5½ YEARS IN HELL
Navy pilot John McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967, and spent 5¹/2 years in captivity, during which guards tortured him unmercifully.
On May 14, 1973, he wrote about his time as a POW for US News and World Report.
The quotes that follow are from his article.
THE future senator and presidential candidate was on his 23rd mission, flying over Hanoi at 4,500 feet, when he was shot out of the sky by a “Russian missile the size of a telephone pole . . . [that] blew the right wing off my . . . dive bomber.’’
He ejected from the plane, breaking his right leg and both arms when he landed in a lake.
He was brought to Hanoi’s main prison.
“I was taken out to interrogation — which we called a quiz — several times. That’s when I was hit with all sorts of war-criminal charges.’’
All he disclosed was his name, rank, serial number and date of birth. The guards warned him he would not receive any medical treatment until he talked.
“I think it was on the fourth day that two guards came in instead of one. “One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color of a football.’’ The guard quickly summoned “the officer.’’
“That turned out to be a man that we came to know very well as ‘The Bug.’ He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with.’’
When McCain demanded to be taken to a hospital, The Bug returned with a doctor who declared, “it’s too late.’’
Later, The Bug had a change of heart. Rushing into McCain’s cell, he shouted that he knew the gravely injured POW was the son of a Navy admiral.
“I tell this story to make this point. There were hardly any amputees among the prisoners be- cause the North Vietnamese just would not give medical treatment to someone who was badly injured — they weren’t going to waste their time.’’
A man came to his room and told him, “We have a Frenchman who is here in Hanoi visiting and would like to take a message to your family . . . I didn’t know that my name had been released in a rather big propaganda splash by the North Vietnamese.’’ They bragged of capturing “the crown prince.’’
After six weeks in a hospital, where McCain underwent surgery on his broken limbs, he was taken to a camp known to POWs as “The Plantation.’’
He was put in a cell with two other prisoners, Air Force Majs. George Day and Norris Overly. “I was told later on by Major Day that they didn’t expect me to live a week.’’
But his fellow officers “fed me and took fine care of me, and I recovered very rapidly.’’
Soon McCain, who kept refusing to cooperate, was placed in solitary, where he remained two years.
One day he heard noises on the other side of a wall and began tapping on it, knowing the sounds came from another prisoner.
He was “a civilian pilot who was shot down over Laos. He had just come from 3 ¹/2 years living in a bamboo cage.’’
McCain’s treatment over the time he was incarcerated ranged from brutal to civilized.
In one session, a Vietnamese officer nicknamed ’The Cat’ asked McCain if he wanted to go home.
“But I knew the Code of Conduct says, ‘You will not accept parole or amnesty’ and that you will not accept ‘special favors.’ ’’
He declined that and subsequent offers that he received preferential treatment over his fellow captives.
On the Fourth of July, 1968, his interrogator said, ‘Our senior wants to know your final answer.’ ’’ McCain responded, “My final answer is ‘No.’ ”
“The primary thing I considered was that I had no right to go ahead of men . . . who had been there three years . . . before I got shot down.’’
When he refused to “confess,’’ to war crimes, guards beat him brutally.
“For the next four days, I was beaten every two or three hours.’’ His left arm was broken again and his ribs were cracked.
Finally, he reached “the end of my rope’’ and wrote a false testimony about his “crimes.’’
But then his guards made a “serious mistake’’ by letting him rest for a couple of weeks.
They demanded new statements, but “they couldn’t ‘bust’ me again.’’
He also refused to talk to antiwar activists who visited Hanoi.
From that time on, “it was one round of rough treatment followed by another.’’
He was finally released three months after President Richard Nixon’s Christmas bombing campaign of December 1972.