This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
By Captain Ned Shuman, U.S. Navy (Retired)
It was a typical winter night in the Tonkin Gulf—overcast and black as the pit. The A-6 Intruder from Attack Squadron 35 on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was loaded with 28,500- pound retarded bombs rigged for low- level release, and plugged in to the ship getting its inertial navigation system aligned. Lieutenant Commander Dale Doss from Mobile, Alabama, my bombardier/navigator, and I did a quick preflight and manned up for a 0200 launch.
We taxied to the catapult and ran up both engines to full power. Everything was perfect; our airplanes were beautifully maintained. We put our heads back against the headrests, turned on the external lights to signal the launch officer that we were ready, and off we went. At near maximum gross weight the cat shot was rather violent. Still,
Dale transmitted “502 airborne, boss.” (We had just Watched “Cool Hand Luke” in the ready room.)
We found the tanker on top of the overcast and took 2,000 Pounds of fuel, not absolutely necessary since the Intruder had “long legs,” but nice to have since our target was a railroad yard on the northern outskirts of Hanoi, a long way at high Power and high drag.
It was 17 March 1968, St. Patrick’s hay. I wondered what my Irish grand- uiother would have thought. The night before the flight I had dinner in the Wardroom with my friend and Naval Academy classmate Ned Hogan, an F-4 Pilot and another great Irishman. I had Just finished my second ice cream sundae when he said, “Shuman, you better have another one. Where you’re going they won’t be serving any.”
That comment was to haunt me for the next five years—it still haunts me. Things were not going well in my squadron as it was. The weather was generally horrible, and the A-6s were doing almost all of the flying because they were the only aircraft that could handle it. We had been on the line only
one month, and already we had lost three planes and their crews, our commanding officer and his bombardier- navigator among them. Had Ned not made the comment about the ice cream, the thought might have crossed my mind anyway; in any event, I had my third.
I had been thinking that war is great. My quarters on the ship were air conditioned and reasonably comfortable. The food was good, the airplanes were the
latest and most sophisticated in the Navy, the officers and men in the air group and ship were the best—and we were getting paid for all this. Dropping bombs on commies was a sacred duty. Of course, few attack-carrier pilots ever saw a commie or the human side of war. We came back to our insulated cocoon, took hot showers, ate, watched the latest movies, and got ready for the next mission. When the line period was over and the ship went into port for a week of rest and recreation, the hell-raising would start. It was great fun—like being in high school, but with money and no rules. When anyone got into real trouble, the response to threats of punishment was, “What are you going to do—put me in a squadron and send me to Vietnam?”
Nevertheless, it was serious business; we were losing planes and crews with disturbing frequency. The bravado and wildness were ways of coping with the situation. As any pilot knows, though, it’s always the other guy. “It just doesn’t happen to water-walking aces like me.”
Off the tanker it was Dale’s job to find the coast-in point and the target on the radar. We went through the check list, “Feet dry, lights off, weapons switches on. . . .” My job was to fly the plane at 400-500 feet above the ground at 450 knots, responding to the computer-generated steering signals on the visual display indicator, monitoring the electronic countermeasures system (ECM), and avoiding surface-to-air missiles.
As we approached Hanoi, the weather cleared; the full moon reflecting off the rice paddies in the Red River delta made it bright as day. The ECM was going wild, indicating we were being tracked by multiple radars, and I was putting out chaff as we watched the antiaircraft artillery muzzle flashes and the tracers, which seemed to be lagging us as usual. I could hear noise from exploding shells that seemed to be under the plane. Then the windshield shattered, I became completely disoriented, and we ejected.
The parachute opened violently, but I landed easily in a dry rice paddy. A broken right shoulder added to my troubles. After getting out of my chute, I looked for a place to hide, but there wasn’t much: the Red River delta is as flat as a pancake. Each of us carried two small hand-held UHF radios, and I tried to call anyone who might be up. Unfortunately, we were too far inland for anyone to hear us, and rescue in that area was out of the question anyway. We also carried two morphine Syrettes and a couple of pistols. I put the morphine to good use, and it helped. Much later, I learned that people at home were doing that for fun.
At dawn, the militia found me hiding in a bomb crater near the rice paddy. The odds were bad, and I put away any thoughts of what Wyatt Earp might have done. They stripped me to my shorts and marched me to a small school house where a huge crowd soon gathered. Some were hostile; most were curious. The possibility of a public execution entered my mind, but soon a Soviet “jeep” manned by regular army troops arrived, which was a good sign. Intelligence indicated that chances for survival improved once you were in the hands of the regulars.
They tied me up, blindfolded me, and we drove a short distance before someone—it was Dale—was dumped on top of me. It was a short trip to the Hoa Lo prison—the “Hanoi Hilton.”
We were separated and put into interrogation cells in what the POWs called New Guy Village. I did not see Dale again for 17 months.
There began a most unpleasant and very long five years. Much has been written about the POW life in Vietnam. My story is typical. Years of solitary confinement, degradation, mental and physical abuse, poor diet, and the like. On the positive side, we formed friendships that few men will ever know. We did the best we could, and nearly all of us returned with our heads unbowed.
We had a lot of things going for us.
We were well trained, we were fed and clothed (however minimally), and the enemy wanted us alive. I’d like to think that we gained from the POW experience. I hope I’m a better person for it. I was released with the rest in March 1973. My right arm and shoulder were partially crippled and I was 50 pounds lighter, but I was happier than I had ever been.
Countless people have told me over the years that they could never have gone through what we did. My answer is, “Of course you could. In the first place, you don’t have any choice, and secondly, most of us are capable of more hardships than we realize.” In passing, I hope that our politicians, most of whom have not served in the armed forces, will carefully consider our experience and extrapolate somewhat before sending women into combat. That many women served well on the perimeter of the recent 30-day Gulf “war” should not color political judgment on this important issue. Most of us spent more time than that in irons.
7 November 1991. The Thai air DC-10 rolled to a stop at Hanoi International Airport. Older and grayer, this Yankee air pirate had returned. It was strange to fly over the now-peaceful countryside where I had witnessed some of the fiercest air opposition in the history of war. On one side of the field sat a squadron of MiG-2 Is, and a U.S. Air Force C-141 was parked in front of the terminal. The 19 years since my release had passed quickly—a divorce, remarriage, command of a fighter squadron, command of a naval station, and a tour in Bermuda culminated in mandatory retirement in 1984
My sister-in-law was working for Dr. Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon and founder of Operation Smile International. It is a nonprofit, volunteer group of medical teams that travels to developing countries and operates—mostly on children—to correct facial and, occasionally, other deformities that are common maladies in such areas. Microsurgery teams sometimes accompany them. Over the years, I kept hearing about Operation Smile. Not being a bleeding heart, it bounced right off. But then I met the players and saw what these unselfish people could accomplish. In 1990, Operation Smile went to Vietnam; I wanted to go, but the team was full. I began to think a lot about Vietnam. What effect did spending more than 57,000 U.S. lives and billions of dollars have on the country?
God knows how many Vietnamese were killed; the ones who backed the wrong horse and lived through it are still suffering. I’ve seen the television clips of various veterans groups who have traveled to Vietnam to get healed, but that was not my purpose—I had never had a nightmare or bad dream about the place in 19 years.
Over the years, though, I found it difficult to define my thoughts about the Vietnam War. A feeling of righteousness later turned to anger—anger at the politicians who sent us over there to fight and didn’t have the courage to let us win. Now, in 1992, after my 18-day stay in Vietnam, the question is: Win what? As for the politicians themselves, my anger has gone from dismay, to disgust. I tend to see most of them as totally self-serving. Loyalty compels me to exempt former POWs John McCain, Sam Johnson,
Pete Peterson, and Jerry Denton.
I made the Operation Smile team for the November 1991 trip, traveling, with the advance team headed by Dr. Art Brown through Hanoi to Hue., then returning to Hanoi to assist the microsurgery team headed by another plastic and microsurgeon, Dr. Craig Merrill. We flew on Northwest Airlines to Bangkok; the airline has been a large contributor to Operation Smile over the years, and crucial to many successful missions.
Because of Air Vietnam’s schedule, we had to spend the night in Hanoi on the way to Hue. On a narrow, pot- holed road, we successfully out-maneuvered oxen, water buffalo, bicycles, pedestrians, dogs, and some trucks and buses. As POWs, we were always blindfolded and moved at night from camp to camp. The only time I saw anything was when we rode in on the jeep in 1968 (the blindfold was loose) and when they took us out to the airport for the last time in 1973—an airport that the politicians decided we shouldn’t hit, and on which international flights and fighters could operate with immunity. When we left in 1973, the area from the outskirts of Hanoi to the vicinity of the airport, cratered by B-52 strikes, looked like the surface of the moon. Now the rice paddies and cornfields were green and lush. What impressed us most was that everyone we saw was working hard. All the Red River bridges were up—a far cry from 1973.
Hanoi was busy, mostly with bicycles, and fairly clean but rundown. The atmosphere was refreshing after the Bangkok smog. We passed the Hanoi Hilton on the way to our guest house.
The cameras were clicking with lots of comments directed my way. We had dinner in a small, clean restaurant— probably state-owned. The food was quite good and the bill was about two dollars apiece, including beer and sodas.
We left for Danang early the next morning in an Air Vietnam twin turboprop airplane of Russian extraction; when we first saw the aircraft, it had one engine nacelle open and lots of Vietnamese scurrying around. I surmised that little preventative maintenance was being done and that the Russians had probably left town with most
One to Hue. A lot of war was fought in that area, but only a few bunkers remain as reminders. The scene was serene and peaceful. We checked into the Kinh Do Hotel in Hue—about $22 a day. The next morning we went to the hospital and met with the director, Dr. Tay, a cooperative and intelligent English-speaking plastic surgeon. The doctors began screening patients while the rest of us unpacked and stored dozens of boxes of medical supplies.
I watched the doctors screen the children. Anyone who is not moved by that experience has ice water in his
Hue, one of the major cultural centers in Vietnam, was the scene of some of the fiercest ground fighting of the last war. Efforts to restore and preserve its historic shrines are under way, but the country is too poor to make any significant headway. The city itself is a thriving bed of capitalism. Well- stocked shops lined the busy main street, and the names Sony, Panasonic, and Honda should strike an uncomfortable note with Americans.
The market is a combination of all the world’s bad smells rolled into one. It is the real Asia—a supermarket with
The author has tea with the present camp commander of Hoa Lo prison— the “Hanoi Hilton” (left); a young guard, who wanted to have his picture taken, at w hat the POWs called “The Plantation” (top, left), the prison camp from which the author had been released 19 years before: the entrance to “The Plantation” (top right); and a MiG-17, complete with kill-markings (right). Throughout his trip, as the author traveled to Hanoi. Hue, and Danang, he found the Vietnamese people pleasant and hard-working.
I
of the spare parts. It was a low moment, but they finally buttoned it up and we launched for Danang.
Landing in Danang was routine; the Place was rundown, although the runway was in good shape and the civilian terminal was small but functional. Several MiG-2 Is were parked in our old sniall, revetted F-4 hangars.
We boarded vans for the spectacular two-hour trip north along the coast and 0ver the Hai Van pass on Highway
veins. The children and their parents, many of whom had traveled for days to reach Hue, waited outside for hours without a whimper or complaint. The children had cleft lips or palates or both. The smiles on those little disfigured faces were heartbreaking. The doctors had the difficult task of assigning priorities—for me, they were all priority one. The team finally operated on 143 of the 200 they screened. We ran out of time.
no refrigeration or packaging combined with thousands of sellers and buyers. Despite the reports that the city was leveled during the war, there is little evidence of such destruction today. I left Hue for Hanoi in advance of the microsurgery team; I was looking forward to spending time in the capital.
I flew in a Yak-40 to Hanoi, where Doctors Phan and Ming met me. Dr. Ming, a woman, handed me a bouquet of flowers. This is more like it, I thought. Sure beats rifle butts. They checked me into the VIP suite at the Minister of Defense guest house. The first time I was in Hanoi, I was getting the hell beaten out of me; this time they’re meeting me with flowers and giving me the VIP suite. This Yankee air pirate was totally confused. What a crazy world!
Dr. Phan is a retired North Vietnamese Army medical corps general. He is the assistant director of the main Hanoi hospital, head of plastic surgery for Vietnam, head of microsurgery for Vietnam, head of Operation Smile been a POW. He had lost family members in the First Indochina War with the French and the Second Indochina War—the Vietnam War—with us, but he looked ahead, not to the past. He is intensely patriotic and I’m sure he is a communist. Most of all, though, he is a humanitarian. He did not discuss political philosophy, although he lobbied me to see what I could do to get the embargo lifted and get formal diplomatic relations established. When I got home, no one in Washington was interested in my input. The Washington politicians have all the answers and know best.
they gained in the war has been lost in the peace. The Vietnamese are broke. They need help and if we don’t give it to them, the Japanese will. We should normalize relations with them now. The economic and political potential returns are enormous. Excuses not to normalize relations pale when one considers that the Vietnamese were altar boys compared to the World War II Japanese (who are now our best friends).
I had a day to look around before the microsurgery team arrived. I ended up buying a new Vietnamese bicycle for $25 from an entrepreneur who was
The old, the new, and the universal can be found in Vietnam. Unchangeable scenes of Asia like the woman with the carrying pole contrast with modern buildings of striking design— right, the Ho Chi Minh Museum. The children singing live in an orphanage. Having witnessed the failure of its socialist society, Vietnam now seems to want a communist government based on a capitalist economy.
Vietnam, and advisor to the military hospital. He works six long days per week and for all of this his salary is about $360 per year. But this is not the whole story. He is well connected politically and is entitled to a nice house, car and driver, and a number of other perks. He speaks excellent English. I liked him right away and my admiration and respect for him grew during our two weeks together. He knew that I had bombed North Vietnam and had
The embargo has hurt. Large hospitals have little equipment and few supplies; Vietnamese do most tasks by hand. They have no saws, no drills, no pumps, nothing. I kept asking myself, How could this backward, technologically inferior, Third World country have beaten us? I knew why, but it never ceased to amaze me. Its people are tough, well disciplined, and willing to suffer incredible hardships for what they believe in. It appears that what operating out of his house. I followed that young man through the back alleys of Hanoi carrying a bag full of money. No one bothered me, and I never felt threatened.
I visited our POW/MIA office at the Boss Hotel, where I met with Major Harry Frye, U.S. Air Force, and Gary Sydow. They briefed me on POW and MIA affairs and the current political situation.
Over the next two weeks I had many discussions with the team, and with Bill Bell, the head of the mission who had just returned from testifying before the U.S. Senate. I could not get any definitive answer concerning whether there might still be American POWs in Vietnam or Laos. I am confident, however, that our present POW/MIA office has investigated every reported live sighting to the best of their ability; all have turned out false. They have been to every reported crash site to interview the locals and to search for remains.
The Vietnamese government probably has stonewalled them to some extent— the communists tend to be paranoid, don’t like foreigners poking around in their business, and are worried about “security.”
It is a highly emotional issue, and it is being thoroughly exploited by many unscrupulous mercenaries. Our own people are not clean either. Last fall I watched the Secretary of Defense lamely try to explain and justify to a national television audience why it was proper to bury two empty coffins (supposedly remains) in Arlington National Cemetery. That kind of claptrap destroys credibility and lays the government wide open to the ravings of those who believe that there are live Americans being held captive all over the world. Do I think that there are any live American POWs left in Indochina? No. Could I be wrong? Of course.
The microsurgery team’s arrival at the airport the next morning was quite an affair, as the head of the Mormon church in Asia, Reverend Lybert, was there to donate a $50,000 operating microscope to the Hanoi hospital. I remarked to my Vietnamese companion that Vietnam did not look like the great socialist society to me. I was astounded when he replied that it did not work; people came to work late, left early, and did little when on duty. He talked about farming and explained that after the collective farms had been broken up in 1988, Vietnam had become an exporter for the first time since 1965. Vietnam wants a capitalist economy with a communist government. If they can solve that dichotomy, they will be the first.
Later, we unpacked the gear and set up the operating room at the hospital— the same one in which my broken shoulder was x-rayed and set in 1968.1 inquired about the prison camp doctor, and was sad to learn that he had died four years earlier. He was quite old when he treated me and not suited for the battlefield. He was one of the few Vietnamese who treated us well in those days.
The city itself tends to be drab but clean. The music one hears is mostly Western style with none of the patriotic fight songs that were so common during the war. I heard the “Internationale” only once. Slogans and banners were scarce. The older people speak French, the middle-aged speak Russian, and the young speak English.
There were lots of uniforms but most had no insignia, leading me to speculate that there has been a big reduction-in-force in what was Southeast Asia’s largest army. I had plenty of time for sight-seeing once the team began operating. I went to the “Plantation,” the camp from which I was released, and the “Zoo,” a camp where Dale and I spent 1970. I was not allowed inside either one because I did not have a sponsor. I was disappointed, but I had bigger plans. Shortly after arriving in Hanoi I asked Dr. Phan if there was any way I could visit Hoa Lo prison, the Hanoi Hilton. I had heard that no Americans had been allowed in, which only increased my desire to get inside. Nothing happened, but Dr. Son, a young plastic surgeon, told me that they “were working on it.”
When the head of the hospital asked me how I liked Vietnam, I told him I liked it a lot better than the last time, and he put everything in perspective by saying, “We did not like being bombed.” I’ve often wondered how we would treat a downed pilot who had been bombing Washington after he bailed out and landed in the suburbs. I have heard that there was a bounty on us if we were brought in alive; I’m sure that helped.
Two days before we were to leave, permission to visit Hoa Lo came through. I never really thought they would let me in there. It was less than a mile from the hospital, and we rode our bikes. The camp commander, his deputy, and a couple of civilian officials met us. I can only describe the feelings I had as I walked in that gate as “weird.” It seemed so peaceful and innocent that it was difficult to recall all those years of misery and suffering. My tour was restricted to New Guy Village because there was “construction” going on in the other parts of the camp. I had been out of there for almost 19 years, but I recognized the same old line when I heard it. Hoa Lo is their main prison and I guess the Vietnamese were not proud that there were criminals in their utopian socialist society.
We had tea in one of the old interrogation rooms. The camp commander appeared nervous and uncomfortable, but was polite and cooperative. Dr. Son did his best to interpret, and I had my picture taken with the commander and mugged for the camera in one of the cells. Later, two of the pictures I had taken with the camp commander were stolen from a display table by a Defense Intelligence Agency official at a Tet party in Washington, D.C. I have never had much respect for our intelligence agencies, and my feelings were confirmed when my wife caught him in the act.
After what I considered the proper stay, we made our excuses and left— much to the relief of the camp commander. It felt good to be able to just walk out. I thanked Dr. Phan profusely. He told me that he had to go all the way to the top to get me in.
I spent one of my last nights in Hanoi with the POW/MIA team at the Piano Bar 11, a restaurant that catered mostly to foreigners. Dinner music was supplied by two young women on the piano and violin. Mendelssohn’s violin concerto brought back memories of the Hanoi Hilton where, when times were not too bad, it would be played on the cell’s loudspeaker on Sunday afternoons. The decor of the restaurant was enhanced by a bumper sticker plastered on a cabinet that read, “JANE, CALL HOME: 1-800-HANOI.” Jane Fonda will never know the anguish and suffering she caused us.
Time to go. I pushed the mosquito net aside for the last time and looked out the window. It was too early for the rainy season, but it was raining anyway. I thought we might not be able to take off because there is probably no proper instrument approach procedure for the Hanoi airport. After giving my bike to a grateful Dr. Son—it represented one month’s salary for him—we drove to the airport. The terminal building leaked like a sieve but all that was forgotten when the Thai airplane taxied to the ramp. Although I will always consider my return to Vietnam one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, I will never forget how good it felt to get back to civilization as I stepped aboard that plane. Perhaps, subconsciously, I thought they were going to keep me there.
Captain Shuman, Naval Academy class of ’54, retired in 1984. He commanded VF-43 and Naval Station Annapolis. Captain Shuman is active in sailing, flying, and soaring.