By Stuart L. Rochester and Frederick T. Kiley. Annapolis: US Naval Institute Press, 1999. 728 pages. $36.95. Reviewed by Brooks E. Kleber, Ph.D., retired US Army historian and a prisoner of war in World War II.
Remenber who the traitors are.
With the exception of Japan's miserable treatment of its prisoners of war in World War II, the subject of prisoners of war (POWs) has been largely ignored in popular and historical coverage of 20th-century wars, until Vietnam. This omission was not for lack of information or numbers. World War I saw 4,120 American POWs, while the total for World War II was over 130,000. North Korea took 7,140 POWs, but press accounts were generally limited to Korean attempts to indoctrinate Americans and the difficulties of handling rebellious North Korean prisoners held by Americans.
In America's longest war, the number of US prisoners in Vietnamese hands was only (comparatively speaking) 771, of whom 113 died in captivity. So what caused the emergence of interest in the lives and fate of American prisoners in the Vietnam conflict? There are several reasons: the length of the war; Vietnam's extreme cruelty in the treatment of American prisoners; the rising tide of American anti-war sentiment as the conflict continued, accompanied by visits of American anti-war extremists to North Vietnam; and, perhaps most telling of all, the merging of the fate of American POWs with the negotiations to end the fighting.
Honor Bound is a long, well-researched book written by historians working under the auspices of the Historical Office of the Department of Defense--Stuart Rochester and Frederick Kiley. The project was supervised by Chief Historian Alfred Goldberg, who, the authors claim, presided with the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job. The book is wonderfully complete, containing such ancillary features as detailed drawings of the many POW camps and appendices with POW statistics for most of our 20th-century wars. It also contains a list of North Vietnamese prison camps, a catalog of all US personnel captured in Southeast Asia during the period 1961-1973, and a useful bibliography, index, and notes. There is a multitude of individual photographs of the POWs, which I found myself studying as I read of their exploits.
Organizationally, the history begins with the POWs of the Viet Minh (1946-1954), continues with those of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, and concludes with POWs in the series of camps in North Vietnam. Appropriately inserted within this structure are chapters on specific prisoner of war problems: the need for and methods of communication; the emergence of prisoner leadership; Vietnamese attempts at politically seducing and psychologically breaking the prisoners; description of the many camps; the individual stories of prominent POWs and some of the less well-known; and the terrible nature of the torture.
We learn too of the vast difference between prison life in the North and that in the South. In the North, prisoners generally were officers (aviators), while the prisoners in the South were mostly enlisted infantrymen. Prisoners in the North were placed in established, nominally permanent camps, while those in the South moved from one transient encampment to another under the most primitive conditions.
Many modern-day heroes are covered--Jeremiah Denton, James Stockdale, Robinson Risner, George "Bud" Day, and John McCain, to name only a few. McCain, a current Senator from Arizona and US presidential candidate, was badly injured upon capture. He faced the additional ill luck of being the son of a Navy four-star admiral, a fact his captors knew.
One of the wandering nomads of the South was Marine Captain Donald Cook, captured in 1964. He and a small band of fellow prisoners were kept constantly on the move. He died in 1967 of wounds and disease. Later, several of his group wrote glowing tributes about Cook's bravery and leadership. One letter was sent to the Marine Corps Commandant. Even with emphasis from the highest levels, an award for Cook remained in administrative limbo until 1980 when his widow finally received her husband's Medal of Honor. Four other American prisoners of war received this highest of honors. In addition to Cook, Lieutenant Lance Sijan received his posthumously. The other three included Navy Commander James Stockdale and Air Force Majors George Day and Leo Thorsness, the latter honored for exploits before his capture.
Army Lieutenant Nick Rowe was another Vietnam prisoner in the South. Captured in 1963, Rowe, like Cook, was part of a small group being pushed pell-mell through the back country until one day in 1968, while his captors were eluding an American gunship, he escaped. He came home a hero and for a while occupied himself with public speaking and politics. Returning to the Army in 1980, Colonel Rowe was killed in the Philippines by communist guerrillas. He once made this statement about a valorous comrade, Captain Humbert Versace, who had died in captivity: "He followed the code of conduct to the letter, and he was executed because of it. . . . They got nothing from him but we lost a fine officer."
Religion is a subject of great value in the life of POWs but rarely gets mentioned. After his release, Denton explained that "those not subjected to the prisoner of war experience may have trouble understanding how real was the presence of God to most of us." The tapping exchanges between prisoners usually ended with GBU for "God Bless You." On the other hand, Lieutenant General John Flynn in 1988 told a National War College seminar "that there were atheists `who also did well' and that love of country, family, and their fellow prisoners were equally powerful [as] sustaining and inspirational forces."
What about black American prisoners of war? One report listed 72 black servicemen dead or missing; seven of these were officers. A later tabulation indicated that 54 depicted as missing probably died in combat. Air Force Major Fred Cherry was the highest ranking black prisoner of war. When captured in 1965, the badly injured Cherry was placed in a cell with Navy Lieutenant (j.g.) Porter Halyburton, a white Southerner with a thick accent. Mutual distrust was soon dispelled and Cherry credited Halyburton with saving his life by feeding and caring for him.
A few words about the bad and the good among the prisoners. There always seemed to be a small group who responded to the Vietnamese. They were known as the Peace Committee or PCs. Navy Commander Walter Wilber and Marine Lieutenant Colonel Edison Miller were two of the highest ranking PCs who remained unrepentant to the end. Both faced postwar charges of mutiny and collaboration which were eventually dropped. The two officers retired with administrative letters of censure and lasting disgrace.
And the good group? John Flynn, David Winn, Norman Gaddis, Chuck Boyd, James Stockdale, Jeremiah Denton, Robinson Risner, William Lawrence, Robert Fuller, and Robert Shumaker were among a score who would attain flag rank. Chuck Boyd was the only POW who would become a four-star general, and Douglas Peterson recently returned to Hanoi as our first Ambassador.
Throughout the book the authors maintain an evenhanded approach, but a willingness to address sticky subjects. Regarding the postwar controversy over MIAs, the authors remark, "The final accounting to this day continues to occupy hundreds of analysts as well as a swarm of polemicists and opportunists."
Finally, a light note. An Air Force captain was shot down 98 days before his eventual release, but received reimbursement for only 88 days of "substandard quarters and subsistence." With true bureaucratic consistency, officials explained that during his first ten days of evading capture, he had no quarters or subsistence whatever, and thus they could not have been substandard!
Jeremiah Denton, as he stepped from the plane onto the tarmac at Clark Field, remarked that "his countrymen could not have imagined how perplexed and remarkable was the journey behind the homecoming." Obviously not, but Honor Bound is the best glimpse of that journey a layman will ever get.