The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lists 684 POWs returned home alive from the Vietnam War — the majority after the U.S. pulled out of the war in 1973. (The war officially ended April 30, 1975). There are 1,582 Americans still unaccounted for, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
There are no known living POWs left in Vietnam from the American War. Many veterans and survivors of those terrible years have returned to the country to visit and pay respects to their peers left behind.
Since World War I, over 142,000 Americans – including 85 women – have been captured and interned as POWs. Not included in this figure are nearly 93,000 Americans who were lost or never recovered. Nearly 30% of America's POWs since World War I are still living (29,350).
In 1973, after the peace accords, Hanoi returned 591 American prisoners and said these were all the prisoners they had. Yet more than 2,200 American military men are still missing and unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. Half or more of those men are known to be dead though their remains have never been recovered.
NOW IS THE TIME FOR INCREASED RESULTS! Accountability: As of today, the Department of Defense lists 1,579 Americans as missing and unaccounted-for, over 90% of them in Vietnam and in areas of Cambodia and Laos where Vietnamese forces operated during the war. from Vietnam, 43 from Cambodia and 3 from the PRC.
Garwood. Robert Russell Garwood (born April 1, 1946) is a former United States Marine. Often cited as the last verified American prisoner of war (POW) from the Vietnam War, Garwood was captured on September 28, 1965 by Việt Cộng forces near Da Nang, Quang Nam Province.
Our research and operational missions involve coordination with hundreds of countries and municipalities worldwide. As of the latest update on May 22, 2023, more than 81,000 Americans remain missing from WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Gulf Wars/other conflicts.
U.S. Private First Class Robert R. Garwood is often cited as the last U.S. POW from the Vietnam War. In 1979, Garwood reemerged, claiming he and other POWs had remained imprisoned after the war.
From 1964 to 1973, the North Vietnamese had captured Americans, mostly pilots and crews of downed aircraft, and delivered them to prisons. Among the most notorious of these facilities was Hoa Lo, known by Americans as the Hanoi Hilton.
In 1973, when the POWs were released, roughly 2,500 servicemen were designated “missing in action” (MIA). As of 2015, more than 1,600 of those were still “unaccounted-for.” The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) of the U.S. Department of Defense lists 687 U.S. POWs as having returned alive from the Vietnam War.
United States Army Colonel Floyd “Jim” Thompson, the longest held prisoner of war (POW) in American history, and his wife, Alyce, were products of the idealism of post-World War II America. When Thompson was shot down and captured, they began a journey that changed them forever.
Floyd James "Jim" Thompson (July 8, 1933 – July 16, 2002) was a United States Army colonel. He was one of the longest-held American prisoners of war, spending nearly nine years in captivity in the forests and mountains of South Vietnam, Laos, and North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Bergenfield, New Jersey, U.S.
From Florena Budwin, a Civil War woman who disguised herself as a man to join Union troops and was held in a Confederate prison camp, to the 67 Army nurses who were taken captive by the Japanese in World War II, there have been less than 100 military women held as POWs throughout American history.
Army Corps Nurses arrived in Vietnam as early as 1956. 90% of women who served were volunteer nurses. 8 American military women were killed the Vietnam War. 59 civilian women were killed the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) estimates that over 100,000 helicopter pilots and crew members served during the Vietnam War. Over 4,800 helicopter pilots and crew members were killed in action, and more than 300 are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
According to the Pentagon's Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, there are currently 83,204 unaccounted for U.S. personnel, including 73,547 from World War II, 7,883 from the Korean War, 126 from the Cold War, 1,642 from the Vietnam War, and six from Iraq and other recent conflicts, including three Defense ...
North Vietnamese torture was exceptionally cruel--prison guards bound POWs' arms and legs with tight ropes and then dislocated them, and left men in iron foot stocks for days or weeks. Extreme beatings were common, many times resulting in POW deaths.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
As of 2022, the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency classifies 470 of the 1244 soldiers still unaccounted for in Vietnam as "non-recoverable", meaning that there is conclusive evidence that the persons were killed during the conflict, but that it is not believed that it will be possible to recover their bodies.
Colonel Purcell was the highest ranking Army officer captured during the Vietnam War. He spent more than five years in captivity, mostly in solitary confinement.
Purcell was the highest ranking Army officer captured during the war. Purcell twice attempted to escape from captivity, but was recaptured both times and held prisoner until 27 March 1973 when he was released during Operation Homecoming.
The release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl highlights a fundamental difference between the war in Afghanistan and previous American conflicts. The U.S. has achieved a historic first: There are now no U.S. military personnel held captive in Afghanistan. Bergdahl was the last POW.
"Of the 2,709,918 Americans who served in Vietnam, Less than 850,000 are estimated to be alive today, with the youngest American Vietnam veteran's age approximated to be 60 years old."
They are called "the missing 54" - Indian soldiers forgotten in the fog of past wars with Pakistan, and who appear to have slipped through the cracks of the rival neighbours' troubled history. India and Pakistan have twice gone to war over territory in the disputed region of Kashmir - in 1947-48 and in 1965.