Captured

by Alvin Townley

  On February 7, 1966, Dog walked Jerry to a building called the Auditorium; two guards followed. Ominously, Dog said, “Your arrogant attitude is going to cause you a great deal of trouble, Denton.” His statement worried Jerry. They entered the old theater, and the door shut loudly behind them. The sound echoed through the chilly, empty space. Dog led Jerry into the building, and their footsteps echoed like the doors. The forlorn sounds reminded Jerry of his complete isolation from his men and his former world. No American on earth knew where he was.

  Dog asked once again if Jerry would write a biography, a summary of his personal history. Jerry refused. Dog looked at him as if he had lost his mind. He said, “There’s nothing I can do then, Denton.” He turned his back on Jerry and walked away, likely wondering why Americans chose severe punishment instead of writing the simple statements requested of them. Jerry knew Dog would never understand that his honor was all he had left. If he lost that, he’d have surrendered his identity. He’d lose the will to resist, survive, and even live. No, he would cling to his honor and the Code no matter what.

  The two guards remained after Dog left. One gripped Jerry’s shoulder and shoved him into a small closet. He could hardly see in its dark confines. Bamboo mats and thick blankets covered the one small window. Perhaps he could reach up and detach them once the guards left, he thought. Then he heard clanking metal. One guard pulled Jerry’s hands behind his back and cuffed them. The other guard clamped irons around his legs. The irons consisted of metal loops that circled his ankles with a heavy bar connecting the two loops. Jerry could hardly see them for the darkness.

  A guard asked if Jerry would write. Jerry said no. Immediately, a hard fist struck him square in the face. He fell. A guard hauled him back to his feet. Jerry felt another blow and sank down again into the darkness. The guard pulled him up and socked him once more. He felt warm blood trickle from his nose. The guard offered Jerry an exit: Would he write anything at all? Jerry categorically refused. The guard threw him into a corner. The soldiers left and locked the door behind them, leaving Jerry in blackness. He waited for his eyes to adjust. They couldn’t. No light penetrated the walls, window, or door. Jerry could have been in the depths of a cave. He gradually became disoriented. With hands locked behind him, he scrunched along the floor, dragging the irons with him. He searched frantically for some relief from the blackness. At last, he found one faint filament of light that slipped through a minuscule crack in the door. It was his only visual reference. It would become Jerry’s best friend. He spoke to it often. The little beam gave him company in the darkest and loneliest place he’d ever been.

  Jerry suffered in darkness for, as best he could estimate, four days. He dwelled in an unending starless night; midnight and midday looked identical. His sense of time slipped away along with his sanity. The seeping winter coldness penetrated his thin rags and skinny body, settling into his very bones. His back and shoulders ached from having his arms folded behind him; the biting cuffs swelled his wrists and gradually restricted circulation to his hands. He lost feeling in them. Would he lose them altogether?

  On that fourth day, a guard entered, turned on the light, and examined Jerry’s hands. He grunted, left, and returned with three men. Together, they worked to release the cuffs, which had become virtually buried in Jerry’s grotesquely swollen wrists. One cuff finally released. An officer arrived and uncharacteristically apologized to Jerry: “Denton, I am sorry about this.”

  For what seemed like hours, the three men worked at the second cuff. They finally disassembled it. It fell to the floor, and Jerry stared at his freed hands. They’d doubled in size; they were black as his cell had been. He wondered if he would ever be able to use them again. At least the interminable darkness was gone and other people were with him. Then suddenly, hands yanked his arms behind his back again, applied a new set of cuffs, and threw him into the corner. The guards disappeared along with the light.

  The passing hours continued to tax his mind. It became a battlefield between determination and despondency, confidence and doubt. He imagined America’s greatness. He drew upon that image and sense of pride to justify his sacrifice. His resistance mattered because American ideals mattered; he was confident he’d chosen the right path. Then doubt charged forward and his resolve retreated. “What difference does it make?” he asked himself. “Why not give in?” Otherwise, he might well die and nobody would even know he’d upheld his honor. He became a miserable, conflicted wreck.

  He withered by the hour. Reality slipped away, replaced by disorientation. What day was it? Where was he? Who was he? Moments of lucidity came less often as days five and six passed by. Finally, during what he feared might be his last moments of sanity, he cried out. He had nothing left to give for himself or his country. He would write. Yes, he would write.

  A guard opened the cell door. The blinding light came; Jerry squinted against the light bulb. He had reached his life’s lowest point. He smelled of waste. His body had shrunken. His wrists still oozed pus. He had surrendered in shameful defeat. He felt like an embarrassment to his family and his country. How could he ever return home?

  He didn’t remember leaving the cell inside the Auditorium. He came to with Dog watching over him as he broke the Code of Conduct. Hell, he smashed it. He wrote a personal biography. He went far, far beyond the Big Four (name, rank, service number, and date of birth). Each additional word hurt. It ached to grip the pen. It hurt to move his hands over the paper. Yet it was nothing compared to the pain of breaking his own order. Little he wrote was true, but if the Camp Authority got something from him, perhaps they wouldn’t send him back to that god-awful black hole. He couldn’t last another day in its solitary horror.

  Dog returned Jerry to the same cell, but under better conditions. When the guards placed him inside, they left his hands and ankles free. When the door shut, the light remained on. The cell had been cleaned. When the door opened later that day, a guard offered improved rations.

  Slowly, Jerry began to heal. He realized no Americans at the Zoo knew his whereabouts. From what the guards told him, however, he knew Dog had waved his biography in front of other POWs. Dog aimed to humiliate Jerry, but he’d actually told the POWs that Jeremiah Denton was alive and still at the Zoo. Dog also inadvertently told the POWs that Jerry had surely endured horrific torture. Jerry hoped this knowledge would increase his men’s resolve. As he pondered his ordeal, Jerry felt his own resolve increase too. His mind cleared and sharpened. His spiritual and physical strength returned. He’d reached his limits and still only surrendered a harmless, half-true biography. He considered the pain worthwhile. He prepared for another round.

  Dog did not offer Jerry an immediate rematch. Several weeks passed by, with Jerry and all his renewed resolve squirreled away in the same tiny cell, alone and far removed from the other POWs in the Zoo. He might have bread, water, and soup, but he considered communication the real bread of a prisoner’s life. He had no connection to anyone outside the Auditorium, and he turned inward again. Jerry dwelled once more in memories of St. Mary Catholic School, where his faith had originally been kindled. He visualized the brothers and sisters who taught him lessons about academics and the Lord. He imagined the classroom and recalled faces and names from elementary school as he walked himself down each row of desks. He stood in his Hanoi cell alongside his class in Mobile as they recited the Pledge of Allegiance together. He considered each word and they gave him strength. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” By the time he graduated from St. Mary Catholic School, and later McGill Institute, a high school run by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, he had a powerful faith in America and God. His patriotism and faith became a driving inner force. His imagined time with classmates helped fortify him for his inevitable return to reality.

  One day in early March 1966, the door opened and guards pulled Jerry from his cell
. They led him through the dim hallways of the Auditorium and out into the springtime. Fresh air swirled around him and he breathed deeply. He felt warmth on his face. Fifty yards later, he was back inside, walking down another dim corridor. At its end, guards pushed him into a new cell. Jerry heard the door lock and footsteps recede. He heard a whistle, then whispers in the hallway. Taps came through his wall: “Welcome to the Pool Hall.”

  Jerry surveyed his neighbors and found himself surrounded by other Americans, most of whom had roommates. Among them, he discovered POWs Fred Cherry and Porter Halyburton. He found their story fascinating. Since arriving in Hanoi, navy lieutenant Porter Halyburton had followed the Code of Conduct and remained uncooperative. Each time he had refused a request, the Camp Authority promised worse punishment. Each time he duly received it. Life grew harder and harder for this North Carolina native. Finally, prison officials warned that continued refusal would send him to the very worst place. Undeterred, Halyburton again refused to cooperate.

  Guards had dragged him to a new cell, opened the door, and pushed him inside. There, he found Fred Cherry, an injured black air force major. The Camp Authority apparently thought Halyburton, a young navy lieutenant from the South, would find caring for a wounded black officer who outranked him utterly intolerable.

  “I didn’t care that Fred was injured, black, or that he outranked me,” Halyburton told Jerry. “I just didn’t want to be stuck with an Air Force guy!” The punch line brought a laugh. Over the coming weeks, Jerry learned how Halyburton nursed Fred Cherry back to health. Their story inspired everyone in the Pool Hall. Sadly, inspiration usually proved fleeting in the camp. Day-to-day reality inevitably returned, and men once again confronted their fate of enduring long hours locked away in North Vietnam.

  One day, Halyburton challenged Jerry to a chess match. How the hell are we going to play chess, Jerry wondered. The young lieutenant conveyed a plan that involved toilet paper, cigarettes, and bread. In their separate cells, the two men folded sheets of brown toilet paper so the resulting creases created a gameboard with sixty-four squares. They used cigarette butts to blacken every other square. Jerry and Halyburton then began saving bits of bread, which they molded into the requisite pieces; rooks, pawns, knights, and bishops all had their own distinct shapes. Once they’d assembled their pieces, they tapped their moves to each other through the wall. If Jerry sent “QKR5,” he was telling his opponent he’d moved his queen to the fifth square in the column corresponding to his king-side rook. Halyburton made note and moved “Jerry’s” piece on his board. Then he responded. So their games went for several days until both POWs had to eat their game pieces to avoid being found out during a cell shakedown.

  By April of 1966, Jerry knew of nearly one hundred Americans who’d been shot down. He estimated more than half were in the Zoo. He kept a running list on a piece of toilet paper and recited the names alphabetically several times a day, impressing each one into his memory. As a senior officer, he wanted to know his men. He also wanted to know who’d arrived in Hanoi alive. If an American perished in prison, he would hold North Vietnam accountable.

  Jerry had noticed that more POWs seemed to have cellmates, although he himself remained in solitary for the ninth straight month. Empty rooms, which hampered down-the-line communication, became rare as more downed American airmen crowded into Hanoi’s camps. At least one other POW was usually on the other side of Jerry’s wall, ready to whisper or tap.

  A sly new North Vietnamese commander arrived at the Zoo that April. POWs nicknamed him “Fox” as he began clamping down on the American communication network. Fox knew POWs needed communication like an army needs intelligence or supplies, or like a man needs water. If he could outsmart the prisoners and crush the communication system, he could destroy the resistance. And if he eliminated the resistance, he could fulfill his orders to deliver propaganda and intelligence. After all, Fox had a job to do. Jerry certainly understood this. He knew war often boiled down to young men from different countries with contrasting orders doing their jobs to see their orders fulfilled. As commanding officers, Jerry and Fox would understand each other. But that did not mean Jerry would help his North Vietnamese counterpart in the least.

  Soon after Fox arrived, workmen arrived in the Pool Hall, where Jerry resided. He watched them unhinge his louvered door and replace it with a heavy wooden one. Later, a work detail arrived to place heavy mats over his window. He watched helplessly as these men suddenly made communication extremely difficult. The grid-based tap code became more important than ever. While tapping seemed tedious—and it was—the POWs had nothing but time. Communication continued despite Fox’s efforts and threats.

  As commanding officer, Jerry became a clearinghouse of information. Taps sent information bit by bit to his cell. When he had sufficient information, he’d pass along a longer message to a neighboring POW who would whisper-shout messages to neighboring cellblocks. Thank God for men with guts like that, Jerry thought. Otherwise his little Pool Hall might be an island. Once messages made the leap to other cellblocks, someone would eventually carry the relevant messages to other prisons in the system.

  Mostly, the information was routine. One day, Jerry tapped out, “GM LGUZ 12IN PS ALRDY HIT F BIO X 5 NOW GETG THRTS F BIO X PB LTR FM HOME X LLFOX IS NEW XO X NEW NAME LCDR RENDER CRAYTON NO OTH INFO X PB BP Q W SPOT SOS.”

  When the POW in the next cell received the coded information Jerry passed, he translated the taps: “Good morning. Larry Guarino says 12 men in the Pigsty have already been tortured for biographies. Five men are now being threatened with torture if they don’t write bios. Phil Butler got a letter from home. Looks like Fox is the new executive officer of the camp. A new validated prisoner name is Lieutenant Commander Render Crayton. We have no other information on him. Phil Butler and Bob Peel had quizzes with Spot—same old stuff.”

  Another time, Jerry received “JD PS NEED CLRTY. Y OR N ON BIO.” The men in the Pigsty needed clarity on Jerry’s orders regarding writing bios. His order was no. Stick to the Code until the pain seriously endangered mind or body.

  Since POWs did not have books to read or paper for drawing or mathematics, the complexity of the tap code kept their minds sharp. For Jerry to send a message, he had to track each letter he sent and know appropriate abbreviations. Likewise, recipients had to track letters, then discern numbers, words, and abbreviations from long strings of uninterrupted code.

  Jerry often used taps to reinforce his orders against writing or cooperating in any way without taking torture. Interrogations continued under Fox’s regime, and he wanted his men to maintain a united front. Fortunately, quizzes remained routine and torture seemed to subside for the time being. When Jerry arrived for a typical quiz, Fox asked, “How are you?”

  “I am terrible,” Jerry replied. “I want the rights provided by the Geneva Convention. I need medical attention for my festering wounds. I want to associate with my fellow prisoners. I want time outside to exercise …”

  “Shut mouth!” Fox exclaimed. “You are not prisoner of war! You are criminal! If you want better treatment, you must show good attitude. You show good attitude, you will get better treatment. If you are reasonable, you get roommate. In meantime, we treat you like criminal.

  “Did you know that this week, the People’s Air Defense Forces shot down on the spot twenty-nine American aggressor aircraft? Do you know our people will never give up? Now I want you to write something. Here is pen and ink and paper. Write names of some of your squadron mates.”

  Predictably, Jerry answered, “I will not write.”

  Fox screamed, “You will write! If you do not write you will be punish!” Shaking a stack of papers, he said, “Here, here are writings from many of your fellows who have good attitude.”

  His enticement didn’t work. “If anyone wrote, I know you forced him to write,” Jerry said, “and …”

  “Shut mouth,” Fox interrupted. “Go back to your room and think deeply about your crimes. Think about h
ow you get better treatment if you change your attitude.”

  Back in his cell, Jerry summarized the quiz for his neighbors, tapping, “Q W FOX SOS.” Quiz with Fox. Same old stuff.

  FOX FINALLY TIRED OF JERRY’S refusal to cooperate and his continued agitation. On April 20, 1966, Fox ordered him back to Ha L Prison for punishment. Guards sent him to retrieve his mat before leaving and he frantically informed his Pool Hall neighbors about his coming move. He downed the remaining water in his jug, fearing the Camp Authority might restrict his diet as part of his punishment. Less than thirty minutes later, Jerry was blindfolded and bumping along the streets of Hanoi. He heard the vehicle’s engine cut back. He felt it turn slowly. He sensed walls around him. He smelled the Hanoi Hilton.

  A guard removed his blindfold. He stared into a new face. It belonged to a short, muscular enlisted man in his thirties. He had angular features with high cheekbones and a thin mouth that struck Jerry as particularly cruel. His eyes bored into the American’s. He exuded quiet confidence and radiated compressed strength, which completely unsettled Jerry. With his hand wrapped tightly around Jerry’s thin arm, the man led Jerry through the Hilton’s passageways. He took him to the room from which Bob Shumaker had encouraged Jerry to “go fishing” during his first weeks as a POW. The man pushed Jerry through the door.

  Shumaker was gone. The room stood empty except for a desk and four stools. Globs of plaster covered the wall; Jerry wasn’t sure of their purpose. He stood by as the new guard picked up one stool and placed it in the room’s center, beneath a burning light bulb. The guard stacked another stool atop the first. He then placed Jerry on top of the tower, helping him balance there, four feet above the hard concrete floor. Jerry gained his balance and the man cuffed Jerry’s arms behind him. The guard assessed his work, then left Jerry alone. The man had never uttered a word.