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. A few have even returned to live there.
Often cited as the last verified American POW from the Vietnam War, Garwood was taken to North Vietnam in 1969, and reportedly was released in 1973 along with the other U.S. POWs as part of the Paris Peace Accords. However, he did not return to the United States until March 22, 1979.
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).
American POWs in North Vietnam were released in early 1973 as part of Operation Homecoming, the result of diplomatic negotiations concluding U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. On February 12, 1973, the first of 591 U.S. prisoners began to be repatriated, and return flights continued until late March.
Floyd J. Thompson, who endured nearly nine years of torture, disease and starvation in Vietnam as the longest-held prisoner of war in American history, has died. He was 69.
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.
And when it did finally end it wasn't because Australia had won. In the early '70s the US and Australia decided to pull out as public opinion turned against the war. And by 1975, the North had claimed victory over the South. Afterwards many Australian troops returned home to criticism from those who opposed the war.
The Third Geneva Convention governs the treatment of prisoners of war, effective from the moment of capture. This includes obligations to treat them humanely at all times. It is a war crime to willfully kill, mistreat, or torture POWs, or to willfully cause great suffering, or serious injury to body or health.
Nearly nine million Americans served during the Vietnam War Era, and as of the 2020 Census, they are the largest cohort of veterans in America, with an estimated 6.4 million living vets at a median age of 71.
They were tortured, isolated, and psychologically abused in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, to which North Vietnam was a signatory. Some POWs were paraded before reporters and foreign visitors and forced to confess to war crimes against the people of Vietnam. Others resisted torture and refused to comply.
World War II Accounting
At the end of the war, there were approximately 79,000 Americans unaccounted for. This number included those buried with honor as unknowns, officially buried at sea, lost at sea, and missing in action. Today, more than 73,000 of those lost Americans remain totally unaccounted for from WWII.
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.
John McCain spent 5½ years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam. His first-person account of that harrowing ordeal was published in U.S. News & World Report on in May 14, 1973. Shot down in his Skyhawk dive bomber on Oct.
Joseph Alexander became a POW at 15. He was a military and civilian worker at Kelly AFB. Joseph Alexander never got to enjoy his youth. At just 14 years old, and with his grandmother by his side, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and is said to have been the youngest American prisoner of war.
And the German learned to fear Australians, because they were reckless, ruthless - and revengeful. During the Third Battle of Ypres, autumn 1917, the ANZAC's (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) met the Germans on high ground, in front of Polygon Wood.
At a press conference Holt declared that Australia was 'a staunch friend that will be all the way with LBJ'. He subsequently committed a further 1700 defence force personnel to Vietnam. When Australia's military commitment peaked in 1969, there were more than 7,000 Australian troops deployed in Vietnam.
An Australian anti-war movement gathered momentum and by 1970-71 hundreds of thousands of people were attending Moratorium marches across Australia. Protestors, conscientious objectors, and draft-resisters were fined or gaoled. Soldiers returning to Australia met a hostile reception.
If the death penalty is pronounced on a prisoner of war, the sentence shall not be executed before the expiration of a period of at least six months from the date when the Protecting Power receives, at an indicated address, the detailed communication provided for in Article 107 .
Throughout their internment, POWs must be treated humanely and with "respect for their person and their honour." They cannot be subjected to coercive interrogation, and IHL sets out minimum conditions of internment for POWs, addressing issues such as accommodation, food, clothing, hygiene and medical care.
The reasons for the Japanese behaving as they did were complex. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) indoctrinated its soldiers to believe that surrender was dishonourable. POWs were therefore thought to be unworthy of respect. The IJA also relied on physical punishment to discipline its own troops.
As a first matter, POWs receive back pay that accrued during their period of captivity. They were on active duty, possibly in a combat zone, and are entitled to all the pay that they earned during that time regardless of their captive status.
Sections of the Ho Chi Minh Trail still exist today, and parts of it have been incorporated into the Ho Chi Minh Highway, a paved road that connects the north and south regions of Vietnam.