POW Caves

Dave Murray sent the following to us:

Date: Sunday, 05-Jan-97 06:05 PM
From: xdave43@injersey.com

Subject: POW Caves in Laos

The Caves of Xam Nua [photo attached] (samneua)

William Lundy, son of Col. Albro Lundy Jr., missing in Laos presented this photo at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the National Alliance of Families. June 20, 1996. Bill has lived in Laos for 4 years working to improve hospital conditions.
The photo was taken by a British photographer friend of Bill's that didn't believe in the POW/MIA issue.
The individual was riding in a truck in the Xam Nua area, saw some of the cave formations and decided to get out of the truck and "look around" He saw this cave and took this photo. The next thing that he knew, he was surrounded by 4 rifle armed local militia. He convinced them that he was British and not American. Still, he was detained for 5 days. He managed to hide the exposed roll of film in his pants, and put a blank roll of film in his camera. The locals told him this was the "Americans' Cave". The photographer thought that he 'might' have heard noise from inside.
During the war, the Xam Nua area was bombed regularly. Xam Nua is southwest of Hanoi, and along the road to the south. The only structure that was left standing was a building that had a Buddhist shrine in front of it. During the war, the local people lived in the caves. The area is full of geological formations that result in caves.
DPMO representatives were asked if they were familiar with the area. The response was that they were, that they had asked the local Province Chief to show them the caves. He showed them his cave. Asked if they had seen this cave, the response was "no".

[ Where are our POW/MIA's being held now ?? ]

To get a view of the metal ring that POWs hands were tethered to, the PoW/MIA Forum took a negative of the picture. It will take a few minutes to load, but if you are interested in seeing it, see below.

Click here to view the negative

Dave here!

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