Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Roger Dean Ingvalson was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
Today is Wednesday, June 25th, 2003, and this is the beginning of an interview with Roger Dean Ingvalson at the Erlanger HealthLink Plus office, 975 East 3rd Street, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mr. Ingvalson was born on [birth date redacted], and is now 75 years old. My name is Michael Willie, and I will conduct this interview. Mr. Ingvalson, could you state for the recording your name and its spelling please?
Roger Dean Ingvalson. That's R-o-g-e-r. Dean, D-e-a-n. Ingvalson, I-n-g-v-a-l-s-o-n.
All right. And in which branch of the service did you serve?
Air Force.
And during which years?
1950 to 1976.
Okay. And what was your highest rank attained?
My highest rank was colonel.
Okay. Where were you born, Mr. Ingvalson?
I was born in Austin, Minnesota.
Okay. Whereabouts is Austin, Minnesota?
It's on the southern border right close to the Iowa border.
Okay. And tell me about your family. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Yes. I have -- There's six in the family. Two twin sisters, another sister, and then two brothers.
And where -- where does your age fall in there?
I'm the youngest.
Okay. And tell me what did your parents do when you were -- when you were growing up?
They lived on a farm. They were farmers and housewife.
I guess that made you a farmer too then, didn't it?
I was.
Okay. Education, how much education did you get?
I had three years of education before I joined the Air Force. Then during my time, I guess I'd been in about 13 years, I went back for six months to a university called -- through Operation Bootstrap. It's a military thing, if you can get -- if you can complete your degree in six months, they'll -- the military will send you to a university to complete it, get your Bachelor's Degree. And I did that in 1963.
Okay.
So I got a Bachelor's Degree eventually.
Okay. Now, did you have a -- was there a military background in your family at all?
Yes. During the Second World War both of my brothers were in the military and two brother-in-laws. So we had four in our family in at the same time during the Second World War.
Okay. How vivid are the memories of World War II to you with your brothers?
Patriotism would be one word. Not hearing from them for probably two years at a time where they were in combat, mostly in the Pacific. And my recollection is during that time I was in high school, and the patriotism of everybody supporting the war. And the letter writing of my mother to my two brothers and two brother-in-laws and even though we didn't get any return letters for months and months and months quite often.
Right.
But it's just -- it is the pride of serving, four people in my family serving our country.
Did this influence you at all in later years?
Yes, it did. When the Korean War broke out, I found out I was going to be drafted. And so rather than go in the Army, I joined the Air Force and I was -- I was very proud to go in the military, and I enjoyed it so much I ended up making a career of it.
Okay. Now you joined the Air Force, and is this -- did you particularly want to fly or was that just so you wouldn't be in the infantry?
I hadn't thought about flying that much when I joined. However, when the -- after I went into basic training as an enlisted man, they said you have three years of college, and the requirement at that time was to go to pilot training you had to have two years of college, and so they said you've got three years of college and we need pilots. You need to think about going to pilot training. So I thought, well, that's a good idea. So that's what influenced me to go.
Now, so you joined the service. You end up in the Air Force. Let's -- Do you remember your first days in the service and basic training?
Oh, yes. Well, I went in as an enlisted man. I joined the Air Force, signed up about 6:00 one evening, left the next morning at 6 a.m., and went to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and I was there for about five days. And it was overcrowded, no latrine facilities, lived in tents, extreme heat, and they ended up transferring -- transferring basic training recruits to Wichita Falls, Texas to get our basic training there because Lackland was so overcrowded, they had to do something about it, so then I -- Yeah.
Okay. And did you say is this in '50?
1950. I joined August 3rd of 1950.
Okay. At this point what -- what is the political climate in Korea with the Korean War and how much do you know about what's going on over there at this time?
I think the political climate is -- is good with South Korea now, but as it often happens, there's probably a faction of the people who think of the U.S. military as the ugly Americans because of our wealth and our style of living. But I know the leaders in South Vietnam [sic] still have a good relationship politically with our government.
Now, so you're in -- you're in basic training, and you were in Lackland, and they sent you where now?
It's Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas.
All right. Now, during this time what is basic training, what does that consist of?
That's to go in for -- the first recruits go to basic training when you go in and they teach you military discipline mainly, how to march and a lot of exercise.
How to salute.
Yeah, how to salute. It's wonderful. I enjoyed it.
Were you in pretty good shape when you joined?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was.
You didn't have any problem physically?
None whatsoever, no.
All right. Now, how long does basic training last?
It varies depending on the different times. I think at that time they speeded the program up because they needed the people in the military, and I think mine was eight weeks at that time.
Okay. All right. So after basic training where are you sent then?
I went to airborne electronics school at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. It's a ten-month course.
All right. Is this mostly classroom?
Yes. Well, it's hands-on, hands-on classroom.
Okay. All right. And is this -- is this easy for you to pick up? Are you mechanically inclined?
Not really. I did all right, but I'm not really -- I'm really not that knowledgeable or I guess smart as far as technical things go, but I was probably average.
Some people just have a mind for it.
Yeah.
All right. So you go to airborne electronics school, and what are you basically learning here?
You learn how to repair navigational electronic equipment that's in airplanes. In other words, a lot of different airplanes have different kinds of electronic equipment, technical equipment for navigational purposes, and we studied how to repair it.
Okay. All right. So you were there for about, did you say, ten months?
Ten months, yes.
Okay. And then where do you go from there?
I was sent to San Antonio, Texas to start my job really repairing electronics equipment.
Now, at this point when you -- when you joined the service, what kind of commitment do you sign up for?
I think it was four years.
Okay.
And when I -- when I got to Sheppard Air Force Base, that's where they really put the pressure -- not the pressure on me but they said you ought to consider going to pilot training. And so I went through all that testing, physical, and interviews, and a five-hour examination, and so forth to go to aviation cadet officer training school. And it's a long story. They said, Oh, you're in. Everything's fine. You ought to go, you know, go into pilot training within a few months. But I ended up going to Keesler Air Force Base waiting for my assignment to aviation cadets, and I get what they call a twix, it's a telegram, that I was physically disqualified. To make it a long story short, they made a mistake in recording my eye exam. So I had to reapply again to go. So then I had to wait a year before I was called into class, aviation cadet pilot training.
And during this time you're in San Antonio then?
I was in San Antonio. And then I finally got my assignment, and I went to a civilian contract pilot training primary school in Moultrie, Georgia. It's called Spence Air Base. And that's where I started my pilot training.
All right. Now, when you start your pilot training, does this increase your commitment then to the service or are you still --
It does when you graduate.
-- at four years?
You get your wings and your commission at the same time as a second lieutenant, and I think it's four more years probably. That varies also what your commitment is for.
Does this -- Do you think about it? Is there even a choice involved in this? When you think going in it's going to involve four more years or are you starting to think this isn't so bad?
I never hesitated. I was so excited about it, I didn't care how long I'd stay in. Eventually I enjoyed it so much that I applied for a regular commission. I had to take -- then that's another long five-hour examination and so forth. And I received that, and that gave me a commitment for several more years, but at that point I decided to make it a career.
Okay. All right. So you do your -- is this just basic flight school then at Spence Air Base or is this -- what type of plane are you flying?
Okay. They called the first phase, or they did then, primary pilot training. And I flew, my first airplane I flew in Solodine (ph) is a T-6. It's a single engine. The most distinguishing feature is they were painted yellow and big engine. And then when I went and moved to the second phase which is another six months, I went into basic training, and I flew another prop airplane which was a T-28. That's what -- that had a tricycle landing gear, if that makes sense, where the T-6 was what they call a taildragger. It sits there and the tail just drags on the ground on a little wheel. But then the next phase was a tricycle landing gear. And I did that for three months. And then the next phase at the same base was going to jet, jet airplanes.
Okay.
I flew the F-80 and the -- T-33 and completed that phase. That's when I got my wings and my commission. Then I went on to combat crew training with orders to go to Korea.
What is combat crew training?
It's held at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, and that's where you learn to fire the gun, drop bombs, fire rockets, air-to-air combat tactics, and air-to-ground tactics. And that was, I believe it was six weeks. And just before I finished my training, I was flying F-86s then, and a Sabre jet, and I was on my way to Korea. But this was in 1953, and the Korean War was beginning to phase out. So they canceled my orders. So I went someplace else.
All right. Let me ask you about this. At this time how well known is the Korean War to you as opposed to what the rest of the country, the perception of the rest of the country?
I'd say my knowledge of what was going on in Korea during that -- when I was going through pilot training was very little. All I knew was I'd probably go and enter combat flying fighters.
And did -- did this appeal to you or did you even think about it?
Oh, it was during this time when you first get into flying fighters where you get your ego starts skyrocketing because basically it's a tiger school. You've got to be a tiger. And to be a good fighter pilot, you've got to feel like you're the best. If you don't feel like you're the best, you probably aren't, and that's sort of the feeling on everyone's part. There are some who didn't enjoy it. They were scared. That's just -- that's a fact. But I had no fear, and I was ready to go to combat and shoot airplanes down and so forth, and it was an exciting time.
All right. Now your orders to Korea are canceled, and you're sent where?
Sent to Oxnard Air Base in Oxnard, California. Went in the Air Defense Command where I flew F-94Cs. It was a Lockheed two-seat airplane with just one engine where a radar observer was in the back, and we used radar to intercept air-to-air targets in protecting our air defense for our nation really. We were intercepting airplanes that were off on their timing and corridors to enter the United States, and we were on alert, and they'd scramble us when they'd get something on the blip or an airliner or whoever was way off course or something, and we'd scramble and go out over the Pacific and using the radar with our radar observer in the back seat to -- to pick them up and intercept them and take their number, get in real close and copy their number down and turn it in to the Air Defense.
Is this exciting to you?
Oh, yeah. Scary. We'd go out there 200 miles west of California out over the Pacific Ocean, and they'd say go down to a certain altitude, 300 feet, at night, half the time was at night, and search for the airplanes, and we'd join up on them.
That's got to be spooky, you can't see a thing, can you?
No. You've got to -- you've got to go by your altimeter.
Okay. All right. So about how long are you there at the Air Defense Command then at Oxnard?
I was there two-and-a-half years, and then I was transferred to Iceland for one year, flew the F-89 Scorpion. It's a Northrop airplane. Again with a radar observer in the back. And I served one year there.
Okay.
Again in Air Defense --
Okay.
-- of the northern region, Russia area, Russia airplane area and so forth.
Okay. And this is around --
1955, 1956.
Okay. So is the Russian threat real at this time?
It was. We would intercept Russian airplanes a lot of times where they'd get into our corridors.
And they were doing a lot of testing up in there too?
Yeah, and we'd intercept them and never did have any problem as far as harassment or, you know, getting into combat tactics with them or anything.
Okay. And then where did you go after Iceland?
I went back to flying air-to-ground fighters, back to flying the F-86F at Bunker Hill Air Base in Indiana. And then we phased out of the F-86 and I checked out on the F-100 Super Sabre. That's a single seat, high speed, supersonic airplane.
Supersonic?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Have you heard these sonic booms?
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[Inaudible]
It did. Every time I'd see one or hear one, I'd get goosebumps.
All right. Now, you're flying the F-100. Is this also at Bunker Hill Air Base in Indiana?
Yeah. Well, they closed that base, and I was transferred to Turner Air Base -- Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia, still flying the F-100, and all the time training to go to combat. That's the whole thing is training.
Right. And keeping sharp basically.
Oh, yeah.
All right. Now, do you -- while you're doing this, do you have maneuvers or anything like that or how do you keep sharp for your particular job?
It's a constant dropping bombs, firing the rockets, firing the gun at airborne targets, ground targets. And I was there about a year and a half, and then they started a test program of the new F-105 airplane, and I was selected to go to Eglin Air Force Base and enter the test program on the F-105.
Okay.
They -- You had to have a lot of flying time for your rank and all that, and I was a bachelor yet, and bachelors fly more than married pilots because married pilots have to go home and take care of the family, and the bachelors would be waiting to fly any time and any day.
Right. Right.
And so...
What is the F-105?
That's highly supersonic, Mach 2 plus, single seat, single engine, extremely high speed fighter-bomber.
Okay. All right. So where's the test program for that?
At Eglin Air Force Base.
At Eglin.
Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Okay. And when you say a test program now, then you're taking it through all the runs then?
We did not test the engine nor the air frame. That was done at Edwards test program at Edwards Air Force Base in Florida [sic]. We tested the electronic systems, navigational systems, using electronics to fire the gun and drop bombs, the radar system, we tested the navigational system on it, and mainly in that area.
Okay. All right. So at this point then we're talking the late '50s, is that right, mid to late '50s?
I got there in January of 1959.
'59. Okay.
And in the meantime I went to the Top Gun program at Nellis. You've heard Top Gun that the Navy put out, and we had a Top Gun school long before the Navy ever thought about it, and this was in '59. I went back to Nellis Air Force Base. It's a three-month extremely dedicated combat crew training using all the tactics again. It's really a distinguished school, to make it short, because it was -- that prepares you for a lot of advancements in the future with your training in tactics and so forth.
Right. Competitive?
Not necessarily competitive. We're graded. It was a school. There was ground school and airborne. You're flying with another instructor who probably had combat time themselves and really highly experienced in combat.
So this was in '59?
That's in '59.
Okay. And you finished that up, and what does that --
Well, that was a three-month thing at Nellis, and then that was just a temporary duty, went back to Eglin. I was one of the first Air Force pilots to fly the F-105 when we got it and, in fact, we didn't have written information in a book as to how to start it and to fly it, and they called it a Dash 1 book that you use to study when you check out a new airplane. We really wrote that book. And then I finished -- I was transferred from there to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina, flying the F-105. And then chronologically from -- from there I went back to Eglin Air Force Base in 1964 in a special training program, a test program, where we had seven different kinds of airplanes that Air Force built, and we worked together to write some tactical procedures for guerrilla warfare. Now, the Vietnam War was about -- was just cranking up now, and so we wrote some procedures and so forth working with other types of fighters, jet fighters, propeller fighters, C-130, cargo airplanes, helicopters, working together to write tactical procedures to use in Vietnam.
Okay. You say for guerrilla warfare, are you talking about taking out troops?
Well, no. Guerrilla warfare, that was the type of warfare in Vietnam where there was not a front versus Second World War, you'd have a battle line. The enemy was here and the friendlies were on one side, and there was actually a battle line.
Secure, right.
Yeah. Guerrilla warfare is where you have pockets of warfare going on all over the place. It's tough.
Okay. All right. So you're writing procedures for that, writing textbook procedures?
Yeah.
And are you anxious at this point to -- to try it out, for lack of a better word, for getting into it for seeing how it does?
Yeah. By this time I'd been flying fighters I think for 14 years or something, so I was very experienced. And so what you -- when you're training, you're practicing to go to war. And flying fighters, whenever there's -- well, you have a status of being combat ready. You've got to drop so many bombs each month, you've got to -- there's requirements that you have to fulfill, so many night landings, so many instrument landings, fire the gun so many times, dropping bombs, and you have to have a certain accuracy to be considered combat ready. And with the United States military being sort of a watchdog throughout the world, when there's anything popping up militarily in different parts of the world, they'd send a fighter unit, and we would be gone on temporary duty an average of six months out of every year, different parts in the world. And then basically in -- in early 1965 I received orders to go to Okinawa, and by this time the Vietnam conflict was going, and I got to Okinawa and two weeks later I was -- I went to Thailand to start flying combat in Vietnam on a temporary basis. We'd send people down there, fighter pilots down there for two months at a time and fly missions out of Thailand into North Vietnam.
Okay. And what kind of missions are we talking about?
Strafing with the gun, 20mm gun, at ground targets, air-to-air targets against Russian-built MiGs that they'd given the Vietnamese, firing rockets for ground targets, and dropping bombs on ground targets in North Vietnam.
And are these comparable to the procedures which you had written?
Yeah, it -- it was. But that, the procedures we wrote were mainly procedures to work with other type airplanes.
Got you.
The difference would be when I went to Vietnam, dropping the bombs and so forth, I didn't work with other airplanes except for air-to-air refueling tankers, we'd have to refuel on every mission, and we'd just communicate with other airplanes in the battle zone, and that's -- that's the only way we'd work with them. [Part 2]
Prior to going to combat, I had to take my wife and son back to the States. My wife was crippled with multiple sclerosis, and so I needed somebody to take care of her. So a relative took care of her, and another relative close by took care of my seven-year-old son. And that was necessary because I didn't know what would happen to me, and so...
Let me ask you this then. You've got a wife and a seven-year-old. Do you feel like this made you more cautious as a pilot now since you had those responsibilities?
It probably should have, but it didn't.
Okay. Go ahead.
Okay. I flew in 1965 in combat, I flew I think probably 25 missions or something like that, and then because of my wife's health, they said you don't need to go to combat for a while, you know, there's plenty of other people right now. And I was in Okinawa at this time, but then finally in late 1967 I did receive the orders to go permanently to Thailand to complete my 100 missions. The tour of duty flying in Vietnam for a fighter pilot was 100 combat missions in North Vietnam. And so this is the time when I took my family back to the States to set them up. So as a fighter pilot when you're combat ready, you're going to have the possibility of going to combat in someplace in the world, and Vietnam was a hot issue then, and I had already flown 20 some combat missions a couple years previous to late 1967, but by this time I was a major. My rank was a major. I was the operations officer of a squadron. And as a fighter pilot flying in combat, because of my pride, I would never leave my target unless it was destroyed or at least on fire. But on May 28th, 1968 I was on my 87th combat mission over North Vietnam. My assignment was to strafe, with the 20mm cannon, Russian-built trucks. It was a convoy of trucks. And again, with my pride I was going to make sure I destroyed those trucks.
Did you feel invisible? I mean --
No fear. No fear. I didn't worry about it. And that could be a problem. I was flying making a pass flying about 550 miles an hour strafing firing the 20mm cannon at Russian-built trucks about 30 feet off the ground. I felt a large explosion. My cockpit filled with smoke. I pulled up, engaged the afterburner to speed up even more. I blew my canopy off to get rid of the smoke so I could see, and I pulled up to probably 500 feet above the ground, and I lost control of my aircraft. It started to roll on me. Obviously my control cable burned out, but instead of climbing I was heading back down, and I didn't have any control of the airplane. So out of reflex, I just pulled that ejection seat handle, the rocket shot me out, and you could probably imagine what happens to you when you hit a 550-mile-an-hour windblast. It's a tremendous pressure on your body. I don't know of anybody who has ever bailed out at that speed or close to it who weren't killed or either killed or had broken arms, legs and so forth.
Crushed.
I was knocked out by the windblast. The parachute opens automatically. I floated down, had no idea how long it took, but just before I hit the ground I came to, I regained consciousness, and all I could see was Vietnamese soldiers and civilians running towards me jabbering in Vietnamese. I hit the ground, and because of my experience, I just knew I was all broken up. So the first thing I did, I was in a middle of a dried-out rice paddy.
Do you know what part of the country you were in?
I was in the southern part of North Vietnam around Dông Hó'i. I started feeling for broken bones because I just knew I had to be broken up. To my amazement I didn't have a broken bone in my body. I didn't have a bruise. Now I'll go back to my religious training as a child, always involved in church activities, but I was not a Christian, and immediately I realized that this had to be a miracle. I knew that Jesus Christ performed miracles, and that had to be a miracle that I was not injured. And so right then and there with the enemy coming towards me, I bowed my head and prayed to God that Jesus Christ would take over my life. Because of that decision, I'm sitting here today. That's the only -- Because of my relationship, by this time I survived almost five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. The enemy captured me within five minutes or so. I did try to run, and that was ridiculous because they were right on me. This became the worst day of my life because I lost my freedom but, conversely, it turned out to be the best day of my life because of my decision to accept the Lord as my Savior, I gained the assurance of eternal freedom in heaven.
Was this comforting to you at the time, at that time when you know you were going to be captured?
It was. It was.
Did that help with some of the fear?
That's right. I was shot down about 9:00 in the morning. They captured me with a lot of people beating on me, and they put me in an antiaircraft bunker, and they keep me in there for an hour or two or so, and then they'd take me outside on public display, and they'd beat on me. One time when they took me out, they took -- paraded me down the bottom of a dried-out riverbed and here comes four soldiers marching up on top of the bank, they're in formation, they made a right face with their rifles and pulled up and pointed at me, and I thought, Boy, this is a firing squad. And needless to say I was a little nervous. Obviously they didn't fire. It was part of their psychological warfare. But then later on that afternoon probably around 5:00 or so two female soldiers and two male soldiers tied rope around my arms, and we started walking and ended up about probably 2:00 in the morning, I don't know, they put me in a cave, and I spent the first ten days in a cave. It was like a prison underground.
By yourself?
By myself, yeah, with guards of course around me and everything. It was my first -- excuse me -- initiation of fear, and the adrenalin running, and you never knew when they were going to take you out and beat on you. The diarrhea started and very little to eat, a rice ball once in a while, very little water. Finally after ten days they paraded me to a truck, an old Russian-built truck, and put me in that thing, and we'd travel at night, and we were going north. That's all I knew. We'd travel at night, and during the daytime they'd hide the truck under trees and camouflage and so forth because we had U.S. aircraft combing the skies all day long looking for trucks going down these gravel roads. So I was very thankful that we didn't travel during the daytime because we would have been wiped out. Ended up in a bamboo-type prison someplace around Vinh, I figured on later. I spent ten days in that bamboo thing. I remember I was in shackles laying in the dirt, and I realized it was my birthday. It was my 40th birthday. And I thought, wow, people said, you know, life begins at 40, and I thought there's something wrong here someplace. But really, my life, my new life as a Christian started right just a few days before my 40th birthday. While I was in that bamboo prison, they brought a Navy pilot in there who had all serious internal injuries. He was with me, and he begged for medication for pain and so forth. But after I guess two or three days they finally gave him a big ole pill, I'd call it a horse pill, and in 30 minutes he died. They didn't fool around with people with serious injuries. They had no way to treat them I guess because they were transporting all of us to the Hanoi Hilton in Hanoi, the capitol of North Vietnam, which was the center of the prison system. After a few weeks, in fact it took them 28 days to get me from where I was shot down to the Hanoi Hilton which I figured was around 250 miles. During these 28 days it became very obvious that the Lord was taking care of me. It seemed like every day I was escaping death, just making it, just making it. Friendly bombs going off around me and so forth and, you know, we should have been hit. It was at military installations we'd stop. One night we were waiting to cross a large river in our truck, all the bridges were bombed out so the only way the trucks could get across the rivers were by ferry, and it was a beautiful moonlit night, a whole convoy of trucks waiting for the ferry to come by. It was just like daylight out. And sitting there all of a sudden I heard U.S. fighters combing, circling around, and I thought, Well, this is it. There's no way they could miss seeing that convoy of trucks, it was so bright from the moon, the full moon out. And I thought, Well, this is it, you know. Needless to say, I was praying. But those fighter aircraft made two or three circles overhead and turned and went home. This was indication it was very evident that the Lord is taking care of me, and he probably had a plan for me, and I figured out later what it was, but I ended up in the Hanoi Hilton. I went through the interrogation where they get your attention and so forth.
During the interrogation, what -- are they looking for particular information or are they looking for --
That was constant. They wanted to know our elevation, our altitude we'd come in on when we drop bombs, so they could set their fusing for the antiaircraft guns and so forth. And you learned to lie. As a prisoner of war, it was proven in Vietnam that they can break you. They can torture you to a point where you're going to talk. So you learn to lie about things and make up formulas like I did for giving them numbers which were not accurate, and they'd ask you the same question the next day, so that's why I had a formula so I'd jack the altitude up using this formula and give them false numbers and so forth like that. I'd always worried about if I ever became a prisoner as a civilian or as a prisoner of war that they'd put me in solitary confinement. Well, that's what they did. At first I spent my first 20 months in strict solitary confinement. But it didn't take me long to realize that they thought I was alone in that cell, but I wasn't. God was my cellmate. And I felt great relief in this that I was pulling something over on them. What do you do when you're in a little cell 24 hours a day, hardly ever get out.
Describe little. Define little.
Well, the first one was -- my first cell was 4 x 7 feet. My bed was a teak wood bed. It's called iron wood. It's extremely hard. It's like metal. With the stocks on the end of the bed, they put your ankles in there and clamp you down, and they had a rod going through the 3-foot wall of the cell. This Hanoi Hilton was built by the French as a prison. It was extremely secure. They could pull that rod and release the stocks from your ankles. But, fortunately, I didn't have a lot of that. Many hours. But I had one foot beside my 3-foot wide cell to get out off my board. What do you do? And then I went to a larger cell, probably twice as large. And I moved to another camp after about three or four months, and I had a little larger cell, but I was still alone. And what do you do with nothing, no writing material. I had a waste can, a teapot, held two cups of water, and my little tea cup. I had a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush and a mosquito net which I was very thankful for. That's what I had in that cell. And so I prayed and prayed that the Lord help me set up a routine. At first I did a lot of calisthenics. I was blessed with good health. I'd do walks. I'd walk around that tiny cell when I got into a larger cell. I'd build houses. I'd walk five laps around that little cell one way and turn around the other way. You learn to -- to exercise your mind as well as your body. I knew I had to do that. I had to eat what they gave me which was a bowl of weeds, they call it greens, once or twice a day. I studied insects. What wonderful creatures. Ants. The strength of a tiny little ant. I'd watch moths. I'd watch spiders weave their webs. Little salamanders. Geckos, they were my greatest friend because they'd climb around the ceiling, and they had five fingers on each arm and suction cups on them, and they'd run around the ceiling. And I'd see them on the ceiling, and I'd see this mosquito about 6 inches in front of them, all of a sudden they'd jump, and the mosquito was gone. Their tongue was the same length as their body, and they'd zap that mosquito. It was so quick you couldn't see it. That was a joy to watch them. So you learned to do things like that to occupy your time. Eventually I got so weak that I couldn't walk. I couldn't do any calisthenics. I was -- I looked like the starving people in Ethiopia to just give a comparison, bones, nothing but skin on bones. I had a lot of diseases, a lot of tortures, loneliness, despair. Dysentery was the worst thing that could happen. I had that one time. So I got to the point I had dizzy spells where if I'd lie on my board, at this particular place I was in for 18 months I guess or 17 months, I was in a small building in the corner of a camp, and there were two cells in that building but there was no one in the other cell, and I was completely isolated in that building plus there was no one else in there, so I had no way of communicating with other prisoners of war.
And did you know there were other prisoners of war in there?
I drilled a hole in my door, a thick -- probably 3-inch thick door. Found a piece of wire one day when they took me to wash, and I made it -- I sharpened it like maybe a screwdriver on the little rough concrete floor, and then I found a screw head and stuck that thing in there and twisted it just enough to try to resemble a drill, and I worked on that little hole for a long time to get it through. I made it high enough so the little Vietnamese, when they'd come in my cell, they couldn't see light shining through it. In fact, I'd have to stand on my waste can, I made it that high, and when I'd walk every -- this is before I got so weak -- every fifth lap I'd stand on my pot and look, put my eyeball against that hole, and I had a pretty -- you can have a pretty good view with a tiny hole, and I'd look at the campground. Now, keep in mind I was -- had about 15 years of fighter experience now, had a lot of buddies, and a lot of them had been shot down before I was, and I'd see people out there. John McCain, Senator McCain, was in the same camp. I didn't know who he was. He was really crippled. I'd see him. They'd let him outside a little bit, and he could just barely walk. But that was a joy to see other people, but I didn't have any contact with them. And so I reached a point where I had two thoughts in my mind mainly. One thing is I had to survive. I was so close to death so many times, and I knew I had to eat the garbage they gave us. But another thing I thought about a lot was resistance. They were constantly taking us in, interrogating us, trying to get us to write statements against our government, and I had to think of methods to resist their psychological warfare. So those were the two things that went through my mind so much. Of course, I had a routine set up with prayer and different things. I smuggled a banana leaf under my little pajamas they gave me one time when they took me to wash, and I peeled it down, and I made three fibers out of the stem of the leaf, and I started weaving with those three pieces of fiber probably 18 inches long, and I -- when you get nervous and so forth, you want to wring your hands out and everything. So this helped me just to weave those three pieces of fiber, to weave it and unweave it, go back and forth. Well, finally they found it and they would not allow us to have anything in our cell that they thought would entertain us. So they'd take it and so forth.
Let me ask you one question. How do you keep -- how do you exercise your mind? Is there -- is there a thought that maybe you might just go crazy in there?
I thought about losing my mind. That's why you've got to exercise your mind. One way was to build mental houses in my mind. No way to write it down. Do math problems. I figured out what my pay, monthly pay was, military pay, and I'd figure if that money was being put into a savings account and a certain amount of interest, that I would do daily math problems in my mind, and you just close your eyes and you can photograph numbers. I got so good at it I was multiplying a 3-digit number by a 6-digit number and adding it up, and I'd double check, and I'm not any -- any intelligent kind of person, but that was the way I exercised my mind, doing math problems. A lot of prayer. Memorizing things I had worked with before. Birthdays in my family, keeping track of that. It's very important to exercise your mind when you're in prison. Some of the guys did lose their minds. But finally, well, I received a letter, my first letter -- our family could write a seven-line letter once a month, but we didn't get hardly any of them. They wouldn't give them to us. We didn't know if they got any, if they received any or not, but our families could send them.
But you knew at this point that your wife knew you were alive?
I did not know that they knew.
Okay.
I was fortunate in that they did find out after two days because they took a picture of me right after I was shot down, and I think about two days later -- well, my wingman who was flying with me, he circled and saw them capture me, and he saw me running, so that was a good indication. He saw them capture me. So because of that picture which made AP, my family knew I was alive within two days. So that was very -- I was very fortunate. So but after ten months they called me in, I thought it was a torture session or something, they led me in this room, and there was a big stack of letters on this table, and they gave me a letter, and it was from my mother. And I looked up and I saw they had a TV camera in there, and they ended up taking pictures of that, of me reading that letter. I was crying. On the bottom of that letter my mother put P.S. 46:1, but I didn't have a Bible and I couldn't remember that was Psalms Chapter 46, verse 1, and I begged for a Bible. They wouldn't give me one. They said no need. And that was sort of agony wondering what that Bible verse was. I couldn't remember what it was. But I ended up after 20 months moving in with three other guys, and they said they didn't know how I could walk. I was so emaciated. They said I didn't stop talking for two weeks. So eventually --
How long had they been in?
They were shot down after I was, but there were three of them that had the luxury of being together. Physical torture is tough but mental torture I believe is worse because physical is more temporary than mental. And they used tactics. I was in the corner of the camp I realized, and night after night I heard this baby crying, and I found out later that it was a tape they'd play just to get to me, and it did, and to this day I can't stand for my grandchildren babies to be around them when they cry especially if it's a hurting cry, when there's tears and so forth. I'll never be relieved of that mental torture they used on that. Their interrogations, they'd try to get me to tell them about things like electronics things that I had no answer. They wanted me to tell them the schematic of an electronic measures box we had. I said I'm just -- I'm just a stupid fighter pilot. All I know is how to turn it on and off. I don't know anything. After two days of sitting on a stool in cold weather in the wintertime with hardly any clothes on, and the interrogator sitting there smoking cigarettes and drinking hot tea, and he finally said, Well, I just wanted to see if you'd tell me, and he drew me a schematic of the thing. He was an expert on it, just wanted to know if I'd tell him. So but I moved in with these other guys, and things got a little better.
Are you keeping track of time at this point or was there any way --
Yes. I knew the date. I moved nine times in five years, and I can tell you the date every time I moved, and don't -- I can't figure out how you could remember. There's no calendar, no watch, but we kept track of -- we could keep track of the dates. And all these dates I could remember, you know, if I think about it I can tell you when I moved. But I ended up with at one point living with six other guys. And one day they threw a Bible in our cell, and that was wonderful. There was one other Christian in the cell with me. And then about four or five days after we got the Bible, a guard came and got me and took me into a small room, and through a translator the camp commander told me that my wife had died. Normally you wouldn't believe what they tell you because the communists are the world's greatest liars, but if we ever got any news from home from them, it was always bad news, and I knew my wife was critical, and so I thanked him for telling me. It turned out that they told me 20 days after my wife had died, and the way they found out was several pastors in our country sent telegrams to the government of Hanoi of North Vietnam pleading with them to release me for my wife's funeral, which they weren't going to do. But that's how they found out that she passed away. I went back to my cell, and I -- this is right after we got a Bible in our cell. I was, needless to say, crying, but the other Christian in my cell took the Bible and read scripture to me, and what a comfort that was. And the big point I'm trying to make is the providence of God, his timing, how over and over and over again things like that would happen to me that would give me hope. When you're in a prison situation like that, you've got to have hope to survive. It's a mental thing. And my hope was faith in Lord Jesus Christ. That's what kept me going. But he read scripture to me, and that evening I didn't sleep much, but I cried myself to sleep for a few minutes, and I'd always dreamed of my wife in a crippled condition especially when I was in solitary confinement, almost every night I'd dream of her, she was blind in one eye from her M.S. and she could just barely get around walking and a lot of mental damage and so forth. But that evening after I heard the news of her death, when I dozed off for a few minutes I had another dream, and again it was of my wife.
Can you hold on one second.
Okay. [Part 3]
I did believe the Vietnamese when they told me that she passed away, and I did thank them. I went back to my cell, and I'd had dreams of her in a crippled condition over and over, and when I cried myself to sleep that evening after I heard the bad news of her death, I had another dream and again it was of her, my wife, only this time she was in perfect health. The Lord was telling me through my dreams that my wife was in heaven and not suffering anymore where there is no suffering. Another example of God's providence, how it gave me hope, and to have that dream where I was assured that my wife was in heaven was so comforting to me from then on. People ask me, Did you ever worry about dying? I never did. Because I knew if I died, and I was so close to it so many times, I knew I was going to heaven when I died, and I had that peace. And people say, How did you survive? If there's one word and that's faith. Faith in God, faith in our great country who we knew would not abandon us, and faith in our fellow prisoners of war. We hung in there very patriotically, and that gave us all the stick togetherness we needed, being very patriotic and resisting their psychological warfare, trying to resist their tortures, but we worked together. We only had two people -- two officers who were against the war. That was a real burden for us. I happened to have to -- had to live with them for a while. They would not join us. They said the war was wrong, and we had a real problem with that. I was the senior man in a couple of camps. We went by our date of shootdown, and we had military authority. We had the commanders of the stockades, and we'd go by our date of rank when we were shot down. And these two gentlemen lived in the same stockade we did, and they had all the privileges. They roamed the camp and had extra food and they had leather boots to wear, and we wore little rubber sandals made out of tire casings. And I learned after I got out of solitary confinement how to communicate from stockade to stockade. I knew the codes then, we learned it, and that's a long story how we were able to do that. Basically we'd use a modified mute code to communicate from stockade to stockade. Our windows were bricked in, boarded in and so forth, but there would be a little airhole in the cells about 10 feet up on the wall, probably 4 inches wide and 10 inches high and so forth. And we would communicate every day except Sunday, stand on each other's shoulders and look out that little hole, and we'd look across the courtyard, and we'd see somebody else's nose sticking out their little hole and away we would go communicating. A lot of abbreviation. Yesterday was YD, today was TD, tomorrow is TM, and so forth.
And what kind of messages are you -- are you communicating?
Very meaningless messages. Rumors. See, we were getting new air crew members as prisoners of war coming in, and they'd bring us news, new news from what was happening in our States. Like I say, a lot of it was meaningless, but if we were caught communicating, it was sure torture. And we'd always end our communication session with GBU, God bless you. And that was so comforting. Basically we had a box code also. There's a square code with 25 letters in it, and we had 26 letters in our alphabet, so we'd eliminate the K. And if we wanted to spell out a word with a K in it, we'd substitute C. And it was A, B, C, D, E in the first row and then follow along, and we could use it with our fingers or by tapping on the wall to somebody when we had somebody next door in another cell. Like we'd go across, B would be tap-tap, tap, two across in the first row. And then so Z would be tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, the bottom right. And it became real easy. And we could use our fingers this way or knock on the wall or something. We learned that using our tin cup we could talk to each other at a normal decibel level through a 3-foot cell wall by cupping our mouth into the cup against the wall, and the fellow prisoner of war on the other side would put his ear into his cup, and you could speak at this normal level and hear each other. They used -- made cells out of a lot of warehouses, long buildings, and they did have a rough cement floor. We could take that cup and tap on the floor, and at least a half a block down the line if somebody had their ear to the cement floor, you could hear tapping that easily.
Right.
We learned a lot of ways. We'd drive the Vietnamese crazy. They said the ingenuity of the Americans just amazed them. How we'd come up with codes, how we'd -- At first we had toothpaste tubes that had a little zinc in the top, and we'd steal pencils and use the toilet paper they gave us which was rough manila paper, write little messages on it with the zinc which is like a lead pencil, and we'd leave that in the little small room where we'd take a bath which was comfortable sometimes. Wintertime it was cold. There was ice on the thing, we'd have to break the ice to pour water over us. And when we'd shave, there would be a rough razor blade, rusty and broken, no mirror. And I was so skinny, I remember I'd be going back to my cell sometimes when they did allow me to wash which could be once every two weeks or so, and a guard would be looking at me, and I'd say what is he looking at, and I'd check my throat and I'd be all bleeding from my skinny neck where I had cut myself and so forth. But that communication was -- that really kept us going. We also had a religious service every Sunday later on. We'd sing a couple of quiet hymns. One of us would give a testimony. We'd repeat the 23rd Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me." And we knew that. And we'd always end with a pledge of allegiance to our flag. We didn't have a flag. But we'd always face east because we figured that was the closest way around the earth to our great red, white and blue flag. It was -- Conditions got better. Some of the POWs who were shot down before I was had a lot worse torture than I did because I was sort of not a late shootdown but sort of in the middle, and the tortures were diminished a little bit as time went on. And they hired a Russian -- I beg your pardon. They hired a Cuban to come and show them how to really torture people. It was a special project and, fortunately, I was not in it. They took 16 POWs, I don't know how they selected them, they put them in a stockade, and they'd give them good food and use -- they'd play American music and treat them royally for a day or so, and then this Cuban would just beat the fool out of them. The main thing they'd use, they'd take a truck fan belt and cut it and make one long strip in it, take your clothes off and beat you with that, with that sharp V belt. I never had that. I was fortunate. One guy had 120 lashes in one day. He was like -- his back and buttocks were like hamburger. I think this kind of thing was a failure but they did confess except one guy. I say they did. They were broken. Except one guy who had brain damage when he bailed out, and he sat there and took all that torture and didn't wince, and it made this Cuban so mad, he just beat him to death, he killed him. I think our CIA has found this Cuban, and he's no longer on this earth. That's the story I get. But I guess -- I was released with the large groups in 1973, and --
Do you remember when you got the news that you were being released?
Yeah, it's a long story. In 1972 there was a So'n Tây raid by our special forces at a camp at So'n Tây. I was in a camp right next to it. The special forces trained for six months at night to go into this camp with helicopters and C-130s to rescue the POWs in that So'n Tây POW camp. It was the most successful operation I had ever seen except it was not successful because the Vietnamese had found out about it and they pulled the 45 POWs out of that camp. In fact, they moved all of us into one camp. For the first time there were 353 of us. And they sat down in the middle of that camp with the helicopters, and there were Vietnamese in the cells, and they killed all 45 of the Vietnamese, jumped in their choppers and took off and didn't lose one person. But it was unsuccessful because the POWs had been pulled out. And so that was a sad thing. But we -- in 1972 McCarthy was running for president, and I found out later he had told the Vietnamese -- Now keep in mind there was negotiations going on in Paris for years to stop the war, Kissinger was the main negotiator. But McCarthy told the Vietnamese that when he was elected president which would have been in '73 I guess, he would sign anything they come up with as far as a peace agreement, and one of them was they would release one half of the POWs. So in April of 1972 they moved one half of us to the China border. There were 416 of us at that time, and 208 of us were taken to the China border. They took us up there in 17 trucks with a bunch of pigs and chickens and stuff.
Was this by how long you had been in there or was there any rhyme or reason to who they sent?
Have no idea.
Okay.
Probably it was -- what they were doing was to isolate the one half and release the ones that were left in Hanoi, and perhaps it was the ones who had cooperated with them the most that they'd release or could have been the ones, our group was ones that gave them the hardest time. I don't know. But we went up there in 17 trucks, and we were in dungeons, big stone dungeons built by the French, but it was cool up there. For the first year I didn't have heat rash over my entire body, first summer, because it was in the rain forest. But we had our own guards looking out, see whoever -- what came into the camp, a load of rice came in or maybe one time we had some potatoes. That's the only time we ever had potatoes. But one night 17 trucks came into the camp, and a guard told us that if we ever went back to Hanoi, it could mean that we were going home. Well, here comes these 17 trucks, and rumor starts spreading, 17 trucks pulled in. That had never happened since we came up there. And we thought we're going home. The next day they said, roll up, we all boarded these trucks and went back to Hanoi. We said if we're going to be released, we're going to insist on in this order. Second wounded first would go home, civilians second and there were quite a -- I don't know how many, maybe 15 or 20 civilians, and then the rest of us would go home by date of shootdown. So the ones that were shot down first if they weren't injured, they'd be in that third group and so forth. And so they sent us to camps by really by our date of shootdown in three different camps. So we said, oh, I think we're going home, they're getting prepared. Well, the peace agreement was signed on January 27th, 1973, and in the peace agreement it said you've got to inform the prisoners of war within three days and read the peace agreement to them. On the 30th of January they put us outside and read the peace agreement to us. That's how we knew we were going home. So I guess six weeks later I went home with the group. I went home, and I stayed in the Air Force. I went back to flying fighters again. I was combat ready again. My best friend who I had flown with for years was shot down and killed seven months before I was shot down. His family lived in Chattanooga. My first assignment when I got out of prison was to enter university for a ten-month air war college, and so I knew my best friend's parents who lived in Chattanooga, and I knew his widow and three little boys. So I started traveling from Montgomery to Chattanooga on weekends to see them and see his parents and so forth. And to make a long story short, I ended up marrying my best friend's widow. And with her three boys and my son, we have four sons and seven grandchildren, and it's really a blessing. Now, back to my -- my feeling that the Lord must have a plan for me to sustain me all those years, I wondered what his plan would be. I retired in 1976 and by now I was married to my wife, Booncy. We moved to Chattanooga. And a friend of mine one day came to me and said, Would you pray about starting a prison ministry and running it? That was the Lord's plan for me. I did that. I started a prison ministry, and I did that for 15 years in that ministry, and I learned to love the unloveable. I learned that the Lord loves criminals as well as he does me. And it was a great experience. It was tough. But we have great reunions. There was a lot, you know, thinking back there was a lot of suffering on all of our parts, but then in my case I realized that my suffering was nothing compared to what Jesus Christ suffered on the cross to pay the price for my sins so that I could have eternal freedom in heaven. And that's really given me peace. Like I say, we have reunions every year to -- we have a great fraternity. You live with your wife maybe 12 hours a day, you're with her 12 hours a day, but when you're in a cell with a guy for a couple of years, you get very familiar with each other and very close, and so we have a great time getting together and joining each other year after year. We're getting older, but our health has caught up with us. Even though when I came home I was in good health but the beriberi, we suffered from malnutrition has caught up with us. I have neuropathy in my legs and arms from that, from the shackles, the nerve damage, malnutrition and so forth, but basically I'm doing quite well. And the older we get I think some of our conditions we lived in, the tortures and the malnutrition and everything is probably catching up with us, but we just feel like we're all blessed.
Let me ask you this. When you -- when you were first released and brought back to the States, how do you make that transition physically and mentally?
When we were released, they didn't know what to expect. They thought we'd probably have a lot of brain damage, wouldn't be able to eat, and even though the food was not improved upon, you know, when they told us we were going to be released in the last few weeks we were there, the food didn't get any better or anything, the treatment was better. But we left Vietnam and came to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, went to the hospital there for three days, and they had tailors making the uniforms for us. And the first thing we did really was see a doctor, a quick examination, and then we went down to the cafeteria for our first meal. And they didn't know what to expect, but the first group they ran out of food. And a lot of guys got sick from eating too much rich food and so forth, but it was basically our minds were in better shape than they expected. We were there for three days and then sent to regional hospitals that was closest to our next of kin. And my in-laws, they lived in Maine, and they took care of my wife and my son now who's 13 years old when I came home, I was sent to Westover Air Force Base Regional Hospital in Boston, closest, it was the closest one to where my son was living. And I spent two weeks there and sort of a re-brief program plus a lot of physical problems being taken care of, teeth and so forth. I could -- I could tell a lot of stories about teeth. Quickly, when we were on the China border they said, Anybody with a toothache? Well, the rice we ate had tiny little white stones in it, and so I broke five teeth off chewing the rice, and then I realized you can't chew it, just swallow it. But up on the China border, I had a toothache for two, three months. It was miserable. And so when they said, Anybody with a toothache, I raised my hand, and they took me in a little room, and I sat down on the chair, and they had rags around the back of the chair to put my head back on. They had two dental stands, no electricity, but one dental stand had bicycle pedals on it. And a little brown guy sat down, and he started pedaling the bicycle. Well, that bit was going about this fast, and they went to drill this tooth out, and I begged with them to pull it because I didn't want to put up with that. Well, they mixed up some amalgam on a piece of glass, and they dropped the bit in the dirt, and they just picked it up and stuck it back in there and in my mouth and that little drill, it was very painful, but they stuck amalgam in there with their finger between two teeth to fill it up. And, of course, there was no air to get rid of the air or the moisture or anything. Well, they sent me back to my cell, and I had never had pain like I had because of the pressure and so forth. I had a toothache that was just terrible. And that went on where it would throb so bad I couldn't lie on my back, I'd have to lay against the wall to sleep for several weeks. Finally the nerve died and the pain went. So we don't need dentists, just let the nerve die and you don't need that dentist.
All right. How -- is it difficult when you get back to pick up the relationship with your son and how does that work.
It was tough. To tell you the truth, my worst mental pain was thinking about him when I was in prison. I had found out that my wife had died, and every day I would think about maybe 12 hours difference, what's he doing, you know. He lost his father and he lost his mother. And I was really concerned about that. And when I told him after I returned that I was going to remarry, it really hurt him. I think he felt like it was just going to be you and I. He was just a child, you know, just the two of us. But his stepmother really was a wonderful mother taking care of four teenage boys, and now we have -- we don't use the term step. We're just like a blood family. Very close. And my present wife has just done wonders raising the boys and now with the grandchildren. My son has turned out very, very well. I was told by a head shrinker that, Oh, you're going to have problems with him and all that. We never did. Just a wonderful family that we have now.
What is freedom?
Freedom is something we enjoy in the greatest country in the world with a peace, physically and mentally, other than any other country in the entire world. We enjoy choice. Freedom is to have our own choice of how we want to do things. That would be my definition of it, and we have that choice in this great country that most countries do not have.
In the remaining we've got about two minutes left, is there anything you'd like to talk about that we didn't cover in the interview?
Our time in prison was -- it was tough. One of the things that made it tougher for us were the anti-war demonstrations. If there was a demonstration in San Francisco or something during the Vietnam War, they got ahold of a newspaper clipping and would show us. They said, Everybody in your country is against the war. And we knew it wasn't true, but to know that there were people who were not backing us, it hurt, and it made it tough. It gave our enemy more spirit to fight because they were thinking and told that everybody back at home in the United States was against the war, and it gave them more spirit, and it hurt our morale during that time. The worst were the draft dodgers and the evaders, the people who went to Canada and so forth. They should not have been allowed to come back into our country. If they wouldn't fight for what we enjoy, that great freedom, then they shouldn't be living in our country. They should go somewhere else. That's sort of our feelings. And any kind of demonstrations, that's a privilege we have in our great -- that's part of our freedom. Let them demonstrate. But I don't agree with it. It hurts the people who are sacrificing for our great country.
In closing, I would just like to thank you for coming down here. I appreciate you taking the time.
Okay. Thank you.
And thank you very much.
You left it very comfortable for me, and I don't know if I covered things that I needed to, but...
I think so. I think it's -- This is good. I really appreciate it.
Good
Thank you.
Well, thank you. You do a good job.
Thank you. Okay. [Pause]
This picture is one that was taken by TV cameras while I was in prison in North Vietnam. [Interview concluded]