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Book Preview - Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War
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Posted by Donster on: 2010-07-20 16:49:58 323
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Dieter Dengler's Great Escape from Laotian POW Camp
Book by Bruce Henderson, Excerpt hosted by HistoryNet
On February 1, 1966, German-born U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant (j.g.) Dieter Dengler's A-1 Skyraider was shot down over Laos during a secret bombing mission. A day later, while attempting to signal rescuers flying above heavy jungle territory controlled by the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army regulars, Dengler was captured. After he was marched over several days from village to village—managing to escape once before being recaptured—he was finally imprisoned in a jungle-shrouded POW camp guarded by Pathet Lao on February 14. Six other prisoners were already there: Air Force 1st Lt. Duane Martin, a rescue helicopter pilot shot down in September 1965; another American, Eugene "Gene" DeBruin, an Air America crewman who had bailed out of a burning cargo plane in September 1963; and four other Air America crewmen from the flight, Thai civilians Prasit Promsuwan, Prasit Thanee and Phisit Intharathat, and To Yick Chiu, a Hong Kong native the men called Y.C.
Dengler, who had learned survival skills as a youth in wartime and postwar Germany and who was a Navy legend for his extraordinary escape and evasion skills, immediately began planning an escape. Some four months later, after being relocated to another camp and following meticulous preparation, Dengler and the others were ready, targeting July 4 for their mass escape. In mid-June, however, after the prisoners overheard the guards planning to kill all of them and return to their villages because a drought had caused a severe shortage of food and water, the POWs decided they could not wait any longer to make their breakout.
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