He was shot down over Truc Bach Lake near Hanoi on 26 October 1967. It was his 23rd sortie over North Vietnam.
He has given conflicting accounts of what happened to him from the moment he ejected.
In the following pages you will find transcripts of official traffic. FBIS reports, DOD Message Traffic concerning interviews that this man gave from captivity to foreign correspondents beginning just four (4) days after his shootdown.
From time to time he has referenced the fact that the enemy had broken him. That he was tortured into submission. In an article that he himself wrote for Us News & World Report © for the May 14, 1973 edition, he wrote that after several days in a cell with injuries that he told one of his guards, "OK, get the officer." He relates how an officer, "a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends we had to deal with," came into the room. "OK, I will give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."
But this conflicts with what he told one of the correspondents not days after his shoot down. In official Department of Defense traffic, this American POW is quoted stating he was immediately taken to a hospital.
Even if you go on the premise that he was sitting in a cell, the first interview was given on 31 October 1967, four days after his shootdown!
He was interviewed at a hospital reserved for Vietnamese military and he was accorded Soviet Surgeons. You will see that he was sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes while being interviewed.
That may not seem like much while you are glancing at this through modern technology, possibly sipping coffee or smoking. But he was in captivity! He has claimed that he was viciously tortured and yet within days of his shoot down he is giving interviews referencing not only the Oriksany, but his prior command, the Forestal! AND he is sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes in between clean white sheets.
What other American PoWs were accorded such treatment?
Now, we at the PoW/MIA Forum do not presume to judge the actions of former POWs. Everyone knows that the Vietnamese were psychotic in their efforts to "break" American prisoners of war.
This former American PoW has done everything in his power to stonewall PoW/MIA Families, Activists and Veteran's from getting answers as to what happened to those that were left behind.
Recent legislation aimed at holding officials accountable for willfully withholding information from Congress, he routed. In this same piece of legislation that became law in February 1996, he single handedly decimated it to render it a useless law. A law that most PoW/MIA Family members have tried to get for the last 15 years. And he rendered it useless in less than 7 months.
The pictures that you see here were taken in 1997 at Truc Bach Lake, and the inscription talks about this man, although they misidentify his service as the United States Air Force on the left side of the memorial.
Now his defenders state that the memorial shown here is not a tribute to this man, but, rather, to the PAVN Gunners that shot him down. Why then, do they have this bust of this American?
When was the last time you saw a memorial to our war hero's by putting up a bust of our enemy?
Please read on, because what you are about to see is official transcripts. War time message traffic and the filings from the war by foreign journalists who reported on their interviews of this man.
You will also find a translation of the statement on the memorial and while it may seem to be lauding the PAVN gunners that shot him down, it also leaves no question as to who they are talking about, so misidentifying him as Air Force is negated.
The message traffic you will find here is verbatim and begins on 31 October 1967.
TRANSCRIPTS
31 October 1967
09 November 1967
01 January 1968
Translation of Memorial
Return to the PoW/MIA Forum
us here!