Free Again: 591 POWs: 325 Air Force personnel, 77 Army, 138 Navy, 26 Marines and 25 civilians.
American prisoners of war (POWs) in Southeast Asia endured inhuman torture, political exploitation, filthy living conditions and endless attempts at communist indoctrination. North Vietnam treated U.S. servicemen not as POWs but as foreign invaders and criminals bent on subverting Vietnam’s communist revolution. Most POWs were held in camps in North Vietnam, but some were imprisoned in South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and even in China. POWs’ families at home could not be sure if prisoners were alive or dead, and the question of POW treatment became a major public issue during the war.
The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 included provisions for exchanging prisoners of war. The plan to bring American prisoners home was called OPERATION HOMECOMING. Prisoners were to be returned to U.S. control during February and March 1973, with the longest-held generally returning first.
The North Vietnamese assembled the POWs and told them the war was over. As the POWs prepared to leave, the North Vietnamese tried to issue them brightly-colored sweaters and suits with ties — another of their endless propaganda attempts. The POWs did not want to look well-treated or like civilians, but they compromised to keep from jeopardizing their release. They accepted low-key outfits of dark pants, shirts, and windbreakers. Many of the items in this exhibit were carried home in tote bags issued to POWs.
At Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport, the men were thrilled to see USAF C-141A Starlifter aircraft landing to pick them up. The happiest moment came when the aircraft left the ground–and POWs knew for certain that they were free.
Free Again
Ex-POWs first stopped at Clark Air Base in the Philippines for medical exams, good meals and new uniforms. After stops in Hawaii and California, they finally returned to their families and their lives as free Americans.
OPERATION HOMECOMING returned 591 POWs: 325 Air Force personnel, 77 Army, 138 Navy, 26 Marines and 25 civilians. Those who were not freed at Hanoi — POWs held in South Vietnam by the Viet Cong, mostly Army and civilians — left from Loc Ninh, the scene of the North Vietnam-South Vietnam prisoner exchange. A total of 660 American military POWs survived the war.
About eighty percent of the military POWs who survived the war continued their military careers. Most of the 500 returning airmen retrained and resumed their aviation careers. These ex-POW airmen adopted the motto “Three’s in,” signifying an aircraft, number three in a four-ship group, rejoining a “missing man” formation.
A Flying Memorial
The first group of POWs to leave Hanoi on Feb. 12, 1973, flew on a C-141 later dubbed the Hanoi Taxi. This historic aircraft is part of the National Museum of the USAF’s collection. The Hanoi Taxi, though modified over the years, was also maintained as a flying memorial to Vietnam-era POWs and MIAs. In 2002, during the aircraft’s last PDM (Periodic Depot Maintenance), it was repainted in its 1970s gray and white scheme, and it ended its flying career with the USAF Reserve’s 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB in 2006.
Recalling his own journey out of North Vietnam on Feb. 18, 1973, Maj. Gen. Ed Mechenbier, the last Vietnam POW to serve in the USAF, said, “When we got airborne and the frailty of being a POW turned into the reality of freedom, we yelled, cried and cheered.”
Operation HOMECOMING: Repatriation of American prisoners of war in Vietnam described
By Lori S. Tagg DOD
Throughout the Vietnam War, the Army was concerned with the expeditious return of prisoners-of-war (POWs) and an accounting of those missing-in-action (MIA). The U.S. knew that many of its personnel were being held in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, but North Vietnam released little information about American Servicemen in its POW camps.
When Richard Nixon won the U.S. presidency in 1968, he and his secretary of defense announced a diminishing role for the U.S. military in Vietnam.
When peace negotiations commenced, the Department of Defense (DoD) began planning Operation EGRESS-RECAP, the repatriation of American personnel. When the Paris peace accords were signed on Jan. 27, 1973, the United States and North Vietnam agreed to a mass release of all POWs. At that time, the secretary of defense renamed the repatriation program Operation HOMECOMING, a more apt description of the mission.
From February through March, North Vietnam released 566 American military personnel, including 513 of the 591 listed by DoD as POWs and 53 others carried as MIA. Twenty-five civilians were also returned. Seventy-six of the returnees were U.S. Army Soldiers.
Phase I of Operation HOMECOMING was the actual repatriation. Phase II began when the POWs arrived at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. There, they were given physical and mental evaluations, necessary medical treatment, and were taken to the base exchange to purchase supplies. They also called home for the first time since they had been taken prisoner.
Each service conducted debriefings with their returnees immediately upon their arrival at Clark. Counterintelligence agents with the 500th MI Group conducted all debriefings with repatriated Army personnel.
The DoD recognized the criticality of identifying additional captives remaining in North Vietnamese camps. Therefore, Phase II debriefers primarily collected the names of others within the prison system. Because the returnees had memorized the names of prisoners who came and left the camps, they proved the best source of information about casualties and survivors.
More-detailed Phase III debriefings later took place at various hospitals in the U.S. Seven MI groups — the 108th, 109th, 111th, 112th, 113th, 115th, and 116th — of the US Army Intelligence Command (USAINTC) assigned counterintelligence agents to conduct the Phase III debriefs.
Two-man teams were carefully matched to the rank, background, and interests of the returnees. To help establish rapport with their assigned returnee, each team underwent significant training emphasizing the psychological impact of the confinement experience on the returnees.
During Phase III debriefings, the returnees answered additional questions on names they had given during their previous debriefings. At this time, they were also given the opportunity to tell “their story” of their capture and confinement. Final agent reports detailed not only information about additional POWs or MIA personnel but also enemy camp security, interrogation and indoctrination techniques, and medical care.
One of the returnees was Capt. Floyd “Jim” Thompson, the longest held POW in U.S. history. Thompson was the team lead of a 12-man intelligence-gathering unit. On March 26, 1964, he was on an aerial observation mission in South Vietnam when enemy small arms fire brought down the O-1 Bird Dog aircraft in which he was a passenger.
When North Vietnam released him on March 16, 1973, Thompson had spent just short of nine years as a POW. Agents from the 109th MI Group debriefed him at Valley Forge General Hospital in Pennsylvania. Thompson retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1981.
Another returnee, Capt. Theodore W. Gostas, was an intelligence officer with the 135th MI Battalion in South Vietnam at the time of his capture during the Tet Offensive in February 1968. He spent 1,871 days in captivity at the Hanoi Hilton before his release on March 16, 1973, as part of Operation HOMECOMING. He spent several days at Fitzsimmons Army Medical Center, Denver, Colorado, being debriefed by special agents from the 115th MI Group. Gostas continued his Army service until his medical retirement as a major in December 1977.
Sergeant 1st Class Don Rander, a CI agent, was captured with Gostas and also spent four and a half years in captivity. He recuperated at Valley Forge General Hospital while being debriefed by agents from the 109th MI Group. Rander retired from the Army in 1983 as a chief warrant officer 3 and then continued to serve MI as a civilian until 2003.
Based on information provided by the returnees, the DoD determined that all of the men known to be in the enemy’s prison system either came home during Operation HOMECOMING or were accounted for at that time.
As of late November 2015, the DoD continued to track 516 unaccounted-for U.S. Army personnel. Of those, 21 are believed to have been prisoners who died while in captivity but whose remains have not been recovered. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency continues to investigate and recover the remains of Service members from the Vietnam War, as well as other combat operations.