did nothing to take careof himself, and did not even bathe when given theopportunity. One day, the guard came in to give him ahair cut, and, discovering that Captain Coskey wascovered with dirt, gave him some soap, and told him to“go take a bath.” Captain Coskey recalls bathing, andbathing, and bathing, as though trying to cleansehimself of “whatever it was.” On both a physical and aspiritual level, that bath marked the termination of aperiod of withdrawal, which he never revisited.

Perhaps the most significant lesson, which CaptainCoskey derived from his years as a prisoner of war, wasthe value of communication. On an informal level,communication with other prisoners contributed aperspective to captivity, which ensured both survivaland growth. However, communication also served an

invaluable function along the formal lines of the chainof command. Juniors’ obedience of seniors, andmutual accountability both up and down the chain ofcommand, enhanced everyone’s ability to keep faithwith one another.

When they heard a fellow American reading apropaganda statement on the camp radio, or when theywere shown signed statements in which their fellowprisoners acknowledged committing criminal actsagainst the North Vietnamese, the adage, “Don’t besurprised at what you see and hear,” took on newmeaning. Captain Coskey realized that, as individuals,they were not just in personal survival situations: theywere together, and they were still in the military. Mostimportant, keeping faith with one’s fellow prisonersensured camp unity, the one feature of the Americanway of life, which the North Vietnamese could notdestroy.

VADM EDWARD H. MARTIN, USN (RET.)

On 9 July 1967, Admiral Martin was making a runon an ammunition site near Hanoi in his A-4 Skyhawk.The previous day, 8 July, he had successfully bombedthe same area, but his squadron, VA-34, of which hewas Executive Officer, was directed to go back, “just tomake sure.” The day he went back, Sunday, 9 July, wasthe day he was shot down.

At the start, Admiral Martin experienced much thesame shock, which other prisoners experienced, as aresult of beatings by both captors and villagers, the“nasty treatment” of initial interrogation, and thephysical trauma associated with ejection. Heparticularly recalls being “dreadfully thirsty.” Uponarrival at Hoa Lo Prison, he endured 30 to 50 days ofrope torture, during which his back and both shoulderswere broken; leg irons; wrist irons; and boils andmosquitoes. Following this ordeal, he recalls thatMajor Chuck Tyler, USAF, was “brought in to clean meup.”

Despite the ordeal, however, Admiral Martin was“determined” that he was “going to beat these people.”To do this, he developed a personal code, whichconsisted of maintaining:

• Absolute trust and faith in God and in His infinitewisdom

• Absolute trust and faith in the President of theUnited States and all those in power

• Absolute trust and faith in your family at home

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• Absolute trust and faith in his fellow prisoners

• Absolute trust and faith in his personal ability towithstand an ordeal and make the best of it

He recalls that each prisoner, in whatever way hecould, had to develop some strength, “something tolean against.” For most, including himself, the Code ofConduct was an essential component for developing astrong personal code: without it, it was much too easyto rationalize a weak resistance posture. The Code, inother words, provided a standard by which to develop aresponse in the face of manipulation by the enemy.

As a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, AdmiralMartin had learned all about humility during his Plebeyear, a lesson that helped him understand his captors’attempts to humiliate him. It was more manipulation,not humiliation, which posed the challenge toresistance. Each prisoner had to learn to “play thegame, and walk a tightrope.” Eventually, if the enemywanted information badly enough, they would find away for the prisoner to give it, and to give it willingly.Violating the Code, which happened daily, was alwaysdone willingly — no one was “brainwashed” — whichis what made it so difficult to forgive oneself.

On the other hand, if information was handed overtoo readily, the enemy would only come back for more.Consequently, there was no way to “win” thepropaganda game: the reality of being a prisonerguaranteed a “no win” scenario. One could, however,in countless small ways, outsmart the enemy,especially by knowing how and when to feed them lies;and could emerge with one’s personal code of honorintact. In such a situation, the key to developing apersonal code was discipline: moral (personal)discipline, service (Navy, Marine Corps) discipline,and the discipline of foundational (social) values.These disciplines enabled at least one man to survive,grow, and emerge the victor through one of life’s mostextreme circumstances.

CAPT GERALD COFFEE, USN (RET.)

One of the first sensations that Captain Coffeerecalls experiencing immediately following his shootdown, was the feeling of floating in a sun-drenchedocean, the sounds of a loudspeaker in the distanceannouncing speedboat rides. For just a few moments,he was back in the San Joaquin Valley, swimming nextto his wife, Bea. Suddenly, she dove beneath thesurface, and seemed to be pulling him down with her.His attempts to free himself were futile, because, forsome reason, his right arm would not move. What kind

of fantasy was this? Where was Bea? What hadbecome of the speedboats, and the amusement park,and the rides?

The shock and resulting disorientation associatedwith shootdown and ejection had temporarily erasedthe grim reality for then –– Lieutenant Jerry Coffee thathe was far from the USS KITTY HAWK, far from hisRA-5C Vigilante aircraft, and far from all hope ofrescue. It was February 1966. It was not Bea withwhom he was playing in the waters of California, butthe shroud lines from his parachute which threatenedto pull him forever into the waters of the Gulf ofTonkin. Having just checked aboard the squadron theprevious month, he now found himself surrendering toan excited boatload of Vietnamese who, momentsbefore, had nearly killed him by firing a barrage ofbullets into the water. Years later, remembering how itfelt to be thrust so abruptly into a strange and hostileworld, Captain Coffee reflects on “the enemy’s otherface”:

The absolute tests are those we face alone, withoutthe support of others who believe as we do. There thebeliefs we hold most dear are challenged — some to bestrengthened, some to be tempered, others to beabandoned — but all to be examined. From deepwithin we claim the values that we know to be our own.Those are the ones by which we are willing to live ordie.

For the next seven years of captivity in Hanoi,Captain Coffee was to discover what his real valueswere; how dependent he was on the community of hisfellow prisoners for perspective and forgiveness; andthe importance of not merely surviving suchcircumstances, but of emerging through themtriumphant.

As every other prisoner of war before him hadexperienced, the predicament and conditions ofcaptivity were utterly foreign, st if l ing, andoverwhelming. As he realized that he had never in hislife felt such physical deprivation — hunger, filth, andpain — he also realized that even his qualifications as a“jet jock” counted for nothing in Hanoi. “Suddenly,”he recalls, “I was quiet: the stripping away of myperceived identity had commenced.” Fortunately, andto Captain Coffee’s credit, what lay beneath the surfacefeatures of his “perceived identity” was a will and adetermination to continue thinking, dreaming, andbehaving as an American, despite attempts to coercehim to the contrary. Several fellow prisoners providedencouragement and inspiration to “hang on,” butCaptain Coffee writes with special admiration for the

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leadership example set by Colonel Robinson Risner,USAF, senior ranking officer at the Hanoi Hilton.Apparently, the North Vietnamese were positivelygleeful when Colonel Risner was shot down, becausethey had seen his picture on the cover of Timemagazine, and were well acquainted with hisillustrious career as an aviator, both in Korea and inVietnam. Captain Coffee points out that “Robbie” lostbattles, but never lost the war: “They ultimately forcedhim to write statements and say things he wouldn’thave otherwise, but they never got him in their pocket,never forced him to surrender his will to theirs, toconform –– without torture — to their program ofextortion and exploitation.”

Through an elaborate communications network, inwhich prisoners tapped messages in code to oneanother on the walls (the so-called “tap code”), CaptainCoffee began to understand that the Communists werenot nearly as interested in gathering intelligence, asthey were preoccupied with exploiting prisoners forpropaganda purposes. Colonel Risner himself oncepointed out with some amazement that their captorsseemed oblivious to the “gold mine of militaryinformation they are sitting on here,”1 4 due, in part, totheir lack of technological sophistication; but due, inlarger part, to their urgency for control over their ownpeople, and for influence over the nations around them.To broadcast tapes, in which downed Americanmilitary air crewmen read statements condemning theUnited States’ involvement in Vietnam, extolling thevirtue and tenacity of the Vietnamese people, andacknowledging their own criminal acts of war, was atremendous victory for the Communist cause. Theprocess –– whether the statement was read underduress, for example, or whether the tape itself was theedited product of statements taken out of context wasnot nearly as important as the end result.

Through persistent communication, prisonersencouraged and supported one another, and realizedthat taking care of each other was a primary need incaptivity. Captain Coffee recalls that some men didwithdraw, despite determined efforts by their fellowprisoners to break through the wall of isolation.Eventually, they stopped eating, and “disappeared.”Some, feigning insanity or amnesia in order to avoidexploitation, might be caught in a lie or a discrepancyby the Vietnamese, and would then be punished andbeaten into the actual state which they had sought tofeign. These tragic cases reinforced the fact thatcommunication was survival, and, beyond survival,growth.

Captain Coffee remembers one day seeing asimple formula scratched into the prison wall: GodStrength. Communion with others met one set of needsessential to survival and growth; but in those momentswhen one was totally and utterly alone, where wasstrength to be found? Captain Coffee describes insome detail one Christmas which he spent in Hanoi.The guards had made a big show of “the ChristmasRoom,” where they had set up a Christmas tree, andlittle baskets of fruit and candy for each prisoner. Afterhe had returned to his cell that evening, he made anorigami rosette, a swan, and a star from the foilwrappers left over from the candy. As he watched thelittle ornaments twinkle softly in that chilly cell, he“was immediately struck by the satisfying simplicity”of his Christmas celebration. His reflection on thatChristmas of 1967 follows — a fine Christmasmeditation, and an eloquent summary of spiritualstrength:

I thought more about the birth of the ChristChild and the simplicity of the Nativity. Therewas nothing to distract me from the pureawesomeness of the story of Christ’s birth —no materialism, commercialism, no food,presents, or glitz. Just me and that little baby.

Finally I thought intensely of Bea and thechildren and of their own Christmas Eveactivities, close unto themselves certainly, butperhaps now with friends and familycelebrating the occasion in all the usual ways.I prayed for them and for their joy and peaceand well-being. And I knew there were manyprayers and toasts for me. I felt them all.

I was beginning to realize and appreciate myown spirituality because I had been stripped ofeverything else. Everything by which I hadmeasured my identity was denied: my rank,my title, uniform, clothes, money, car, thetrappings of my religion. It was just me left —my flesh, bones, intellect, and soul.

And where was I now finding answers andsustenance? From within. It had been there allthe time. And as I had gone deeper withinmyself and with God, I began to realize and seemore clearly all my connections to everyoneand everything else. To go within and to knowmyself was the key to understandingeverything outside, my relationship with God,with the man in the next cell, with the geckoson the wall, with my family on the other side ofthe world, and with all elements of nature.

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But for the moment I had God, myself, and myrosette and my swan and my star. I realizedthat although I was hurting and lonely andscared, this might be the most significantChristmas Eve of my life. The circumstancesof this night were helping me to crystallize myunderstanding of my journey within to findGod there, and thereby to see Him everywhere.

CDR EVERETT ALVAREZ, JR., USN (RET.)

Commander Alvarez was a prisoner of the NorthVietnamese for eight-and-one-half years, the longestperiod of captivity endured by any American inVietnam. On 5 August 1964, after a successful attackagainst the naval docks in Hon Gai Harbor, then ––LTJG Alvarez’s plane was hit by flak, and he wasforced to eject from his A-4 Skyhawk at low altitude.Picked up by local fishermen, Commander Alvarezinitially attempted to confuse his captors by speakingSpanish, but a search through his identification papersquickly revealed that he was an American. After someinitial interrogation at Hon Gai, he arrived in Hanoi on11 August, and began his lengthy captivity at Hoa LoPrison.

At home in California, his wife of seven months,Tangee, his parents, and his sisters, eventually learnedthat he had been taken prisoner. The story ofCommander Alvarez’s captivity is also their story, asnot only their grief over his situation, but also theiruncertainty and questions about the United States’involvement in Vietnam, surfaced and grew over time.It was not until he began writing Chained Eagle in1986 that he and his family really reviewed with oneanother the full extent of their feelings, doubts, andopinions from those years.

At the very start of his captivity, because he wasalone in Hanoi for several months, CommanderAlvarez was overwhelmed with the sense that he was“already a corpse in the eyes of the world.”1 7 He wasconvinced that no one knew he was alive, or in prison,and that, therefore, the Vietnamese would never beheld accountable for his fate. The huge rats with whichhe shared living quarters seemed to be the only otheroccupants, until a year later, when he met a group ofNavy and Air Force prisoners.

From that point on, even during the most stressfuland painful of times, he and his fellow prisonersdeveloped a solid unity, even a sense of humor.Commander Alvarez, more than anyone else, observedinnumerable cases of “new-guy-itis,” the difficult

adjustment to prison life which all new prisoners, inone way or another, experienced. Imitating the quirksof their guards and assigning them names, accordingly(Rabbit, Elf, Dum-Dum, etc.); laughing at new guys’expectations that the Hanoi Hilton had a laundryservice, reading the note scratched into the wall of theshower room which said, “Smile! You’re on candidcamera!” — all of these incidents worked together toforge a bond of loyalty and forgiveness whichsustained them through the changing seasons.

Perhaps most painful of all during the period ofcaptivity itself was the news that Tangee had divorcedhim and remarried. For years, Commander Alvarezhad written her letters, wondering why he neverreceived a reply or any word about her, but assumingthat it was simply the Vietnamese’ failure to give himhis mail. On Christmas Day, 1971, he learned througha letter from his mother that his wife had “decided notto wait,” and that no one had seen her. About a yearlater, he learned that she had remarried and wasexpecting a child. The sudden feeling of desolationfrom the loss of dreams which he had nurtured forseven-and-a-half years was nearly overwhelming.Commander Alvarez describes himself at the time as“drifting pathetically,” his “light at the end of thetunnel” gone. Even his closest friends were, initially,unable to help him view this incident as nothing morethan a minor setback within the grand scheme of life.Nevertheless, he eventually recovered a tremendoussense of hope, even within that grim prison setting inHanoi.

I had lost my freedom and now my wife, butmy faith in a just and merciful God remainedsteadfast. While I paced outside I prayedsilently, seeking guidance. ‘What shall I donow?’ Prayer and the strong loyalty of myfriends pulled me through the grim months ofdejection and self-examination. Gradually,the pain eased somewhat and though my wholeworld had disintegrated, I was beginning toface up to the reality.

Commander Alvarez considered becoming amonk, and began to look forward to the prospect ofliving in a monastery and writing about hisexperiences. But it was the arrival of spring whichcompleted his awakening, and which provided him notjust with the ability to accept reality, but to fall in lovewith life again.

When I heard [the] murmuring [of Spring] Iseemed to shake off a trance and suddenly becameaware of other people. It all happened so quickly that it

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felt like I was being carried along on a swift current. Istood revitalized ... I was going to live! My prayers forguidance had been answered because I was nowlooking forward instead of backward. Maybe I wouldbe a monk and maybe I wouldn’t. It didn’t matter ... Ididn’t know what I wanted to do and yet I was going todo everything. There seemed to be neither limits norboundaries. I might still be in a prisoner of war campbut I was now back up to speed.

His inner transformation from despair to hope istestimony to the power of the spiritual life, despite thephysical backdrop and circumstances. As his motherwas eventually to write in a letter to him later thatspring, “It was good you had a dream to live when youdid need one. Your world hasn’t vanished.”

Stamina, endurance, and a persistent belief in hiscountry’s values enabled Commander Alvarez towithstand years of attempts by the Communists toextort and exploit him. In his case, because he had beenin captivity the longest, he was particularly vulnerableto promises of early release. Additionally, because upuntil 1971 he had been so concerned about his wife,Tangee, he was vulnerable to the anticipation of beingreunited with her. But over time, he had changed,having developed an inner reserve of strength fromwhich he drew a renewed will for, and a deeperunderstanding of the meaning of life.

He observes about himself that by the time he hadreached his last year of captivity, he had become, aftereight years in chains, a more patient person, “so thatlike many people of the East, I cared little for themovement of the hands on a clock.” Time had become,for him, simply a change of seasons. Had it beennecessary, he could have gone through many moreyears.

Following repatriation, Commander Alvarezremarried, and started a family after a long andarduous, painful and grim, episode in his life. While,happily, his circumstances had improved, the best partwas the legacy which he had brought with him fromVietnam. On the day of his wedding, a U.S. flag wasflown over the Capitol building in Washington, DC inhis honor. At dusk, it was lowered and folded, and sentas a gift to a man who had served his country withhonor, dignity, and valor.

CDR PORTER A. HALYBURTON, USN(RET.)

On 17 October 1965, Commander Halyburtonbecame the fortieth American shot down over North

Vietnam. Even though he was a Lieutenant juniorgrade, he had already flown 75 combat missions sincereporting from the Training Command. While histreatment at the hands of the Vietnamese variedsomewhat from season to season during theseven-and-a-half years of captivity, conditionsimproved towards the end of 1969. Prior to 1969, thedarkest days stressed him and the rest of the smallsociety of prisoners to a point where few of the rest ofus have ever been, or probably ever will be. In thatenvironment, characterized by change, fear, anduncertainty, Commander Halyburton emphasizes thatwhat “works” for survival is also what “works” forgrowth and meaning in all kinds of life situations.

It is very difficult to predict how an individual willrespond in the stressful environment of captivity. Thatresponse depends on the nature of the captivity, and thenature of the person—and these remain surprises untilthe existential moment has arrived. In Vietnam, everyprisoner, sooner or later, came to a point where herealized that the enemy could make him do somethinghe did not want to do. The pain of this reality stemmedfrom the realization that living up to the letter of theCode of Conduct was, under brutal and extremecircumstances, not possible for the vast majority ofprisoners. That is, most prisoners eventually gave upinformation beyond name, rank, and serial number.

It was at this point that what CommanderHalyburton refers to as, “the second line of defense,”came into play: one resisted to the very best of one’sability, and then either provided the enemy with a lie,or gave up as useless a piece of information as possible.These concessions were never made without a fight. Ifthe enemy wanted something, he was going to have towork for it. By taking this approach, the prisonerpreserved and sharpened two essential ingredients forsurvival: his wits, and his will to resist. In turn, he builta reserve of strength for coming back to fight thesecond line of defense another day.

Along with many of his fellow prisoners,Commander Halyburton acknowledges that the role offaith cannot be divorced from survival in a captivitysituation. The objects of faith may vary — God,country, family, one’s fellow prisoners, oneself — andmay combine differently for different people.Regardless of what “faiths” a prisoner chose to rely onin captivity, his ability to maintain his faith, and to keepadverse circumstances in perspective, depended uponhow active he remained physically, mentally, andspiritually. Living these three areas in some kind ofbalance through force of discipline multiplied and

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enhanced the benefits to be derived from “keepingfaith.”

In fact, “keeping faith” was often the onlyconstant, through circumstances characterized byhorror, fear, and unpredictability. Additionally, thedepth of one’s faith was tested as mental and emotionalneeds changed, over the entire course of captivity, andevolved like the passing seasons. CommanderHalybur ton recal l s three dis t inc t s tages ofpreoccupation in his own life during those years. In thefirst stage, he spent a great deal of time inretrospection, in which he reviewed, in exhaustivedetail, every word he ever spoke, and every deed heever did, for which he was either proud or remorseful.

He filled in the conclusions of unfinished incidentsor unresolved relationships, and revised those, whichhad not ended as he had hoped. After he had thusexamined the past, he passed into the “futuredreaming” stage, in which he projected and outlinedeverything he hoped, some day, to study, accomplish,or improve about himself. Daydreaming, hediscovered, was a breath of fresh air from the earlierdwelling on the past, but he found that he could not staythere forever, either.

Eventually, he passed into a third stage, in whichhe learned to find meaning: life in the present. It was atthis third and final stage that he finally felt at peace, inmuch the same way that Victor Frankl wrote aboutfinding peace through being able to choose his ownattitude, and transcend the environment of theconcentration camp, in his book, Man’s Search ForMeaning. Commander Halyburton discovered, oncehe had “gotten over” his need to review the past andproject the future, that he had developed profoundresources to grow in the present during his years ofcaptivity.

It cannot go without saying that keeping faith andpreserving one’s will took place in a community ofprisoners, without whose collective internal networkand sense of unity, individual resources would mostcertainly have dried up after a short period of time. Thecommunal aspect of living, whether as prisoners incaptivity in North Vietnam, or as families at home,became essential both to survival, and to ongoingmental, physical, and spiritual health. The unity of theprison camp also served to ensure that the good nameof the United States would be preserved: because thepropaganda war was being fought in Hanoi, the entiregroup had to follow the orders and judgment of campleadership in the face of attempts to confuse,intimidate, or manipulate individual prisoners into

believing and endorsing Communist propaganda aboutthe United States’ political and military role inVietnam. “Lone rangers” bent on becoming self-madeheroes either died in captivity, or punished the entiregroup as a result of their independent actions anddecisions. On the other hand, lives lived in connectionwith others were the only ones which survived andflourished, possibly because these were the only trulyexamined lives.

Commander Halyburton’s own “Life Statement”expresses the lessons learned in captivity about faith,will, and connectedness, thus:

I wish, at the instant of my death, to be able to lookback upon a full and fruitful Christian life, lived as anhonest man who has constantly striven to improvehimself and the world in which he lives, and to dieforgiven by God, with a clear conscience, the love andrespect of my family and friends, and the peace of theLord in my soul.

COL FRED V. CHERRY, USAF (RET.)

Colonel Cherry was one of the few black aviatorswho flew in Vietnam, and the first black to be captured.On 25 October 1965, while flying his fiftieth missionof the war, he led a squadron of F-105s against a seriesof missile installations in the North. Colonel Cherryrecalls seeing rifle fire on the ground when he wasabout three minutes from the target, but was notparticularly concerned until he heard a thump.Thinking that something electrical had probably beenhit, he immediately headed towards the target, andreleased his weapons. Just as he was exiting the area,dense electrical smoke began to fill up the cockpit, andthe plane exploded. By this time, the smoke was sodense that he could not see outside, and he had no ideawhether he was upright or upside down. He ejected,and prayed, and hit the ground. In the process, hesmashed his left shoulder, and broke his left wrist andankle; and, as happened to many of his fellowprisoners, he landed right into the arms of a dozenmilitia. There was no opportunity for evasion. Aftersome initial interrogation at Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi,he was transferred in November 1965 to the prisonknown as The Zoo in southwest Hanoi.

The Zoo is where Colonel Cherry met then ––LTJG Porter Halyburton, who would be his cellmatefor almost 9 months of captivity. CommanderHalyburton would also become his nurse, confidante,and lifelong friend. Colonel Cherry believes thatbecause “Hally,” as he calls him, was a white

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southerner, the North Vietnamese intentionally put thetwo of them together, assuming that a white man and ablack man from the American South would have “along-term game to run.”2 5 While they were initially verywary around each other, they quickly developed amutual trust which Colonel Cherry credits with savinghis life. The injuries which he had sustained as a resultof high-speed ejection had only partially healed. Hiswrist and ankle did not require medical attention, buthe badly needed an operation on his shoulder. Thiseventually took place in February 1966, resulting in atorso cast which extended down to his hipline, butwhich, unfortunately, was not accompanied bypenicillin or an equivalent antibiotic. In a month’stime, Colonel Cherry was dying of a massive infection.Feverish and delirious, he even recalls, at one point,leaving his body and going into town. (Years later,when he actually saw Hanoi in daylight, he recognizedseveral streams, bridges, and buildings).

Over the next three months, as Colonel Cherrysuffered from sadistic, negative medical treatment(major operations performed without anesthetic,antibiotics withheld, gasoline poured over hiswounds), Hally conscientiously washed him andtended him, providing his own food and clothing sothat his cellmate could live. The day the guards movedHally to another cell, Colonel Cherry recalls, “was themost depressing evening of my life. I never hated tolose anybody so much in my entire life. We hadbecome very good friends. He was responsible for mylife.”

Colonel Cherry did survive his injuries, and wenton to endure months of beatings, torture, and solitaryconfinement (700 days). Because he was the seniorblack officer in captivity, the North Vietnamese dideverything they could to make him write statementsdenouncing the “American imperialists,” statementswhich, in turn, they hoped to pass on to young blackGIs. Through all of this, Colonel Cherry was stronglymotivated to resist by the thought that he wasrepresenting 24 million black Americans. He wasdetermined to do nothing to shame his country or hispeople.

Raised in Suffolk, Virginia, at a time whensegregation was the norm, and inequality betweenwhites and blacks was not questioned, Colonel Cherrycredits his parents with building into him toughness, astrong will, and a sense of fairness in doing things forother people. He also credits his sister for believing inhim, and pushing him to do well in school. Thesequalities enabled him to pursue his dream of becoming

a fighter pilot, in 1951. A fierce determination not tosubmit to his captors’ attempts at coercion, and analmost philosophical view of his own longing forfreedom, allowed him to forgive the depressions andfailures of others, doggedly communicating throughthe walls with those of his fellow prisoners who hadbegun to withdraw, until they, too, answered back.

Years after their repatriation, Colonel Cherry andCommander Halyburton continue to keep in touch withone another, and to tell others about “how we looked toeach other the first time we met.”2 7 They describe thebonds of brotherhood which they forged in that hostile,alien setting in Hanoi, North Vietnam. Colonel Cherryinsists,

No matter how rough the tortures were, nomatter how sick I became, I never once said tomyself, I want to take my own life or quit. Iwould just pray to the Supreme Being eachmorning for the best mind to get through theinterrogations, and then give thanks each nightfor makin’ it through the day.

He makes it sound simple, but there was nothingeasy about the spirit of survival, which Colonel Cherryevidenced as a prisoner of war. That spirit grew out ofhis upbringing, his faith in God, and the love of a fellowprisoner who would not let him die.

VADM JAMES B. STOCKDALE, USN (RET.)

As the most senior naval officer imprisoned inNorth Vietnam, Admiral Stockdale became wellknown during his years of captivity for extraordinarycourage in leadership. Following repatriation, he wasawarded the Medal of Honor for offering resistance tothe North Vietnamese, on behalf of his fellowprisoners, by “deliberately inflicting a near-mortalwound to his person in order to convince his captors ofhis willingness to give up his life rather thancapitulate.”3 0 Admiral Stockdale is also a persuasiveand insightful thinker and writer on the lessons ofcaptivity. From the day of his shootdown (9 September1965) until the day of his release (12 February 1973),he experienced both the pain of externally imposedsuffering, and the power of his own inner resistance.

What “secret weapon” became his security duringthose years? It was “those selected portions ofphilosophic thought that emphasized human dignityand self-respect,”3 1 epitomized and expounded upon inEpictetus’ Enchiridion,3 2 which helped him organizeand understand an experience as shocking asshootdown and capture by the enemy, and face it

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head-on. A few years prior to his capture, AdmiralStockdale had taken the opportunity to study moralphilosophy at Stanford University under ProfessorPhilip Rhinelander. It was Professor Rhinelander whonot only taught him and tutored him privately, but alsogave him, at the end of his course of study, a copy ofEpictetus’ Enchiridion. A moral guide written by amilitary man of the ancient world, the Enchiridiondiscussed matters over which the author acknowledgedthat he had no control — a seemingly odd choice of aparting gift for a naval aviator in a technological age.Nevertheless, while he recognized little in Epictetusthat applied to him in 1963, here is how AdmiralStockdale, in a 1974 letter to Professor Joseph Brennanof the Naval War College, described what went throughhis mind on 9 September 1965:

As I sped over the treetops it becameimmediately apparent that I had lost my flightcontrols—by reflex action I pulled the curtainand ejected—and was almost immediatelysuspended in air 200 feet above a village street,in total silence except for rifle shots and thewhir of bullets past my ear. So help me in thosefleeting seconds before I landed among thewaiting crowd I had two vivid thoughts. (1)Five years to wait (I had studied enoughmodem Far East history and talked to enoughForward Air Controllers in the South to fullyappreciate the dilemma of Vietnam — I turnedout to be an optimist by 2 1/2 years). (2) I amleaving that technological world and enteringthe world of Epictetus.

Just as Epictetus had observed in his worldcenturies before, Admiral Stockdale soon discoveredthat in an environment that can best be described as a“buzz saw,” human will was the only salvation.

Human will, of course, was the primary target ofthe North Vietnamese. If they could succeed inweakening the resolve of men who were accustomed tomaking their own decisions, by removing not onlytheir independence, but also their sense of hope, theywould have caused them to become self-defeating.Admiral Stockdale, in the book he later co-wrote withhis wife, Sybil, summarized his state of mind duringthe winter of 1966 as preoccupied with one centralfear: that he was doomed to a “life of continuous shamewithout friends or self-respect.”3 4 After six months ofcaptivity, he had all but locked himself in to futility andfailure: “When I took stock of the power theVietnamese had over me, my weakness andcrippledness, my sinking mental state, it seemed clear

that they had me on a downhill run that would force meto the bottom.”

Nevertheless, in testimony to his ability to betruthful with himself, and to live with himself, AdmiralStockdale survived by thinking, imagining, dreaming,and, in general, by learning to make sense ofloneliness. In a tone reminiscent of Epictetus and theStoic philosophy which contributed so prominently tothe formation of his own world view, AdmiralStockdale summarizes the perspective which helpedhim understand the confusing, ever-changing events ofcaptivity: “In such circumstances, when one has novoice in what happens to him and randomness andchanciness determine his fate, one lives in a worse hellthan if continually pestered by a mean but predictableantagonist. Chance and continual uncertainty are theultimate destabilizers.”3 6 Simply knowing that he wasexperiencing what others who had gone before him —even as far back as ancient times — had come to knowas the evil depths of human behavior, helped himremain connected with himself and his fellowprisoners; and gave him the resolve to fight hard for hisown, his family’s, and his country’s honor.

How does one acquire that perspective andresolve? As did many other prisoners of war, AdmiralStockdale drew liberally from the lessons in lifelearned early in childhood; from his higher educationand training; and from a persistent desire to make thebest of a terrible situation. With these assets hemaintained his wits, and his knowledge of himself andhis captors. When he finally came home, he had theassurance that he had lived through seven-and-a-halfyears of extreme moral stress without ever havingmade a compromise to conscience.

CHAPLAINS AS RETAINEDPERSONNEL

Learning Objective: Recognize the selflessresponse of chaplains in captivity during WW II andrecall one contemporary chaplain’s suggestions aftergoing through survival training.

CHAPLAINS CAPTURED IN THEPHILIPPINES

War came to the Philippines on the morning of 8December 1941. A strong force of enemy planes hitArmy airfields in the vicinity of Manila shortly beforenoon, knocking out of action one-half of the Armybombers and two-thirds of the fighter planes. On 10December, the Japanese, with complete air superiority,

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struck at Cavite. The bombs from 50 enemy planes leftthe Navy yard a mass of flames. About 200,000 tons ofAmerican shipping were in the harbor at the time,including the submarine tenders Holland and Canopus.Most of the American ships managed to escape.

Four Navy chaplains were taken prisoners by theJapanese in the 5 months campaign waged to conquer thePhilippine Islands. They were Earl Brewster of theHolland, D. L. Quinn of the Sixteenth Naval District, F. J.McManus of the Canopus, and H. R. Trump of the FourthMarine Regiment. Brewster and Quinn were taken whenManila fell, in the closing days of 1941 and opening daysof 1942. McManus and Trump were on Corregidorduring the last bitter days of its defense and were madeprisoners when it surrendered on 6 May 1942.

Chaplain Earl Brewster of the Holland wasrecovering from an operation performed in theCanacao Naval Hospital, Cavite, when his ship left theManila Bay area. He reported for duty on 15 Decemberand was ordered by the Staff of CommanderSubmarines to a unit assembling at the Philippine GirlsCollege at Caloocan that consisted largely of medicalpersonnel and former patients of the hospital. Hereported there on the 20th. The victorious Japaneseforces, sweeping through the city of Manila during theclosing days of December, took Brewster prisoner andconfined him with others at Santa Scholastica’sCollege, Manila, on 2 January 1942.

Chaplain D. L. Quinn was also interned at SantaScholastica’s College, (see fig 2-1). A diary kept by R.W. Kentner, pharmacist mate first-class during thewhole of his captivity, records the fact that ChaplainsBrewster and Quinn were among those transferred tothe Elementary School at Pasay, Rizal, on 9 May 1942,and that the two were sent to Bilibid Prison on 28 May.

On 2 June, the two chaplains were sent toCabanatuan. Regarding his experiences as a prisonerof the Japanese, Brewster has written:

The transporting of prisoners between Manilaand Cabanatuan was effected by means of halfsized metal boxcars, which had to hold from80 to 100 men, together with their gear. The 6-to 8-hour trip was not exactly a luxury ride inthat heat. Of course, a hike was required oneach end of these trips, and they were neverunder ideal conditions, to put it mildly. Weusually found far from ideal conditions whenwe arrived at our destination.

Arriving at Cabanatuan on 1 June 1942, westarted on our rice diet, which was really quite

an experience. Lack of water, sanitation,medica l suppl ies and equipment , acombination of malaria, dysentery, beri-beri,and diphtheria, were responsible for the loss of2,000 out of 8,000 men in 4 months,nine-tenths of whom could have been savedwith decent food.

We buried (after the Japs agreed to permitchaplains to officiate) from 10 to 40 a dayduring this period. The experience of seeingZero Ward, where men wallowed and died intheir own filth, to be moved to anotherbarracks labeled the “morgue,” where I haveseen 40 naked skeletons on the bare deck, to becarried out to the so-called cemetery by fellowprisoners, some of whom would themselves becarried out soon, to be thrown into waterycommon graves to be visited by roaming wilddogs, is a sight some of us will not soon forget.And may God help us if we fail to keep faithwith those who can no longer enjoy the lifethey have helped to make possible for us.

Partly because there was no other place, andpartly because the Japs banned religiousservices for a while at Cabanatuan, I heldservices in my own barracks (at the request offellow naval officers) during most of the timethat I was there. In spite of the fact that some ofthese services had to be held in secret, and inspite of a lack of facilities (I did have my NewTestament) we had some rich experiences, andI personally enjoyed a relationship with myshipmates that I could never expect to haveduplicated. I was also privileged to holdservices for enlisted men in their barracks.

A few days after their arrival at Cabanatuan,Chaplain Quinn was transferred to camp No. 3, wherehe remained until that camp was closed on 28 October1942, when he was returned to camp No. 1. In themeantime, Brewster had been sent with other prisonersto Mindanao, and the two chaplains did not meet againuntil October 1944. Of his trip to and experiences inMindanao, Brewster testified:

In October of 1942 I was selected to be one of 1,000officers and men to go to a camp in Mindanao, towhich place we were sent via Manila in our boxcars,and then to Davao by ship. This was a ruggedexperience, taking a dozen days for a trip whichcould have been made in two. Many of us were notin good shape by then. I myself was in such badshape from beri-beri that I was forced to turn in to

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our so-called hospital soon after arriving there. Thiswas an experience, the like of which I would notwish for my worst enemy. Suffice it to say, that Isuffered the tortures of the damned, and my weightwent to 120 pounds from a normal 200. But, by thegrace of God, it was my good fortune to graduallyrecover to the extent that since I have beenprivileged to return home to normal living, I seem tobe fully restored to my former good health.

Over the period of 20 months we remained here atthis former penal colony, things did not turn out aswell as we had hoped. Perhaps a very successful

escape by 10 Americans was partly responsible forthis. Food rations were always inadequate, evenwhen the things we needed were available. Serviceswere banned part of the time, but we managed tohold them most of the time (the hard way) and hadsome rich experiences. We found there were somethings they couldn’t take from us—although we hadpractically none of the things we were used to.

On 4 April 1943, Major Jack Hawkins, USMC,escaped from Mindanao, and, on 7 February 1944,wrote about the heroic services rendered by ChaplainBrewster while in prison. Hawkins stated:

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POWf2001

Figure 2-1.—Chaplain David L. Quinn.

After the final surrender of the Philippines, Iwas interned at prison camp number 1 atCabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, P. I. I met ChaplainBrewster for the first time in this camp and wasimmediately struck by his splendid example ofcourage and fortitude under the stress of theterrible circumstances in which we foundourselves. In this camp all Naval and MarineCorps personnel, seeking to keep together asmuch as possible, had managed to be quarteredin the same portion of the camp. It was difficultto maintain faith and hope in these horrible

circumstances, but it was made easier for all ofus by the moral and spiritual leadership ofChaplain Brewster, (see fig 2-2). He was ourfriend and counselor and a constant source ofgood cheer and hope. He ministered to thesick, organized a daily Bible class for us whichbenefited all of us greatly, and every Sunday hedelivered a sermon to us which was absolutelyinspiring. His efforts were endless eventhough his physical strength ebbed constantlyas a result of the starvation we were enduring.

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POWf2002

Figure 2-2.—Chaplain Earl Ray Brewster.

Finally, a group of prisoners numbering 1,000were sent to camp number 2 at the formerDavao Penal Colony in Mindanao. ChaplainBrewster and I were in this group. We allsuffered terribly from exposure and theunbelievably crowded and filthy conditions onthe Japanese ship during the 11-day trip toDavao. Upon our arrival there, we were forcedto march about 20 miles, which, in ourweakened condition, was almost beyond thelimits of our endurance. It was not long afterour arrival in this new camp that ChaplainBrewster developed beri-beri, the diseasewhich caused untold suffering among theprisoners. The chaplain’s condition was veryserious. He suffered endless, stabbing pain inhis feet and legs and he was not able to get upfrom his bed in our crude hospital. He was verythin. Sleep for him was almost impossiblesince there were no sedatives and the painnever stopped, not even for a minute. He oncetold me “Jack, I never knew such suffering waspossible on this earth. But I will never give up.”

Major Hawkins and others managed to smugglefruit past the guards which they brought to thesuffering chaplain. It was good medicine. Brewsterbegan to rally. “We marveled,” wrote Hawkins “whenwe found him on his feet, even though it caused himtorturing pain, holding religious services for the othersuffering patients in the hospital.” And, Hawkinsadded: “When I escaped with the other members of ourparty of 10, we left Chaplain Brewster still improving,still walking, still defying pain, still bringing hope andcourage to the hearts of men.”

Of his religious activities Brewster wrote:

The response to religious activities was good,everything considered. I was even requestedby a group of fellow bed patients, while I wasnot able to walk, to preach to them from mybed, which I did (sitting on my cot) for severalSundays. As I mentioned above, some serviceshad to be held secretly, although they let usarrange for some special services at Christmasand Easter. Mother’s Day services were as wellattended, as were the services on Easter. Therewas considerable interest in CommunionServices. I had no elements or equipment. Themen were asked to bring their canteen cups,and I poured the wine, which was melted grapejelly from my Red Cross box. The bread wasmade from rice flour. We really had some good

times together and I have not enjoyedpreaching anywhere more than in thosestrange surroundings.

Personal contacts, of course, were a large partof the chaplain’s opportunity. He was with hisparishioners in every kind of experience—eating, sleeping, hiking, bathing, and working.I was on a rope-making detail for a while, andon several details in the fields. For a time inMindanao I was the only active Protestantchaplain among 2,000 fellow prisoners, andwas able to spend most of my time working asa chaplain. During this period it was myprivilege to read aloud each day to as many as50 men whose eyesight had become moreimpaired than my own. This was also ratherpractical since books were scarce. I foundreading aloud a couple of hours each day to bevery good training.

When the Japanese feared an invasion ofMindanao, the prisoners were transferred back toLuzon and sent to Cabanatuan via Bilibid Prison inManila. On the first stage of their return trip, from thecamp to Davao, the prisoners “were jammed into opentrucks”; their shoes were removed; all wereblindfolded; and a Japanese guard was seated on thecab armed with a stick (in addition to his gun) which heused to beat any caught trying to peek under theblindfold or who began talking. Brewster wrote:

It would be quite difficult to describeadequately our trips in Jap ships where wewere jammed below decks, even into dirty coalbunkers infested with rats. There was not evenenough room for all of us to sit down at onetime. We had to try to sleep in relays, and anyadequate rest was impossible. Food (rice twicea day) and water (one Canteen a day) wereterribly scarce. There was no bathing. On ourtrip back to Luzon most of us did not removeour clothing for the 3 weeks en route. Ourfriends in Bilibid Prison, upon our arrival there(on our way back to Cabanatuan) said that wewere the worst looking large group they hadseen, and they had seen some bad ones. It wasnice to come back through Bilibid again andsee many of my old friends of the Canacaohospital staff (Bilibid remained largely ahospital unit) and others.

The sea trip from Mindanao to Luzon took almostthree weeks, with 1,200 men packed in two small dirtyholds.

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Brewster was sent back to Cabanatuan, but wasagain returned to Bilibid on request of the Japanesecommander (a doctor). A special truck was sent fromCabanatuan to transport Brewster to Manila. “I amtold,” commented Brewster, “that I am the onlyone-man detail the Japs ever sent out fromCabanatuan—a dubious distinction, but it resulted inmy being retained in Manila.” The special dutyassignment at Bilibid prevented Brewster from beingincluded in the company of prisoners sent to Japan inthe closing days of 1944. This exception probablysaved his life.

Throughout his prison experience, a period ofmore than three years, Brewster carried on his religiousactivities as far as his strength permitted and othercircumstances allowed. He reported that one of hishardest tasks was that of conducting burial services for40 men who died in one day at Cabanatuan. As a formof punishment for some minor offense, the Japaneseoften banned the holding of Divine Services. At onetime, the Japanese ruled that, while reading from theBible and singing were permitted, preaching wasforbidden. Commenting on this, Brewster said: “Iwould just look at my Bible and say, ‘If I werepreaching I would say this’ and give my sermon.”

Brewster’s account continues:

My work as a Protestant chaplain in Bilibidwas as enjoyable as could be expected underthe circumstances, and it was a real privilege towork with fellow prisoners, even though theywere down physically and consequently low asfar as morale was concerned. The food ration(rice, corn, and a few so-called vegetables) forthe last 3 months got as low as 800 calories aday, which speaks for itself. The averageweight of the 800 prisoners released there was113 pounds.I missed the October draft to Japan(there were 5 survivors out of 1,700 prisoners)because the Japs retained me as the lowestranking reserve chaplain. I was sent out to FortMcKinley with 400 cripples about the middleof November, not to return to Bilibid until 5January 1945, which was 3 weeks after the lastgroup (300 survivors out of 1,600) had left forJapan. Many of my best friends were in theselast two drafts, and it was heart rending to seethem half starved and sick, waiting as doomedmen, which most of them proved to be.

I spent Christmas and Thanksgiving of ‘44 atFort McKinley, where they almost starved usfor 7 weeks. We had nothing with which to

celebrate, but some of the men still had innerresources, which caused them to be able tohold up their chins and hope for a better day.We had nothing but rice and watery soup (nomeat) twice a day— the same as other days.Most of what little meat we did get from timeto time was so spoiled that you could smell itfrom across a street. But, in spite of everythingwe were able, by the grace of God, to holdservices, reading groups, and even have somespecial observance of Chris tmas andThanksgiving. For the Christian Christmas,Eas ter and Thanksgiv ing are a lwaysmeaningful.

Coming back into Manila on 5 January 1945 Ifound that I was the only Protestant chaplainthere—all the others (several Army and threeNavy) had been included in the Decemberdraft. They had retained a Catholic Armychaplain, apparently anticipating my return tofill the quota which the Japs had allowedduring the whole time at Bilibid. Now, therewere 800 men in Manila, which was nearlytwo-thirds of the military prisoners left in thePhilippines, since there were about 500cripples left at Cabanatuan, whose peakpopulation had been at least 20 times thatnumber. These 500 were liberated, as is wellknown, by the Rangers a week or so before the1st Cavalry and the 37th Infantry came intoManila.

In the closing days of his incarceration in Bilibid,Brewster was conducting funerals every day. Theseservices were often interrupted by air-raid alarmswhen American planes flew overhead. “We did notobject,” wrote Brewster, “for it meant that the day ofour possible release was drawing nearer.” The greatday of deliverance came on 4 February 1945. Brewsterwas awarded the Bronze Star Medal for “meritoriousconduct” while detained by the Japanese ….

The terrible bombing Cavite received on 10December 1941 was the signal for a general exodus ofall possible American shipping from the Manila Bayarea. The Canopus, however, with her chaplain, F. J.McManus, (see fig 2-2), remained behind to tend herbrood of submarines still operating in Philippinewaters. On Christmas Eve, the Japanese again bombedCavite and the Canopus narrowly escaped being hit.Since the Americans were moving all strategicsupplies and available forces as rapidly as possible outof Manila to Bataan and Corregidor, the tender was

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ordered to Marivales Bay on the southern tip of Bataan.There she continued to serve her submarines. Acamouflage was hastily improvised but this did notprevent her from being attacked on the 29th whenbombs fell all around the helpless ship. She took onedirect hit that left many casualties.

In the citation for the Silver Star Medal, awardedposthumously to Chaplain McManus, the followingreference is made to the chaplain’s heroic service whenthe Canopus was hit.

“When an armor-piercing bomb exploded in thevicinity of the after magazine crushing or exploding 70

rounds of ammunition, killing 6 men and wounding 6others, and starting fires in adjacent compartments,Chaplain McManus, with complete disregard for hisown safety, entered the smoke and steam filled engineroom, assisted in removing the wounded andadministered the last rites to the dying. His courageousaction, beyond the call of duty and in the face of gravedanger, is in keeping with the highest traditions of theUnited States Naval Service.”The last Americansubmarines were ordered out of the Bay on 31December, but it was then too late for the mother shipto slip by the Japanese blockade. When the Canopus

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POWf2003

Figure 2-3.—Chaplain Francis J. McManus.

was bombed again a week later, she was left with such alist that the Japanese evidently thought she was aderelict. The officers of the Canopus did not disillusionthe enemy and made no attempt to right the vessel.Activity, however, continued aboard especially at nightwhen the ship’s machine shop rendered valuable aid ina multitude of ways to the defenders of Bataan.

During the weeks and months of the siege beforebeing transferred to Corregidor, Chaplain McManusmade frequent trips from the Canopus to the islandfortress in order to minister to Catholic personnel thereand especially to members of the Fourth MarineRegiment. “This was far beyond the normal call ofduty,” wrote an Army chaplain, “and in addition to hisother work.”

As the fortunes of the defenders becameincreasingly desperate, it was finally decided to movethe naval forces from Mariveles Bay to Corregidor.This was done in the night of April 6—7. Under coverof darkness, the Canopus was moved to deeper waterand scuttled. Bataan fell on 9 April. Corregidor heldout for about four more agonizing weeks and then on 6May it, too, surrendered.

The fourth naval chaplain to be included in thesurrender of American forces to the Japanese in thePhilippines was H. R. Trump, who left Shanghai withthe Fourth Marines on 27—28 November 1941. Theyreached Manila the week before the outbreak of war.The Marines played a valiant role in the defense ofBataan and Corregidor. Chaplain Oliver, who hadopportunity to see Chaplain Trump at work, wrote ofhis tireless services in behalf of his men:

Upon arriving at Corregidor late in the eveningof 27 December 1941, Chaplain Trumplearned that final radio messages could be sentto the United States from military personneland although very tired from the hazardoustrip from Olongapo, when his regiment wasforced to evacuate to Corregidor, he sat up allnight collecting messages and money from themen for transmission home and censored over800 of these radiograms. It was the finalmessage many people received from their menwho were later killed in action or died asprisoners of war.

Chaplain Trump’s regiment was widely scatteredover Corregidor, but he was most faithful in visitingthem and conducting services for his men under enemyshelling and bombing.

Following the surrender of Corregidor, bothMcManus and Trump elected to go with their men. On2 July 1942, Kentner, the faithful diarist of BilibidPrison, noted in his journal:

The following named United States Navychaplains arrived from Corregidor this date: LCDRH. R. Trump, CHC, U. S. Navy; LT F. J. McManus,CHC, U. S. Navy. Trump and McManus remained atBilibid for only one night and were then sent to CampNo. 1, at Cabanatuan, where they found ChaplainBrewster. Navy chaplains joined with Army chaplainsat this same camp in providing Divine Services,religious instruction, and in other expressions of theirspiritual ministry. The prisoners were able to constructa chapel with materials they found or salvaged, largeenough to seat about 30. The roof was thatched.

All faiths used this chapel. Because the seatingcapacity of the chapel was so small, most of thecongregation attending Divine Services had to remainoutside, but they could still hear the voice of the speaker.

Among the prisoners was a Jewish cantor.Protestant chaplains took turns in assisting himconduct services for those of the Jewish faith.

Chaplain A. C. Oliver, USA, also a prisoner aCamp No. I at Cabanatuan, in his testimony of 1November 1945, commented as follows upon thefaithful ministry rendered by Chaplain McManus:

In Military Prison Camp No. I, Cabanatuan,Chaplain McManus constantly visited thesick, gave generously of very limited personalfunds for the purchase of food for the sick . . .and frequently worked on details so that a sickman would not have to go out. Many times hevolunteered to take the place of a sick Chaplainso that he would not have to work on the prisonfarm, airport project, or in cleaning theJapanese Guard Company area. He had theprofound respect of men of all faiths and was apotent factor in bolstering their morale.

According to Oliver, both Army and Navychaplains often held Divine Services contrary tothe orders of the Japanese. Such was done at therisk of the life of the officiating chaplain. Olivermade special mention of Chaplains McManusand Trump carrying on under these dangers anddifficulties. Oliver’s commendation of Trumpincluded the following:

In Philippine Military Prison Camp No. 1,Cabanatuan, Chaplain Trump constantly

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visited the sick, acted as welfare officer forGroup I for a period of 5 months, worked onJapanese details in order to be near his men,and in the course of this was beaten severelyseveral times when he interfered in theinterest of the men as a Japanese guard wasbeating them. In addition, Chaplain Trumpcarried on an excellent religious program andhis services constantly attracted a large groupof men. He had the respect of the men of allfaiths and was a potent factor in keeping uptheir morale.

Chaplain John E. Borneman, another Armychaplain who was held prisoner in Camp No. 1 andwho also observed the Navy chaplains at work, toldhow the Protestant chaplains conducted Bible anddiscussion classes at night, all unknown to theJapanese and contrary to their orders. Chaplain Trumpled a series of meetings on the subject: “The ManEverybody Should Know.” Protestant Army chaplainsjoined in this project by presenting other subjects. Theattendance averaged about 80. The chaplains felt thatsuch classes were most important, not only for theopportunity they presented for religious instruction,but also for the contribution they gave in maintainingmorale.

In the meantime, Chaplain Quinn was alsocarrying on such religious services under similardifficult conditions in camp No. 3. Chaplain Bornemanreported that when Chaplain Quinn returned to campNo. 1, he joined in the Bible class that met at night andled a series of studies in the life of Paul. Among thesurvivors of the prison camp and of the terrible voyageon three different prison ships to Japan in January 1945was Chief Yeoman Theodore R Brownell whosetestimony regarding his experience throws further lighton the work the Navy chaplains:

I’m certain if facilities had been placed at ourdisposal, the chaplains would have carried onmuch the same as they would have under peaceconditions, but they were as much deprived bythe Japanese as any other one of us and werehaving a difficult time keeping themselvesalive. I do believe, however, that ChaplainMcManus was probably the most outstandingchaplain with us. Chaplain Cummings [U. S.Army] and Chaplain H. R. Trump were “inthere pitching too,” but McManus had aquality rarely found in an individual. He wasconvincing in every undertaking and Ipersonally have found him to be a man who

believed in what he preached (pardon theexpression). As Camp Sergeant Major for theCabanatuan Prison Camp No. 1, I was in aposition to meet and know not only thechaplains, but every other officer and man whohad occasion to come near the office or, well, Inow realize that I must have personally knownthousands. The programs for religiousservices were prepared in my office. I tookcare of passes through to our “makeshift”hospital for chaplains and all.

Late in 1944, the Japanese, realizing that theymight lose the Philippines, decided to transfer to Japanthe allied prisoners still held in the Islands. On 13October. many pr isoners were moved fromCabanatuan to Bilibid Prison preparatory for shipmentto Japan, including Chaplains Trump, Quinn, andMcManus. Brownell has given the following vividaccount of the harrowing experiences through whichthe unfortunate prisoners passed:

On the 13th of December 1944, the Japanesemarched 1,639 officers and men from BilibidPrison to Pier 7, Manila, Philippine Islands.A roundabout way was selected to helphumiliate we prisoners in the eyes of theFilipinos and Japanese military in Manila.The day was a scorching-hot one and themarch was not an easy one for men in the poorphysical condition that then prevailed in ourranks. We were loaded like cattle into theforward and after hold of the ship the OryokoMaru. It was just a matter of hours beforemany deaths resulted from heat exhaustionand suffocation.

Statements by survivors tell of men, emaciatedfrom three years’ malnutrition and ill treatment,collapsing and dying under the horrible conditionswhich existed below decks. One of the survivors,Ensign Jimmy Mullins, testified: “Many deathsoccurred among the naval personnel on board this shipin the night of 14 December 1944 due to suffocation.”The ship was spotted by American planes after it leftManila Bay, and, since the vessel displayed nomarkings to identify her as a prison ship, was bombed.There were no casualties among the prisoners that day.The vessel put in at Olongapo, Subic Bay, whereAmerican planes bombed her again on the 15th,inflicting many casualties among the prisoners.Brownell’s account continues:

. . . off Olongapo, Philippine Islands, the shipwas strafed by the American flyers and

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eventually bombed. Many officers and menwere killed instantly or suffered major woundswhen a bomb exploded at the base of themainmast. Part of the mast fell into the holdand, together with hatch covers, numerousmen were buried in the debris.

A couple of miserable days were spent on atennis court in plain sight of attacking planesand then we were loaded into trucks andtransported to a theater in San Fernando,Pampanga, on the Island of Luzon again. Acouple of miserable days and nights spent incramped positions but, for a change, a littlemore rice in our stomachs, we were loaded intooriental-type (small) boxcars like cattle. Menagain met death on a crawling trip to SanFernando, LaUnion, from heat exhaustion andlack of water. I recall that my buddy, WilliamEarl Surber, USA (now deceased), and I tookturns sucking air through a little bolt hole inthe rear of the car we were packed into.

It is known that the three Navy chaplains wereamong those who reached the shore at Olongapo andthat they shared the terrible experiences of theircomrades on the tennis court and the train ride to SanFernando. Brownell’s revealing and almostunbelievable description of conditions follows:

This miserable train ride ended at SanFernando, LaUnion still on the Island ofLuzon. This was on Christmas Eve Thefollowing day we were marched into aschoolyard where we were furnished with amore plentiful portion of rice and limitedsupply of water. That night we were herdedinto ranks and marched to another pointseveral kilometers away and placed on thesands of a beach. We waited there all thatfollowing day and night in the hot sun whilehorses were being unloaded from someJapanese ships. The next day, men and officersdying from the usual causes (dysenterymostly) were loaded into the forward and afterholds of these cattle carriers for the second legof a trip (beyond the belief of people in ourso-called civilized age) and after scraping upthe manure into piles in order to makesufficient room, we formed ourselves intogroups of about 30 men per group; this beingdone in order to have some sort of ordermaintained in drawing anticipated rice andsoup.

The second transport was boarded the 28t h or 29t h ofDecember and the Japanese again started for Japan. Nowords can adequately describe the horrible sufferingsendured on this second hell-ship. Men died from slowstarvation, lack of water, brutal beatings, exposure, anddisease. Many of the men suffered from diarrhea anddysentery.

On 9 January 1945, shortly before its arrival atTakao, Formosa, American planes spotted the vesseland bombed it. Ensign Mullins inserted a notation inhis testimony that “Lieutenant David Long Quinn,63952, USN, had previously died on ‘7 January’ 1945en route to Formosa.2 7

Brownell’s account of the voyage from Formosa toJapan, on the third vessel with an account of thepassing of Chaplain Trump, follows:

On the 14th of January, 1945, the Americansbombed us off Takao, Formosa. Some fivehundred or so were instantly killed in theforward hold (mostly all officers) and somethree hundred and twenty-some odd injured orkilled in the after hold. From that ship we weretransferred to another pile of junk and thusstarted a freezing trip to Southern Japan. toMoji to be exact.

Chaplain H. R. Trump, USN, laid on the deckat my feet and was cheery and had high morale,but he was (had been) a big man and seemed torequire more water and rice than a small manlike myself. Each day, he was wasting awayand finally, on the 27th of January, 1945, about3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, he “went tosleep.’Dying from starvation and exposure hasmore mental than physical agony. His last fewdays alive were his “hell” for the want of water.An average of about two tablespoonfuls a daywere, I would consider, about maximumreceived. A Chaplain Murphy died the daybefore that. His demise was caused mostlyfrom malnutrition-diarrhea. He shookconstantly from the cold as he wouldn’t staysnuggled up close to someone else as we wereall doing.

We landed in Moji on the 31st of January 1945,with less than 400 of the original 1,639!

According to the statement of another survivor,LTJG A. W. Long, “LT. Francis Joseph McManus diedduring the last week of January’.” Only Earl Brewsterof the four Navy chaplains taken prisoners in the

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Philippines survived. He escaped because he was leftbehind at Bilibid Prison.

Chaplains of all services performed many acts ofvalor in combat during World War II.

The following article is reprinted in its entirety aspublished in the Air Force Magazine, Jan 98, entitled,“Heroic Noncombatants.” It was written by John LFrisbee.

By definition chaplains are noncombatants,yet in the Pacific Theater alone, more than 20chaplains were killed in action whileministering to the spiritual and physical needsof the troops. One of the most notableexamples of sustained heroism amongchaplains was that of Robert Preston Taylor.

During the campaign to hold the BataanPeninsula in the Philippines, Taylor spentmany days in the battle area, searching out andcaring for the physically wounded anddisheartened, sometimes behind enemy lines.By his example, he brought hope and religiousfaith to those who had lost both and created anew faith among some who had none. Thesewere hallmarks of his ministry throughout thewar. He was awarded the Silver Star forgallantry in action.

During the death march that followed thesurrender of Bataan, Taylor suffered manybeatings and calculated torture for his attemptsto alleviate the suffering of other POWs. AtCabanatuan, the larges t of the POWcompounds, the inspirational Taylor soonbecame the best known and respected of theofficers. He volunteered for duty in the worstof all areas, the hospital, where the average lifeof a patient was 19 days. Many men couldhave been saved if the Japanese had provided aminimum of medication, of which they hadample supplies.

Taylor devised a plan for getting medicalsupplies from Philippine guerrillas andsmuggling them into camp—an offensepunishable by death. The plan was carried outlargely by a corporal who was assigned workat railroad yards near the camp. The suppliescould be obtained by Clara Phillips, anAmerican woman who had contacts with theguerrillas. As medication began to filter intothe camp, the death rate among patientsdeclined drastically.

Eventually the smuggling operation wasexposed. Phillips was sentenced to lifeimprisonment and several participants wereexecuted. Taylor was threatened withimmediate death by the bruta l campcommandant, Captain Suzuki, then confinedin a “heat box”—a four-by-five-foot cageplaced in the blazing sun—where he wasexpected to die. With barely enough food andwater to keep him alive in the pest-infestedcage, Taylor survived the box for nine weeks.His example encouraged others in the boxes tonot give up. Near death, Taylor was moved tothe hospital to die. Against all odds, hesurvived.

A new and more humane commandantreplaced Suzuki. Conditions began toimprove, in part due to Taylor’s influence overthe new man. In October 1944, the Japaneseordered all American officers at Cabanatuan tobe shipped to Japan. The Americans now werewithin 200 miles of Manila. Defeat staredJapan in the face. Some 1,600 officers weremoved to Manila, where they were held nearlytwo months while the enemy assembled aconvoy to take them and others to Japan.

Early in December, the hottest and driestmonth in the Philippines, the men weremarched to the docks. The 1,619 fromCabanatuan were assigned to Oryoku Maru,which once had been a luxury liner. The menwere forced into the ship’s three sweltering,unventilated holds. About two square feet ofspace was available for each man. There wereno sanitary facilities. The first night, 30 mendied in just one of the holds.

After an attack on the convoy by US bomberswhose crews did not know there wereAmericans aboard, only Oryoku Marusurvived and it was anchored in Subic Bay.The next morning it was bombed and leftsinking. Taylor was severely wounded butcontinued to help others out of the doomedvessel. As those who could swim neared theshore, Japanese troops opened fire on them,killing many.

Jammed into a succession of equally crowded,unsanitary hulks, and with the barestminimum of food and water, the officers fromCabanatuan finally reached Japan on Jan. 30 infreezing weather for which they were not

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clothed. Only 400 of the original 1,619survived the horrible experience in the “hellships,” as they became known. Throughoutthe long months at Cabanatuan and the terriblevoyage to Japan, Taylor never ceased toencourage hope among the POWs and toenlighten their spiritual lives.

When Taylor regained some strength as hiswounds healed, he was assigned to work in thecoal mines at Fukuoka. Soon formations ofB-29s began to fill the skies of Japan. For thatcountry, the war clearly was lost. The POWswere moved to Manchuria until the war ended.Only two chaplains who were aboard the hellships survived.

After the war, Taylor remained in the AirForce. He was assigned to wing and commandchaplain posts at several US bases andultimately was named Air Force Chief ofChaplains with the rank of Major General. Onhis retirement in 1966, he returned to his nativeTexas to continue a life of service. Throughouthis years that were marked by the horrors ofwar and by great personal suffering, he neverlost the faith that sustained him and that heengendered in those whose lives he touched.He and the many chaplains who have devotedtheir lives to the service of others are a part ofthe Air Force tradition of valor.

The next article is entitled, “Escape and Evasion:

The Chaplain’s Role.” It appears in an Army Training

document. It is written by Chaplain Daniel Minjares,

who is endorsed by the Church of the Nazarene. He is

describing his experience in survival training:

The Blackhawk helicopter swooped in low andswift over the treetops, settling in a downwardrush of heavy wind and receding engine noisesto the landing strip at North Fort Hood. Eightpilots and I looked anxiously out of thewindows. We could see the MP guards thatwere at the far end of the strip. As the aircrafttouched down in the grassy field, the crewchief opened the door and we quickly seizedthe opportunity before us, jumping out andsprinting toward a nearby tree line. This wasour chance to put into practice the escape andevasion techniques we had learned.

Unfortunately, the MPs reacted too quickly to ourescape attempt. One of the pilots and I soon foundourselves face down in the grass with MPs handcuffingand searching us. We were POWs! I am the chaplain forthe 15th Military Intelligence Battalion (AerialExploitation). I recently participated with 24 pilotsfrom my unit in phased training related to Escape andEvasion and Conduct as a Prisoner of War.

During the Escape and Evasion training, I trainedwith CSM John Gregorcyk, a Vietnam and DesertStorm veteran with 10 years’ experience in SpecialForces. At the beginning of our exercise, theObserver/Controller gave us two destinations via gridcoordinates and told us to avoid capture by theOpposing Forces (OPFOR). Midway through ourtraining, instructors from the Air Force SurvivalSchool taught classes on survival, escape and evasiontechniques, and how to undergo interrogation. We alsoreceived an MRE, which was to be our only food for thetwo-day exercise. We were prisoners of war in theCorps Interrogation Facility (CIF), operated byCompany A, 163d Military Intelligence Battalion(Tactical Exploitation). In the CIF we learned what itis like to actually be a prisoner of war. We weresearched again, and then we waited to be questioned.Each pilot was given information that the interrogatorswere to attempt to uncover during their questioning.When I identified myself as a chaplain, and indicatedthat I was to be a detained person, the military policeallowed me to keep the New Testament andinspirational cards that I carried to continue ministry tomy fellow POWs. After several hours in the CIF, the

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POWi2001

Stop hereand take tim

e toread

the article

entitled, “U

. S. Army

ChaplainMinistry

toGerm

an

War Criminals

at Nuremberg,

1945-1946,” located in

Appendix1 of this

manual.

exercise was concluded, but not before I learnedcritical lessons that I outline here.

LAND NAVIGATION IS CRUCIAL

During the Escape and Evasion phase of thetraining, our ability to navigate was seriouslytested. Since we were attempting to avoidcapture, the terrain features and vegetationdictated our route to conceal our movement asmuch as possible. We could not rely only onazimuth readings, pace counts or followingroads to avoid the OPFOR. A key factoraffecting the ability to navigate is that virtuallyall movement during evasion would be done atnight. The important use of terrain features as“handrai ls” for navigat ion cannot beunderestimated. By carefully observingterrain (river beds, ridge lines) during daylighthours, you will be able to improve yournavigation during hours of darkness.

STAY CALM, BE PATIENT

It is important to stay claim while attempting toevade captors. It is easy to panic. You must stop andthink about what your are going to do before acting.Soldiers need to learn the importance of patientlywaiting for the right moment to act. Carefully thinkingthrough a course of action will pay great dividends.AirForce Captain Scott O’Grady successfully evadedSerbian troops for six days in war-torn Bosnia. Hiscommander noted that O’Grady’s ability to “maintainhis cool” played a key role in this achievement.O’Grady moved slowly and carefully while avoidinghostile troops, never venturing more than two milesfrom the spot where he initially landed.

FATIGUE AND HUNGER MAKEEVERYTHING MORE DIFFICULT

Fatigue and hunger will confuse your thinking.After 10 miles of walking though dense undergrowthand “wait-a-minute” vines, the sergeant major and Iwere very tired and anxious to get to the end point(destination). Due to our fatigue, we made a seriousmistake in reading our map. We had not gone as far aswe thought we had, and crossed a creek nearly onekilometer from where we thought we were. As a result,thinking we were in the safe zone around the nextpoint, when in reality we were not, we were captured.Such mistakes in war time can obviously spell disaster.Fatigue and hunger also play a significant role during

interrogation. The Escape and Evasion phase coveredmore than 12 miles of difficult terrain. The sergeantmajor and I didn’t reach the end point until 0300 hourson the second day. I covered myself with my ponchoand lay on the wet, hard ground to sleep. When I awokeafter a couple of hours of restless sleep, I joined theother pilots for our flight to the Corps InterrogationFacility. I was not in the best of shape when I arrived.Fatigue and hunger reduces one’s ability to withstandthe pressures of interrogation. Interrogators aretrained manipulators, and they are skilled in easinginformation from unsuspecting soldiers. What maystart as iron clad resolve may disappear quickly afterseveral days of hiding from the enemy. AnInterrogation Technician for the 163d MilitaryIntelligence Battalion, Warrant Officer Stacy Strand,states the best strategy to take during interrogation issimply not to give any information beyond name, rankand service number. Any other information may beexploited and used as a lever against you or otherprisoners. WO 1 Strand adds these tips: Don’t give theinterrogator anything to key on, such as being thirsty,hungry or how long it has been since you heard fromyour spouse or family. Give careful short answers toquestions; try to show no emotion through facialexpressions or body language.

HAVE CONFIDENCE IN YOUR ABILITIES

Confidence in your abilities to use all aspects ofland navigation is critical in avoiding capture.Knowing you can read a map accurately, identifyterrain features, and navigate will give a tremendousboost to your confidence when you need it most.Facing a real life evasion scenario is not the time to tryand figure these things out. Continual practice andreview will help keep skills fresh and confidence high.

PREPARATION FOR MINISTRY

While preparing for the escape and evasionexercise, I thought about what I would need, at aminimum, to continue my ministry in a POWenvironment. All I would have was what I could carryon my load bearing equipment and survival vest.

What do I need to continue to function as achaplain? What did I want to have to perform mymission despite the circumstances? What do I need tohave on me at all times in the event I am captured?These are important questions to consider and theanswers will vary for all chaplains. For this exercise, I

2-25

took a small New Testament, and some inspirationalcards to give to the pilots.

Addi t ional ly, chaplains need to preparethemselves spiritually and mentally for combat. Thisis an obvious point that bears repeating. With adequatepreparation, my own fears and concerns will be undercontrol, which then frees me to assist others POWs.Without this preparation, I can unwittingly limit myown ministry. It is difficult to give to others what Idon’t have myself.

Ministry as a POW

Once I have decided what I want or think I need forministry, how do I go about my work as a POW?Individual ministry may be the main focus duringcaptivity. Opportunities for group worship willprobably be limited or nonexistent. Captors likely willnot allow groups of prisoners to gather for any reason.

Maintaining Hope

During last year’s Escape and Evasion exercise, Iprepared a class on POW survival. I found someinteresting statistics that underscore the importance ofmaintaining hope. I believed, before then, that POWswere not likely to survive the ordeal of captivity. Butthe following information shows a very differentreality.

—Stat is t ics from Post-Traumat ic StressDisorders: A Handbook for Clinicians, Tom Williams,Published by Disabled American Veterans, 1987.These statistics indicate that 87.7% of POWs returnedto their homes.

Chaplains, therefore, need to assist POWs infighting the normal feelings of helplessness, despair,and depression. We cannot allow them to give up hope.Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, is anexcellent resource for chaplains to study this importantissue.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

These are some additional questions to consider.Do I work with the captors? Do I cooperate with them

to gain concessions for the prisoners? Do I give someinformation in an attempt to have more freedom to doministry?

Article 3 of the Code of Conduct states “If I amcaptured, I will continue to resist by all meansavailable. I will make every effort to escape and aidother to escape....” How does this apply to me, as achaplain? Do I attempt to escape or stay with prisonersstill detained? There are no schoolbook solutions tothese questions. Each chaplain will have to come to hisor her own position on these issues.

CONCLUSION

The Escape and Evasion exercise at Fort Hoodtaught me the importance of thinking aboutpotential captivity during field training. Iadmit that during my four years as an armorbattalion chaplain, the thought of becoming aPOW never crossed my mind. I ministeredwith soldiers during rotations at the CMTCand NTC, and I deployed to Desert Storm andDesert Shield without giving captivity even apassing thought. Air Force Captain ScottO’Grady fortunately survived his harrowingtrial by fire and the rigors of escape andevasion. Training and preparation were criticalto his success, although he readily admits thatprior to the incident, the thought of such a neartragedy was “unthinkable.” We need toremember that unthinkable events occur inwar, and preparation is the key to our survival.

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WWII KOREA VIETNAM TOTAL

Captured/Interned 130,201 7,140 766 138,107

Died 14,072 2,701 114 16,887

Returned 116,129 4,418 651 121,198

POWi2002

Beforecontin

uing tothe next

section, turn

toAppendix

1 and

read the article, entitl

ed “The POW

:

Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions.”

What might have you done if you

had been inSeaman Hegdahl’s

place,

or inLT

COL Stockman’spositio

n.

COMMON QUALITIES THAT AIDED

SURVIVAL

Learning Objective: To recall some insights intocommonly accepted spiritual growth exercises andhow enforced isolation and hardship can enhancethese into a reality for survival.

All of these experiences identify a commonalitythat a lot of people take for granted. Basically itbecame the need for a value system and the need forothers to share in that same system. Each of thesestories stresses the soul searching that each individualstruggled with about who they were and, ultimately,why they were there, while imprisoned. Once theyaccepted their traumatic experience and responded tothe values they had been taught, they were able toendure the worst of treatment. The noblest part of thisendeavor was each individual’s growth becamedramatic when they were able to help a comrade.

Family background, any religious training andthe bonding of the military community itself, workedin a positive way to strengthen each of theseindividuals in their struggle with the unknown. Oncestripped of their status and relatively comfortablesupport systems, each of these individuals had theopportunity to identify what was of true value. Theylearned how to be compassionate because of thesuffering and learned how to love from the hatred theywitnessed. Faith and hope became the watchwords ofsurvival. The process of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross,although primarily suggested for those in the traumaof death, aptly applies here. The denial, anger,bargaining, depression and acceptance stages arereflected in all their stories in various intensities.Once the final stage of acceptance was reached theneach of these POW’s was able to cope and becomesupportive and effective in their own survival of thoseof their shipmates.

It is common to most spiritual traditions that sometype of “retreat” where one isolates him or herself fromthe world to reflect on their very existence isrecommended. Per force POW’s are given thisopportunity. Generally it is also suggested that thistype of experience be within a community setting.Again, the bonding of intra communication betweenthe POW’s was the very lifeline that made theirsuffering endurable. The ingenuity and talents of eachmember became vital. Cooperation transcendedpersonal differences and became endemic. Thedevelopment of the “tap” code showed theresourcefulness of the POW’s when all else failed or

seemed insurmountable. Obviously, this was a no winscenario and yet their determination made itsurvivable.

The soul searching required that the importantvalues of their cultural, social and military disciplinebe chosen carefully for this challenge. No matter whatthe deprivation, their spiritual powers could not betaken away. For those who had to endure isolation, theyused this time constructively. Ultimately eachindividual became aware that taking care of each otherwas their primary need. How each POW surviveddepended upon each one’s maintenance of their ownspiritual, mental and physical well-being and that oftheir comrades. Truly the expression of living one dayat a time became their reality.

In her book, “The Gulf between Us:Love and Terror in Desert Storm,”Cynthia B. Acree writes about her struggleon the home front awaiting her MarineAviator Husband’s return from being heldas a POW during the Gulf War. See

Appendix I, "Further Reading."

FAMILIES: FIGHTING THEIR OWNWAR

Learning Objective: To raise the level ofawareness that the needs of family members ofprisoners are significant and require resourceful helpfrom caregivers on the homefront.

If those held prisoners in Vietnam viewedthemselves as continuing the war in captivity, theirfamilies were faced with fighting a war of their own.Daily, over a period of years, the wives and children ofAmerican prisoners of war lived with the extremes ofuncertainty, loneliness, and hope. Just as theCommunist propaganda machine brutally dictatedrules of life for those imprisoned in a total institutionthousands of miles from home, so, too, politicalcircumstances seemed to dictate the hopes and fears offamily members.

Nearly every prisoner of war, at the time ofshootdown, assumed in blissful ignorance that hisimprisonment would probably last about 6 months, andthen it would all be over. Families, on the waiting endof this unknown, struggled to maintain normalcy,”while at the same time lobbying for information andinfluence. The war fought on the home front consisted

2-27

of learning and deepening basic life values offaithfulness, constancy in adversity, and honor. Thestories of the families, like the stories of the prisoners,have to do with the search for meaning in the midst ofextreme circumstances.

Included among the waiting families were thosewhose wait would not end in 1973. Hundreds of thesefamilies of servicemen missing in action (MIAs)continue to live with unresolved grief. During theVietnam years, of course, many women were notcertain whether they were wives or widows, due to thefact that a list of confirmed prisoners was not madeavailable until the time of release. For example, a wifemight have been informed initially that her husbandhad been killed in action (KIA), only to receive news asmany as 2 years later that he was, in fact, in the prisonsystem.

Further, the nearly 600 prisoners of war repatriatedin 1973 represented only a portion of the total numberof families affected directly by captivity, as thefamilies of MIAs will confirm. It is actually theexperience of families, not only that of the prisonersthemselves, which warrants the degree of attentionpaid to wartime captivity. While captivity wouldappear to be a unique, infrequent occurrence, statisticsindicate that there were over 4,000 Americanservicemen captured during World War I; over 142,000captured in World War II; and 766 captured andinterned in Vietnam.

When the number of anxious family members leftbehind waiting multiplies these numbers; the realimpact of captivity on society becomes moresignificant. Research into the effects of captivity onboth prisoners and families has never been undertakenmore intentionally than it was during the Vietnamyears. Operation Homecoming, originally organizedin 1972 under the more cumbersome name “EgressRecap,” was a full-scale effort at the Department ofDefense level to ensure that the repatriated prisonersreceived a hero’s welcome with plenty of re-entryassistance, both psychologically and materially. TheNaval Aerospace Medical Institute (NAMI) inPensacola, Florida (since renamed NOMI, NavalOperational Medicine Institute) began conductingmedical follow-up exams of each prisoner in January1974. These medical exams still take place, annually.

Additionally, the Family Studies Branch of theCenter for Prisoner of War Studies (CPWS) wasestablished in 1971 to focus specifically on howfamilies were coping with the highly ambiguous andstressful situation of captivity; and what issues

repatriation would introduce to the changing familydynamic. Consequently, there are from the Vietnamera a number of documented studies on such familyconcerns as the effect of father-absence on children,role identification in a changed family structure, andpost-reunion adjustment. The value and implicationsof these findings for other types of military separations(e.g., routine deployments and special operations) areobvious.

One of the more illuminating accounts of how onefamily experienced the ordeal of captivity is providedin the book, In Love And War, by Jim and SybilStockdale. Particularly moving, and unique amongPOW autobiographies because the Stockdales eachwrote alternate chapters, In Love And War truly revealsa war fought on two fronts. The sections on captivitywritten by Admiral Stockdale have been alluded to inthe previous section of this package. The chapterscontributed by Mrs. Stockdale, in turn, provideinsights which the empirical research of CPWSconfirms, and an emotional dimension which the datalack. The following are some significant conclusionsand recommendations to be drawn from both the book,and the research.

1. As much as shootdown and capture are a shockfor the prisoner, these events carry their own uniqueshock for families receiving the news. The firstnotification, which Mrs. Stockdale received, of herhusband’s capture was that he was “missing.” It wasseven months before she received, in April 1967, a letterfrom him dated December 1966. Prior to this, thedetails of his whereabouts and well being were simplynonexistent, other than the fact that his parachute hadbeen sighted. Mrs. Stockdale describes her firstreaction to the news, thus: “No tears gushed forth. Noscreams of anguish. Just a puzzling sensation of shockthat this was happening to me. Then I began to shake allover.”

Later that same day she recalls trying to detectwhether her intuition was telling her that her husbandwas alive or dead, but realized that she “had absolutelyno intuitive feelings about it one way or another.”3

Another wife interviewed for this writing noted thatshe found it difficult to make major decisions in theimmediate aftermath of receiving news of herhusband’s capture, and that, in fact, it was good that shedid not make any major decisions for about the firstthree months.” Thinking, planning, and exercisingsound judgment were not only difficult because of thelack of information; these were functions whichrequired considerable energy — energy which was

2-28

being diverted into maintaining emotional stability.Interestingly, service members at risk of capture aretaught in survival t ra in ing about a s imi larphenomenon, known as “capture shock”: that initialperiod in which one’s whole system is saying, “I can’tbelieve this is happening to me.” Depending on thecircumstances of capture, and the personality of theindividual, this period may last for as little as two days,or for as long as a few weeks.

Escape plans made while one is in shock typicallyfail, because complete attention cannot be given as itshould to crucial details. In the case of families, theperiod of shock may last longer than it would for theprisoner, depending, among other factors, on how sooninformation can be obtained which is unambiguous.Of the two parties, the family is in the more ambiguoussituation; and ambiguity prolongs, even delays, grief.

2. Prior connections and contacts are essential. Inmuch the same way that a foreign visitor will revert tohis or her language of birth in times of stress or crisis,families left to cope with events such as war timecaptivity, which pose the possibility of significant loss,require a supportive network of family or friends withwhom they are absolutely comfortable, and can trust.Mrs. Stockdale describes being unable to sleep the firstnight after she had received the news of her husband’scapture. She immediately called on her closest friend tostay with her. Further, in much the same way that theprisoners struggled to maintain communication withone another in captivity because of the emotionalsupport it provided, the ability of the wives to initiateand nurture new contacts played a very important role intheir survival, growth, and, as a group, theireffectiveness in influencing world opinion regardingNorth Vietnam’s treatment of prisoners of war.

3. Depending upon the overall health of themarriage, and of the family’s life together prior tocaptivity, families’ experiences of survival and growthdiffer widely. Just as some families come through aroutine deployment stronger and more committed thanthey were before, while others become alienated andfragmented, not all the families of prisoners of warresponded identically. Some marriages ended indivorce, either during the captivity itself, or followingrepatriation; others flourished at a new level of maturity.Some children immediately evidenced problemsadjusting to and coping with their father’s absence; forother children, the effects were delayed, more subtle.Some families had positive experiences with the Navysystem, in regard to financial policy, communication,and support; others did not. However, all the families

were deeply affected by captivity, and in certain similarways. In this light, two important generalizations maybe made, based on CPWS research,5 for future insightand use:

a. Following the initial shock of notification,most wives remained in a “limbo” state for one to twoyears. Whether this period was characterized as“marking time in place” or “vegetating,” itsprolongation was detr imental to day-to-dayfunctioning. Wives eventually had to “close out” thehusbands’roles within the families, whether partially ortotally, and make major decisions as though theirhusbands were no longer a part of the family unit. Onthe whole, the better able wives were at making thisadjustment, the better their children were at coping withthe long years of separation.

b. When POW families were interviewed oneyear following repatriation, the key to successfulre-negotiation of roles appeared to depend on the extentto which husband and wife were able to agree on andresolve role relationships. Whether the family structurewas traditional, egalitarian, or role reversed, was not asimportant as whether or not an unresolved discrepancyof values had arisen between husband and wife. Almost30 percent of the reunited families were divorced afterone year, a percentage which matched the divorce rate inthe civilian sector in 1974. Nevertheless, the percentagein the comparison group was only 11 to 12 percent, orabout one-third as high as the POW families. Theindelible scars left on prisoners by their captivityexperience meant that, in some cases, they had troublemaking decisions. In marked comparison with theirwives, who had had to become, if not completelycomfortable, at least accustomed to making all thefamily decisions, most of the prisoners had just comefrom an environment in which it was normal to spendseveral hours of the day deciding, for example, when orwhether to smoke the rationed cigarette. There were noother decisions to make. Thus, extreme shifts in rolesand responsibilities occurred to a degree not normallyexperienced during a deployment, and over a far greaterlength of time (years, as opposed to months).Renegotiation and redefinition of role relationships wasessential, and difficult, and not always successful.

4. Immediate and responsive assistance at theinstitutional level goes a long way toward defusing theanxiety, frustration, and despair associated withwar-time, or terrorist captivity. Families’ “captivity”can result in an emotional isolation which activesupport, without becoming intrusive or impositional,can alleviate. Sharing information through any

2-29

available network of communication reinforces themessage to families that they have not been forgotten,and those politically influential powers are still aware ofthe prisoners’ plight. Mrs. Stockdale, who founded theNational League of Families of American Prisoners andMissing in Southeast Asia during her husband’scaptivity, repeatedly discovered the value of simplybringing wives together to talk about how they weredoing and what they were feeling.

In 1969, when she first began extending herefforts beyond the San Diego area via a letter to 60POW wives whom she knew throughout the country,countless replies poured in by phone call and letterfrom those who had no concept that there were othersin their same situation. One woman in Anniston,Alabama, indicated that her husband had beenmissing for 3 years, and that Mrs. Stockdale was thefirst person she had ever heard from who was “in thesame boat.”7

As the League became an increasingly organizedand influential entity, more and more officials in theDepartment of Defense and the Department of Statebegan listening to their pleas that internationalattention be focused on the North Vietnamese’ lack ofadherence to the terms of the Geneva Convention. Ofcourse, the emotional support to be gained within theindividual League chapters was still a factor of greatsignificance to the families; but knowing that theirsolidarity carried an influence that extended farbeyond their boundaries, freed many from futility.

5. Coincident with support offered to prisoners’families, opportunities should be provided for children,specifically, to participate in group counseling. Some ofthe former POWs interviewed for this report, whenasked what they considered, in retrospect, might haveserved their families well during the captivity period,mentioned the need for counseling for their children.Perhaps because the family unit headed solely by themother necessarily became insular and private, eveninvolvement in outside activities where there are“significant other” adults could not address the need foremotional support, intentionally offered, and guidedwithin a group of one’s peers. Further, mothers’ ownneeds probably diminished the full degree of emotionalenergy that they may have been able to muster for theirchildren under different circumstances.

6. Exposure to the media is not an activity forwhich all families are enthusiastic. Even for those whoare fairly comfortable giving magazine interviews orappearing on television, media activities can bestressful. While some may find it personally helpful,

even healing, to bring their message to the news media,those who do not find it so should be encouraged todiscover other activities which are healing.9 In this, as inother areas, not all families are alike.

Perhaps the greatest lesson learned from theextensive research and study of families during theVietnam captivity, is that family programs which arewell-planned, responsive, and able to be implementedquickly in a crisis, will play an essential role in families’healthy adjustment and readjustment for years to come.Prisoners and their families learned through theirrespective ordeals that they are able to take on far morestress than they had ever dreamed possible. Reinforcingstrength and confidence in these abilities enablesvictory in the face of the toughest odds.

ISSUES IN COMMON

Learning Objective: To distinguish between thehistorical realities and conditions of captivity in thevarious wars and to identify the common emotionaland spiritual effects that Prisoners of War share.

Even a superficial reading of accounts of captivityduring World War II and Vietnam quickly reveals thevast differences in conditions and treatment. If commonissues were to be identified on the basis of circum-stances alone, one might be hard pressed to findsimilarities.

For example, those interned in Japanese prisoncamps in the Philippines suffered terribly from boththe immediate and long-term effects of diseasesassociated with malnutrition and exposure. Variousgastrointestinal diseases, tuberculosis, beri-beri,avitaminosis, and pneumonia, as well as diseasesendemic to the Far East (e.g., malaria and dengue-typefevers), decimated the numbers of American prisonersby the thousands. The Bataan Death March (April1942) caused the deaths of thousands more throughstarvation. The atrocities associated with physicalsurvival alone were compounded by the brutal andcapricious treatment of the Japanese. Starving,malnourished prisoners were routinely assigned toheavy work details, and beaten severely for little or noreason at all.

Upon repatriation, unlike prisoners returning fromVietnam, the 9,732 who survived discovered to theirdisillusionment that their stories of what took placewere not believed. Many doctors dismissed theirharrowing accounts as gross exaggerations. The

2-30

former prisoners were mistakenly perceived as seekingglory and adulation, rather than needing to share thepain of what they had experienced. Additionally,medical treatment from the Veterans Administrationhospitals was denied, due to the perception that theirmaladies were not “service connected.” Numerousfirst-hand accounts of painful post-repatriationexperiences are documented, alongside accounts of theatrocities of the prison camps.

The thousands of Americans imprisoned duringthe Korean conflict met, for the first time, such tacticsof the enemy as extortion, propaganda, and“re-education.” While much has been made of“brainwashing” from this era, the changed convictionsof those who either divulged valuable intelligenceinformation, or who became openly sympathetic to theenemy cause, may be attributed to an actual change ofwill, not to any hypnotic transformation of the mind.2

Many government officials and citizens were alarmedat the prospect that any American fighting man couldbe persuasively tempted by the enemy to “sell out” theAmerican way of life. Of the 4,000 who wererepatriated, Major Mayer estimated that approxi-mately one-third became “progressives”: “By theCommunists’ own definition, this meant that a manwas either a Communist sympathizer or a collaborator— or both — during his stay in a prison camp.”3

In reality, what Major Mayer and others observedsounds very similar to current debate on the state ofAmerican education. A significant number ofAmerican soldiers either did not understand theirnation’s history, or did not feel a strong personalinvestment in the American way of life, or both.Consequently, they were vulnerable, under thehorrifying pressures and conditions of prison life, toattempts at “re-education” by the enemy.

The 591 Americans imprisoned in North Vietnam,and the somewhat smaller number (117) imprisoned inSouth Vietnam, was an exceptional group, for a varietyof reasons. Not only were the vast majoritywel l -educated , h ighly commit ted mi l i ta ryprofessionals; but also their smaller number, at leastcompared with previous wars, led to tightermanagement and control by the Vietnamese, andultimately, to a kind of propaganda war on the worldstage.

While the propaganda war backfired when worldopinion turned against the North Vietnamese, thisresult occurred only after the prisoners had beenexposed over a period of years to severe pressure tobecome propagandists against their own country. The

prisoners profiled in the first section (above), and manyof the articles reproduced in these chapters, attest to theunique community formed by this particular group ofprisoners, due in part to the political circumstances ofthe Vietnam War.

The above discussion is provided merely to point out

that the actual captivity circumstance, both in physical

and psychological terms, can vary, and has varied widely

from war to war. However, there is value in identifying

issues in common, not only in order to prepare more

effectively for future captivity, but also to highlight some

universally shared aspects of the prisoner experience.

From CDR Holt’s research paper Prisoners ofWar: Prescriptive Conduct and Compliance inCaptive Situations:

All prisoners, albeit to varying degrees, sharedegradation and dehumanization by the enemy.Whether in the form of torture, political exploitation,or extreme physical deprivation and injury, it is thefeelings that result from such treatment which arecommon: loneliness, profound sense of loss andabandonment, and despair.

Because prisoners of war are, in nearly every case,military members, their shared military training andvalues become bedrock assets in a captivityenvironment. Part of the reason why Americanprisoners in North Vietnam were able to form aneffective community, was because they were almost allaviators.

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POWi2003

Arleigh Burke Class destro

yer

DONALDCOOK

(DDG

75)

Ship’snamesake is

Colonel

DonaldG. Cook, USMC- for

hisextra

ordinarybehavior

whilea POW

inVietnam. Read

hisstory

nowin

chapter 4.

Whether Navy or Air Force, the flying “club”constituted a powerful bond. Another aspectof military training is a common code ofethics. American prisoners in Vietnam, in thewake of the experience in North Korea withCommunist propaganda, had specified rules ofbehavior known as the Code of Conduct.5

Again and again, prisoners from the Vietnamera cite the Code as a powerful guide andmotivator during those torturous years.

The extreme deprivation of the captivitycircumstance will inevitably bring individualstogether around the following four sharedhuman needs:

1. Communication (emotional contact)

2. Humor

3. Meaning (beyond survival)

4. A clear conscience

5. Captors, regardless of their country and culture,tend to use the same tactics to manipulateprisoners, and to increase dependence:

6. Humiliation

7. Guilt

8. Threat

9. Reward and punishment

10. Frank attempts directed toward attitudinalchange by appeal to reason.

In the light of these common issues, Americanservice members are typically trained to develop theirwill to resist. As prisoner after prisoner in a variety ofwartime captivity settings will affirm, the prisoner ofwar status invariably drives a person inward, into theearliest memories and lessons of childhood and basicschooling. The resistance tools, they say, lie within, inthe world of the soul and the will. Therefore, training,to be effective, must acquaint the individual with his orher inner world, where invisible, often underdevelopedvalues await the chance to emerge.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. In the scenario of imprisonment, whether as aPOW or a hostage, reflect on what would becomeimportant to you when you are deprived of allsemblance of human dignity?

2. In our everyday lives, we are allowed theopportunity to consciously care about other people. Inthe confinement expressed in this chapter, what natureof commitment do you feel would be needed to “love”your captors?

3. The selflessness expressed in the lives of thePOW’s both in Vietnam and especially the chaplains inWW II is heroic. Discuss how our daily experiences caneven today, allow us to attain this goal?

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