The return of 591 POWs from Vietnam in February and March of 1973 was the symbolic end of the war for most Americans. As the punctuating event on President Obama's timeline for remembrances, the POW story warrants a look back at how it stood in 1973.
It's been 50 years this month since Robert T. White, the last Vietnam prisoner of war released, came home. Part of his homecoming was a celebration on April 19, 1973, in Williamsburg, where his wife lived.
Both the Nixon administration and the Vietnamese government concluded that all living P.O.W./M.I.A.s had been returned. Some veterans and families of missing soldiers insisted otherwise. Thus began a long period of conflict between the U.S. government and its citizens over the M.I.A. issue.
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.
The national organization of former Vietnam POWs (NAMPOWs.org) includes men who served in the Air Force, Navy, Marines, and Army. These remarkable men averaged more than 5 years of torture and inhumane treatment as POWs. As of July 2021, only 407 remain alive out of the original 662 military POWs.
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.
PUBLISHED: April 19, 2023 at 9:05 a.m. | UPDATED: April 20, 2023 at 2:26 p.m. It's been 50 years this month since Robert T. White, the last Vietnam prisoner of war released, came home. Part of his homecoming was a celebration on April 19, 1973, in Williamsburg, where his wife lived.
As the bombing continued, hundreds of American pilots were shot down and captured. Some died in captivity; others were brutally tortured, tied into impossible contortions or just left locked in irons.
Of the nearly 1,600 Americans still unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War, hundreds are believed to be in a “non-recoverable” category, meaning after rigorous investigation DPAA has determined that the individual perished but does not believe it is possible to recover the remains.
As the world's largest communist powers, both the Soviet Union and China gave moral, logistic and military support to North Vietnam. They hoped to build and expand communism in the Asia.
During the longest war in American history, the Vietnam War, 766 Americans are known to have been prisoners of war. Of this number, 114 died during captivity. Unlike previous wars, the length of time as a POW was extensive for many, with some being imprisoned for more than seven years.
The event marked the start of the transition period toward reunification, which occurred in a national election for reunification on July 2, 1976, when the South Vietnam and North Vietnam were merged, forming the modern-day Vietnam.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - 2023 marks 50 years since Vietnam prisoners of war were freed. Among them is the longest-held enlisted prisoner, Captain Bill Robinson, who now lives in Lenoir City. Despite spending more than seven years in captivity, he is grateful.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
In a decision that remains controversial to this day, the Department of Defense classified the dogs as equipment, and most were left behind — transferred to the army of South Vietnam, systematically euthanized, or simply abandoned. Only around 200 made it home to “retire” in peacetime.
On both sides, prisoners were tortured, abused and violated. This is shown by previously classified sources from the U.S. National Archives. NZZ / til. Much has been written in the United States about the treatment of American prisoners in North Vietnam.
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.
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.
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.
A tour of duty in Vietnam for most ground forces lasted one year. Becoming “short” by having less than 100 days left in a tour of duty was a cause for celebration. It also required a countdown calendar on which each day was crossed off until only the “wake-up” – the last morning in Vietnam – remained.
The United States listed about 2,500 Americans as prisoners of war or missing in action but only 1,200 Americans were reported to have been killed in action with no body recovered.
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.
The Viet Minh took 37,000 French prisoners in the 1945-54 Indochina war. About 60 percent died. Only 2,000 survivors remain alive. Boudarel remained in Vietnam after the war.
According to the U.S. military, McKinley Nolan, an infantryman, was one of only two officially recognized traitors of the Vietnam War. The other was Marine Private Bobby Garwood, the subject of the bestselling book Conversations with the Enemy by Winston Grooms.