Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam's Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned

by Alvin Townley

  Bob Shumaker rushed over to take a look. He whistled softly. “Hold on,” he said. “Get somebody on the window to watch for the guard!” Lookouts posted, Room Seven huddled around Sam, who slowly massaged and smoothed the film. He squinted at the tiny print. Five years in prison had eroded his fighter pilot’s vision, but he could make out one line, “The New York Times.” Sam passed the film to young George Coker to read aloud. George started with the date, “Saturday, November 21, 1970,” the previous fall. He read every word of the front page. Most notably, he read that Green Berets had raided the prisoner-of-war camp at Sơn Tây. The men finally understood why the North Vietnamese had hurriedly consolidated their prisoners in downtown Hanoi. News from home and reports about the rescue attempt were spiritual food for starving men. America had not forgotten them.

  22

  PEACE IS AT HAND

  On December 18, 1971, more American prisoners began flowing into the Hanoi Hilton as the navy and air force resumed the air operations over North Vietnam that President Johnson had halted in 1968. The new POWs experienced a registration process that differed markedly from that suffered by men like Harry Jenkins and Howie Rutledge; torture had ended.

  For the longtime prisoners, the new arrivals became a resource. The POWs appreciated anything that advanced their knowledge of the world events that had taken place since their shootdowns. More than six years had passed since the North Vietnamese ushered the first Americans into the Hilton. So much had changed at home, yet the POWs only knew fragments—details passed in code from new prisoners, comments in the sporadic letters, or suspect news in the propaganda still dispensed daily by Hanoi Hannah. Many prisoners had yet to accept the reports of widespread domestic protests against the war. Bob Shumaker stuck with the view of the war he’d held when he’d deployed in 1964, despite anything new captives might say. Like most early shootdowns, he would not change his mind inside a Hanoi jail, and he intentionally ignored every word Hannah said.

  By 1972, captivity and the seemingly never-ending war had disheartened a substantial number of the nearly four hundred U.S. POWs in North Vietnam. Most men hadn’t turned against the United States, but many had simply grown weary of the war. Some POWs sided with the protesters back home, although their sentiments did not drive them to collaborate with their captors. In a conflict that seemed destined never to end, more than a few POWs believed escape was their only hope for ever returning home. Accordingly, the POW leadership formed an escape committee that included veteran escapee George McKnight. Bob Shumaker served as communications liaison and coordinated the mailing of multiple letters laced with Martini code so that the escape committee could notify the U.S. military of their plan. The more Shu considered options for escape, however, the more he became convinced that nobody could safely escape the prison or, for that matter, the teeming city of Hanoi. He also thought an escape would bring the kinds of violent repercussions felt by POWs at the Zoo after John Dramesi and Ed Atterberry had attempted an escape in 1969. The two had been caught, Atterberry died during a subsequent torture session, and the Camp Authority took vengeance upon other prisoners. Shu envisioned a similarly bad outcome and quit the committee in protest.

  U.S. intelligence had already received his coded messages, however, and on May 2 and 4, 1972, two SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance planes streaked over Hanoi to create two sonic booms, the agreed-upon signal that an extraction force would be waiting to recover fugitive POWs at the mouth of the Red River. Considering the low odds of success and the certain fallout for the POWs who stayed behind, the Wing’s senior ranking officer, Colonel John Flynn, vetoed the operation, and no prisoner ever made an attempt. With escape not a realistic option, the men put their hope in their government. Surely their president wouldn’t strand them in Hanoi.

  Hanoi Hannah gave them no encouragement. That spring, she reported that columns of tanks had led 120,000 North Vietnamese troops into South Vietnam, beginning the Easter Offensive. General Võ Nguyên Giáp planned to wallop the South Vietnamese army, secure more territory for the NLF, and improve North Vietnam’s bargaining position in Paris. As America’s slow withdrawal neared its completion—only 6,000 U.S. combat troops were still in Vietnam—the North realized that new territory seized would likely become territory kept when they finally signed a settlement with Nixon and Kissinger after more than three years of negotiation. General Giáp also aimed to prove that Nixon’s Vietnamization strategy had failed, that South Vietnam couldn’t support itself, even with American B-52s helping from above. North Vietnamese prime minister Phạm Văn Đồng similarly planned to demonstrate the North’s undiminished will and warfighting ability, which he hoped would convince the American president that he could either exit Vietnam now or remain ensnared in a costly losing gambit that his electorate would not support.

  The Americans had expected the Easter Offensive in March but had not anticipated its scale. Northern troops pushed into the South, occupying cities and former U.S. outposts. It became clear to Nixon—if it hadn’t been already—that South Vietnam lacked the ability to defend itself in the long run against the Vietnamese Communists. However, conscious of America’s need for leverage in Paris and to demonstrate his commitment to South Vietnam, Nixon ordered the mining of Haiphong Harbor, strangling Hanoi’s seaborne supply line. Then he unleashed his B-52s and ominously promised, “The bastards have never been bombed like they’re going to be bombed this time.” June saw Operation Linebacker drop 120,000 tons of bombs on troops and supply lines fueling North Vietnam’s operations below the DMZ, with the massive bombers taking off on missions around the clock at the rate of three per hour; Hannah and the Camp Authority avoided mentioning that news to the POWs. When North Vietnam’s Easter Offensive and the United States’ retaliatory Operation Linebacker ended in October, the North had improved its position in the South and in Paris at the cost of an estimated 100,000 primarily Vietnamese battlefield casualties. Henry Kissinger and Hanoi’s lead negotiator, Lê Đức Thọ, resumed talks in August, eight full years after the Gulf of Tonkin incident and three years after President Nixon began withdrawing U.S. troops. As before, representatives from neither the National Liberation Front nor the South Vietnamese government directly participated in the negotiations. North Vietnam and the United States would dictate the future of South Vietnam.

  * * *

  Hanoi had set the 1972 American presidential election as its diplomats’ deadline for resolution, a goal the U.S. negotiators shared, although neither party publicly disclosed it. As their mutual deadline loomed, both sides began to position themselves for an agreement. For years, the United States had demanded North Vietnam recall its troops from the South, but Kissinger realized that neither South Vietnam nor the United States had the leverage or firepower to make the People’s Army move anywhere. On this point, Kissinger conceded. In return, his counterpart Lê Đức Thọ dropped his insistence upon the dissolution of South Vietnamese president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu’s government. Two major roadblocks to peace disappeared. Thọ proposed a cease-fire, a prisoner exchange, and an American withdrawal. North Vietnamese troops would hold their positions below the DMZ, and a coalition “council of national reconciliation” would organize elections in South Vietnam. The two sides reached an accord on October 21, 1972, but work still remained for Kissinger. Now he had to obtain Thiệu’s signature on a document that all but assured the end of his reign in South Vietnam. Enraged by the conditions Kissinger had negotiated, Thiệu immediately denounced the proposed treaty. Kissinger and Nixon leaned hard on their beneficiary, but Thiệu only issued a list of new stipulations that Kissinger considered “preposterous” and North Vietnam found, not surprisingly, unacceptable. Still, despite these setbacks, as the 1972 U.S. presidential election approached, Kissinger held a press conference and proclaimed, “Peace is at hand.”

  In Camp Unity, Sam Johnson heard Hanoi Hannah report, “United States and North Vietnam have reached agreement.”

  “This is it,” Sam proclaimed out
loud. “It’s going to happen this time. It’s almost over.” He felt his heart pounding in his chest.

  In reality, however, the end of the war had not come. Nixon and Kissinger had both overestimated their ability to intimidate their adversary and dictate their ally. Days after trumpeting the purported agreement, Hannah reported, “United States refuses to sign peace proposal.” Sam’s spirits immediately fell.

  Unwilling to alter the original terms of the agreement to meet the South Vietnamese president’s new demands, Thọ returned to Hanoi on December 13. The next day, a furious President Nixon issued a seventy-two-hour ultimatum to North Vietnam and leaned even harder on Saigon. The threats failed to revive discussions.

  * * *

  On the night of December 18, 1972, Jim Mulligan, Harry Jenkins, and U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joe Kittinger set a piece of bread under a large wash bucket on the floor of their room in Blue. Then they propped up the bucket with a stick. Joe tied a string to the stick, and the three senior officers retreated to their bunks, where they began a silent vigil, Joe holding the end of the string, the three men all intently watching the bread. Soon, one of Hỏa Lò’s rats emerged from a hole in the wall. It slunk toward the bucket and tried to take the bait. Kittinger yanked the string and the bucket crashed down over the sizable rodent, capping their evening’s entertainment.

  Happy with their night’s prize, the three POWs lay down beneath their mosquito nets for Jim Mulligan’s 2,467th consecutive night in Hanoi and Harry’s 2,590th. Suddenly, air raid sirens began wailing across the city. The lights in Camp Unity went out. Jim heard three surface-to-air missiles launch nearby. He leapt to the window and saw rockets streaking across the night sky. Exhaust trails crisscrossed the heavens while muzzle flashes from antiaircraft artillery turned the sky momentarily white. Then he heard distant rumblings that sounded like long burps from the deepest, loudest Gatling gun he had ever heard. The ground began to shake, and the ceiling showered them with plaster. In fact, Jim was hearing and feeling strings of eighty-four 500-pound bombs hitting the ground milliseconds apart: carpet bombing. He knew enough to recognize what was transpiring. “It’s a B-52 raid, Harry,” he said to his fellow Alcatraz survivor. “Pack your bags. We’re going home.”

  For the next six nights, the bombers came. In wave after wave, explosions rolled across Hanoi to the cheers of the POWs. The bombs also worried Jim Mulligan, though. He pulled aside Parrot, one of the guards he considered a good soldier, one of the men just doing his job. Jim said, “Parrot, I don’t want to see you get hurt. Take my advice and do not go out of the camp. It’s the safest place in Hanoi. Tell Hawk and Ichabod also. You stay here in camp with us, and you will be safe from the bombs.” Pointing skyward, Jim added, “They know we are here.”

  Each night the POWs scurried about their cells, vying for the best observation points. Many POWs napped during the day so they could stay up and cheer for the coming night’s aerial show. Hundreds of sorties flew over North Vietnam and its capital city during those initial days. To the American POWs, it appeared that the United States had finally decided to win the war. Then, on Christmas, no bombs fell. No aircraft disturbed the peaceful celebrations observed in Camp Unity. In each building and room, POWs sang hymns, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and listened to a homily. For Jim Mulligan, it was the first hopeful Christmas in Hanoi. The next day, the onslaught resumed, dropping yet more explosives on North Vietnam until the skies again emptied on December 30. By the time the last bomb of Operation Linebacker II had fallen, the United States had dropped more than six million tons of ordnance on the small country in eight years. The “Christmas Bombing” campaign destroyed many of Hanoi and Haiphong’s industrial and military facilities and claimed 1,623 civilian lives, according to the North Vietnamese government’s reports—a terrible number, but one relatively small considering the intensity of the bombing. American pilots and planners had attempted to avoid civilian areas, and the North Vietnamese government had long ago evacuated nearly 75 percent of its urban population to the countryside, removing them from harm’s way. North Vietnam inflicted its own damage as well. The air force lost ten B-52s and sixty-one men over North Vietnam. Thirty-three survivors were sent to Hỏa Lò Prison; twenty-eight airmen lost their lives. Sixteen other B-52s went down over water or neighboring countries due to battle damage or operational failures.

  After weathering eight days of relentless pounding, North Vietnam finally responded to an American diplomatic overture. Both parties wanted a treaty. North Vietnam had lost more than one million troops during the war. More than two million Vietnamese civilians on both sides of the DMZ had also perished. Leaders in Hanoi knew that the sooner America left, the sooner the regime in Saigon would crumble, and the sooner they’d realize their longtime goal of unification. As for the Americans, wounded numbered well over 150,000, and expenses tallied more than $111 billion, nearly $686 billion in modern dollars. Little patience or support for the war remained among the U.S. electorate. Even Nixon just wanted it to go away. As the United States prepared to resume negotiations in Paris, the president cabled Thiệu in Saigon, demanding, “You must decide now whether you desire to continue our alliance or whether you want me to seek a settlement with the enemy which serves U.S. interests alone.” Thiệu had no choice but to consent.

  In Camp Unity, the POWs had learned of the Paris negotiations from newly captured B-52 crews, and they wondered how soon the end would come. The Camp Authority told them nothing, but in January 1973, they noticed promising signs. From their courtyard, the POWs could see a 200-foot-tall radio tower to the northwest. The North Vietnamese had kept the tower darkened at night to deny attacking aircraft a landmark. The men reasoned that when hostilities ceased, the tower’s lights would shine through the evening. In late January, the tower’s lights burned long after nightfall. No more air raids assailed Hanoi; no more sirens blared in the night. An unmistakable change had come to the city and its central prison. Although the Camp Authority still denied them concrete information, the POWs began to suspect that the war had, at long last, ended. They just hoped their president had remembered them in the negotiations.

  In Paris on January 23, 1973, Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ initialed an agreement that their countries’ heads of state would soon formalize. In Virginia Beach the next day, Louise Mulligan and Jane Denton heard President Nixon announce the news to his war-weary nation, including families like theirs, whose loved ones had spent nearly eight years in prison camps while America struggled to untangle itself from Vietnam. They realized, of course, that many families had lost their beloveds forever.

  “To all of you who are listening, the American people,” Nixon said, “your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible … Let us be proud that America did not settle for a peace that would have betrayed our allies [or] that would have abandoned our prisoners of war.” Louise greeted the news in guarded fashion. Only when she knew Jim was on an American airplane home would she truly believe the war had ended.

  Four days after North and South Vietnam, the NLF, and the United States all signed the treaty, the Camp Authority assembled Unity’s 4th Allied POW Wing for the first time. The men would wear no shackles, and their own officers would lead them. Bob Shumaker walked out of Room Seven and into the courtyard, where nearly 350 Americans began gathering. Shu fell in with his roommates and stood at attention. He looked around warily and saw the war’s most ragtag unit form around him. Some men went shirtless; others wore their red-and-pink-striped pajamas; yet others wore only T-shirts and boxers. Press from North Vietnam and foreign countries crowded into the courtyard to witness the Wing’s reaction to the forthcoming announcement. The commandant of Hỏa Lò Prison walked before his assembled prisoners and stood on a small box. Speaking through an interpreter, he announced the war’s end. He listed the conditions of the treaty, eventually arriving at the one the POWs most wanted to hear. He announced that their release would c
ome in increments of approximately 120 men at two-week intervals, beginning February 12. They would leave in order of shootdown, first to last.

  The Americans heard the word “departure.” They were going home.

  George McKnight had pictured this moment many times over seven years, but he had envisioned it filled with wild cheering from the prisoners, a cathartic release of long-held frustration. When the commandant made the announcement, however, George surprised himself. He didn’t rejoice. He looked around calmly, trying to digest the news, not entirely believing it. He saw many other likewise stone-faced expressions. Some simply wanted to deny the North Vietnamese and the gathered press the satisfaction of seeing them celebrate. Others, like George Coker, would not trust the enemy. Even as preparations for release began, he still expected North Vietnam to renege.

  Standing stiffly in his pajamas and rubber sandals in the camp courtyard, Lieutenant Colonel Robbie Risner executed an about-face, turning toward the Wing. “Fourth Allied POW Wing, atten-hut!” he commanded. The Americans came to attention, some 350 sandals stamping on the dirt courtyard of Camp Unity, sounding like a small thunderclap. Risner saluted the ranks of POWs facing him. Each squadron commander—the leader of each building or room—snapped a salute in return. Pride shone on the faces of the fighting men assembled in Hỏa Lò Prison, this unexpected mission almost complete. Each of the nine squadron commanders then turned to his men, and together they barked, “Squadron, dis … missed!”