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

  When McKnight returned to the United States, he visited his high school and the priest he’d tried so hard to make proud in North Vietnam. As he told the priest about his experiences, the toughened air force flyer started crying. The man’s inspiration had helped George survive.

  After McKnight came home from Vietnam, he entered the War College to update himself on military tactics, which had changed so much over seven years. There, he met and married Captain Suzanne Sexton, an air force nurse. After his wedding, he qualified on the F-4 Phantom and then embarked on an international adventure. He spent a year with the 463rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Royal Air Force Station Lakenheath, northeast of London. His next assignments took him to Camp New Amsterdam in the Netherlands and to the Democratic Republic of the Congo as defense air attaché. He declined a desk job and spent much of his time piloting a twin-prop King Air across Africa, landing on airstrips of concrete, grass, and dirt alike. It proved a fine assignment for a true pilot. His final posting took him and Suzanne to Ottawa, Canada, for nearly four years. Colonel McKnight retired in 1986, the same year as his partner at Dirty Bird, George Coker, and the McKnights now live along the South Carolina coast. George McKnight had joined the air force so he could travel, and of his thirty years in the service, he had spent twenty-six outside the United States; seven were in Hanoi.

  Nels Tanner stayed in his native Tennessee, reuniting with his two children and his wife. He retired as a captain after thirty-two years of naval service and began flying for Federal Express. Later, Nels survived a hard fight against cancer. He would have discovered the disease much too late had a particular nurse—George McKnight’s wife, Suzanne—not become concerned about his coughing during an Alcatraz reunion. Thankfully, Nels sought treatment. He and Sara Ann found a magnificent lot outside Covington on which to build a house Nels had partially designed in his mind while in Hanoi. The Tanners still live there, offering exceptional Tennessee hospitality and home cooking to family, friends, and visiting authors.

  On Harry Jenkins’s first full day in San Diego, Howie Rutledge settled the bets they’d made in Hanoi; a tray of tacos and a banana split promptly arrived in Harry’s room at Balboa Naval Hospital, where the POWs spent several days under observation. Howie also sent Harry a Hershey bar. In July 1974, Captain Jenkins assumed command of the USS Denver, an amphibious transport deployed to the South China Sea. The Denver assisted South Vietnamese refugees as helicopters ferried some 7,500 civilians onto her flight deck. With no space or alternative fields to land all the empty helicopters, the Denver’s crew pushed several aircraft overboard. Harry did find enough room on his flight deck to keep two helicopters and had them painted navy blue and emblazoned with Denver One and Denver Two. Every captain needed his own birds, Harry reasoned. For their first mission, Harry sent them to a nearby aircraft carrier for ice cream. When an admiral ordered Denver to disband its air force, Harry cabled back, “What if we paint them black and only fly them at night?” The admiral did not respond.

  After he retired from the navy, Harry built an airplane in the garage of his Coronado home, and he loved nothing more than flying through the skies of Southern California. Sadly, a crash ended his life in 1995. Nobody would ever forget Harry’s humor and optimism, which had helped so many POWs make it to the next day.

  When Captain Howie Rutledge returned to San Diego, he met his wife, Phyllis, on the tarmac at NAS Miramar. They drove to Balboa Naval Hospital, where his four children waited. He walked into his room and found his three daughters circled around his paralyzed son. Johnny feared his father wouldn’t look at him, but Howie unhesitatingly embraced them all, instead ashamed of his own scarred body. Several days passed before Howie would take his shirt off. Before his stint in prison, the fighter pilot’s fighter pilot had often prioritized navy over family. After returning, he found a second chance to be a better father to his two youngest children—and he became a doting grandfather to eldest daughter Sondra’s son, Stan.

  After getting resettled, he placed one of his first phone calls to the U.S. Navy, demanding to know why they’d never told his family he was a prisoner of war. He knew of Stockdale’s encoded information and other intelligence the government had gathered but had not passed on to Phyllis. He never did receive a satisfactory answer.

  Howie continued his naval service and took command of NAS Cubi Point in the Philippines. He served his final tour as commanding officer of the NROTC program at the University of Oklahoma. Too soon after retiring, he faced cancer, which proved a tougher adversary than even Pigeye. He succumbed in 1984.

  Captain Jim Mulligan retired after more than thirty-one years of uniformed service and then ran a successful family business until his civilian retirement. Louise returned her full attention to raising their six sons. Despite the gusto and leadership she provided for America’s POW and MIA families, those years pained her greatly, and once Jim returned, she put that era behind her for good. The Mulligans, who have known each other for seventy years, never left the navy community of Virginia Beach, where they still reside, just five blocks from the home Louise bought in 1966, anticipating Jim’s eventual return. The couple spends many afternoons poolside with George and Pam Coker, who live nearby, and are supremely gracious hosts to all. The Mulligans have seventeen grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, who all received Louise’s smarts and Jim’s drive. They share six of their grandchildren with Sam and Shirley Johnson; Jim Mulligan III and Gini Johnson married in 1981. Their offspring are collectively known as “the POW grandchildren.”

  After returning to his beloved Texas, Colonel Sam Johnson took command of the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Homestead Air Force Base, Florida; seven years in Hanoi had not diminished his love of flying even the slightest bit. In 1979, he retired after a twenty-nine-year military career. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1984 and has represented the Third Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1991. His right hand never fully healed from the traumas of his ejection and Pigeye; he still writes with his left. Yet this senior congressman’s left-handed handshake remains strong, and his rich laugh carries a warmth that betrays none of the suffering he endured for his country all those years ago.

  Sam Johnson’s French instructor, Bob Shumaker, earned his PhD in electrical engineering in 1977. He served as superintendent of the Naval Postgraduate School and on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon before retiring from the navy as a rear admiral in 1988. Like Harry Jenkins, he built his own airplane, which he still flies regularly out of Warrenton, Virginia. As this author can attest, Shu hasn’t lost his touch in the cockpit—he still executes a flawless aileron roll. His son, Grant, inherited his father’s passion for flight and for academic detail—he became a private pilot and a neurosurgeon. Shu and Lorraine live together in the notably airy home he designed while in the confines of Alcatraz Cell Four. From their back porch, they watch sunsets over their pasture, just as he dreamed during those long days locked inside the windowless world of Alcatraz.

  Like Bob Shumaker, Jerry Denton also reached the rank of rear admiral, one of several Class of 1947 Naval Academy graduates to do so. That exceptional class produced a U.S. president, two Medal of Honor recipients, a billionaire investor, a CIA director, and a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. To that, Jerry added his own extraordinary record as a U.S. senator, representing Alabama on Capitol Hill from 1981 until 1987. He retired to his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, where he ran a foundation to support the federal government’s Denton Program, which he created as a senator to enable military aircraft and commercial ships with available space to transport humanitarian supplies to foreign countries. Jane Denton passed away in 2007, shortly after the couple returned to Virginia. In 2010, the navy named the new SERE School at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Senator Denton’s honor. Jerry has sixteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. He lives with his wonderfully kind second wife outside Williamsburg, Virginia, close to family, friends,
and—of equal import to Jerry—a golf course.

  In a 1976 White House ceremony, President Gerald R. Ford presented Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale with the Medal of Honor, the country’s highest award for valor. With the medal hanging from his neck and seven rows of bright ribbons on his chest, Jim became one of America’s most-decorated naval officers. Sybil Stockdale became the first active-duty wife to receive the Navy’s Distinguished Public Service Award. In 1981, Jim began a twelve-year tenure at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where he taught philosophy and focused on Epictetus and others who helped him endure his time in Hanoi. In the 1992 presidential election, Jim served as Ross Perot’s running mate. America watched this seasoned warrior navigate a candidacy he intended only as temporary, a simple favor, until Perot chose a permanent running mate. National office had never interested Jim Stockdale. Unfortunately, many Americans missed an opportunity to understand this remarkable leader and reluctant candidate. The Stockdales eventually retired to Coronado, California, and enjoyed their days together—sitting on the same porch where Sybil had waited so anxiously for letters from Hanoi. Jim passed away in 2005. His funeral was held in the Naval Academy Chapel, below the image of Christ on the sea, an image that had appeared so vividly to him in the Zoo in January 1967. In 2009, the Alcatraz Gang gathered once again to commission the guided missile destroyer USS Stockdale (DDG-106). Her motto is “Return with Honor.”

  Today, a bronze statue of Jim Stockdale looks over the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. It stands outside Luce Hall, which houses the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. The sculpture does not depict Jim with a vice admiral’s three stars or in the dark uniform of an officer. Instead, the figure carries a pilot’s helmet, wears the boots and flight suit of an aviator, and has the stance and certitude of a combat-tempered leader. The statue depicts CAG as what he always was at heart: a fighter pilot.

  * * *

  Each of these eleven men—these Alcatraz Eleven—had come to Vietnam with a uniquely strong constitution; the married among them had wives with equal mettle. Their shared trials only fortified their devotion to one another, their nation, and their mutual cause. Together, they overcame more intense hardship over more years than any other group of servicemen and families in American history.

  We should not forget.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In December 2011, I visited a united Vietnam and had tea with the grandson of General Võ Nguyên Giáp, the Vietnamese general who defeated a colonial French regime, then led the war against South Vietnam and the United States. His grandson and I met at the general’s beautiful Hanoi residence, amid relics of our shared history. From glossy black-and-white photographs, the specters of Vietnam’s past watched us. As sons and grandsons of the generation that fought the war, we each spoke of our respective country’s future, neither of us recalling battles that raged before our birth. Today, new generations of Vietnamese and Americans endeavor to honor our past and all those who served under difficult circumstances. We try to understand what was, while creating what will be. Amid the progress of modernity, only monuments, memories, and ghosts remain at places like Hỏa Lò Prison. Once, those ghosts were very real.

  By the time I walked through the gate of the Hanoi Hilton, four decades had passed since my countrymen filled its cells. Just several blocks away, at the modern Hilton Hanoi hotel, former POW and ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson began helping me understand this foreign country and what transpired during our long war. Through the former ambassador and friends like Vice Admiral Tom Kilcline, I began meeting a cast of participants, observers, and students who taught me about those difficult years.

  Men like Bob Destatte and Paul Mather shared the knowledge of lives spent working on the POW/MIA issue. Former POWs like Ev Alvarez, Jerry Coffee, Lee Ellis, Paul Galanti, Dan Glenn, Porter Halyburton, Dave Hatcher, Ron Mastin, Red McDaniel, Charlie Plumb, Wes Schierman, Orson Swindle, and Ross Terry helped me understand the bad—and the good—that came with captivity in Hanoi; many were kind enough to review the manuscript. A special thanks goes to artist and historian Mike McGrath for his untiring help and expert drawings. Members of the navy community including Heidi Lenzini and Michael McDaniel at the Naval History and Heritage Command, Rear Admiral Peter Booth in Pensacola, and professors Hite Spencer and Rick Ruth at the U.S. Naval Academy also helped in countless ways. The work of Fred Kiley, Stuart Rochester, John Hubbell, Vernon Davis, Craig Howes, George Herring, Stanley Karnow, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, Bùi Tín, and numerous other authors proved immeasurably helpful, and I appreciate their efforts to capture aspects of this important story. Thanks also to Hill Goodspeed and Richard Latture at the National Museum of Naval Aviation and the U.S. Naval Institute. For helping me understand the medical aspects of the prisoner experience, I’d like to thank Lieutenant Colonel Randy Rizor, MD. President Jimmy Carter (USNA ’47) and the extraordinary Louie Zamperini provided help and inspiration.

  Special thanks to Andrea Alvord, Philip and Charlotte Blackburn, Pete and Carolyn Booth, Charles and Lee Hight, John and Kathy Landon, Pat Palma, Matt and Mary Sawhill, Buey Tut, Mary Ellen Wiggins, and the fabulous residents of Garfield Street, who kindly took care of me in their respective homes and cities. I’m particularly grateful to George and Paula Foot for a creekside retreat in the Rockies and to John and Mimi Rogers for the spot on the coast. Additional thanks go to all those who reviewed the manuscript and helped ensure I correctly recorded myriad facts and countless intricate details.

  Speaking of those facts, no single book could completely record the experiences of eleven POWs and their families over eight years. I have done my best to weave together diverse accounts to create a story that accurately represents the experiences of the Alcatraz Eleven, and I hope readers and other POWs will understand I could never tell every story from every perspective. The history of Vietnam and our involvement therein inevitably sparks controversy. Dedicated historians have produced entire volumes that still leave some details unexplained. I have endeavored to present the conflict’s history succinctly but realistically so that readers might understand how American pilots came to spend eight years in Hanoi.

  The literary agent who first believed in me, Jack Scovil, passed away before I finished the manuscript, but I’ll always owe him a special debt. Sincere thanks to his business partner Russ Galen, a true advocate who took up the flag and carried us through the homestretch. At Thomas Dunne Books, Peter Joseph championed this project and helped me frame and recount this epic story. Melanie Fried lent her boundless editorial talent to the manuscript as well. I’m also grateful for the continuing support of the Madison Park team that has included Peter and Melanie as well as Margaret Brown, Joe Rinaldi, Pete Wolverton, and Tom Dunne.

  My friends and family have been wonderfully supportive as always. Will, Emma, and Holly Gibby always relieved the pressure of writing, and Suzanne Foote was ever patient and understanding, unfailing in her support, keen insights, and belief in this project and in me. I’m especially glad that Trevor Ulbrick found time between world-saving jobs to join me for the round-the-world adventure that brought us to Southeast Asia. I’m forever indebted to a special friend in Hanoi for showing me the very best of Vietnam and helping me understand its people and its past—and letting me glimpse its future as well.

  More than 770 known Americans were captured during the Vietnam War, and they valiantly upheld those high standards we expect of our servicemen and they, in turn, expect of themselves; 113 POWs did not survive. Every man has a valuable story and his own unique perspective. Far more than eleven individuals disrupted the Camp Authority’s plans, caused Cat and Rabbit fits, and resisted with their every fiber. Far more than eleven men served as leaders and aspired to—and did—return with honor. To me, they are all heroes, although no more so than the men who fought the war in other places, under different sets of difficult circumstances. To a one, our Vietnam veterans will tell you that the real heroes are the men who did not return. Likewise,
all the families who underwent this ordeal and who refused to forsake our POWs certainly deserve our admiration. Their stories remind us of the sacrifices made not just by those who wear the uniform but by those on the home front.

  Above all, the men, wives, and families of Alcatraz have opened their lives and given me a gift of understanding and inspiration that I never expected. They have patiently revisited very difficult phases of their lives and still had the good spirits to enjoy dinner with me afterward. I am grateful for their friendship; I am lucky to know them. With each new story I heard, I grew more convinced that America has never assembled a finer band of men and women. I will always remain in awe of what they endured and accomplished. I hope I’ve told their story well. I hope it inspires America like it continues to inspire me.

  Finally, to all our POWs and Vietnam veterans: GBU.

  NOTES

  The page numbers for the notes that appeared in the print version of this title are not in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for the relevant passages documented or discussed.

  Much of the preceding narrative stems from extensive interviews with surviving members of the Alcatraz Eleven, Alcatraz family members, other POWs who served in Vietnam, and other POW family members. Multiple first-person sources contributed to and/or confirmed many anecdotes and quotes in this manuscript. Unless otherwise noted, dialogue and description of specific events comes from materials provided by and first-person interviews conducted by the author with the following POWs and family members. Often quotes are cited from books written by or about Alcatraz POWs; since those quotes were recalled at dates closer to actual events than more recent interviews, the author considered those specific recollections most reliable.