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.
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.
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.
In the European Theater of World War II less than 2% of American POWs successfully escaped and returned to US forces. In Vietnam more than 4% of American POWs successfully escaped and reached US forces.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Although North Vietnam was a signatory of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, which demanded "decent and humane treatment" of prisoners of war, severe torture methods were employed, such as waterboarding, strappado (known as "the ropes" to POWs), irons, beatings, and prolonged solitary confinement.
Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking Navy officer POW in Vietnam, was held there for nearly eight years. Navy Cmdr. James Stockdale exits an A-4 fighter-bomber weeks before being shot down over Vietnam.
59 American women who served as civilians (including nurses) in Vietnam were also killed and died in that war. 4 were POWs.
Estimates of total casualties
Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30%. The Ministry of Defense for Vietnam reported 849,018 military dead during the war for the period between 1955 and 1975 (of which a third were non-combat deaths).
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.
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.
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.
From 1951, the Chinese tried to improve the treatment of POWs after being alarmed by the excessive death rate. The Chinese recognized the propaganda value of POWs and established permanent POW camps in the far North, close to the Yalu River. The Chinese forces also held indoctrination sessions.
“It's easy to die but hard to live,” a prison guard told one new arrival, “and we'll show you just how hard it is to live.” American POWs in Vietnam struggled to survive horrid conditions, physical pain, and psychological deprivation, often for years on end. They exercised as best they could.
By 1969, nearly 250 civilians were being murdered or kidnapped each week. VC/PAVN terror squads committed over 36,000 murders and almost 58,000 kidnappings from 1967 to 1972 according to a U.S. Department of Defense estimate in 1973.
The Viet Cong presents particularly rich grounds for examining child soldiers' decisions in relation to wider society because the group drew heavily on Vietnamese history and traditions in its recruitment appeals. As such, the children's predisposition to join the guerrillas began in their early childhood.
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.
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.
Ernest C. Brace, the longest held civilian POW of the Vietnam war, is a true American hero in every sense of the word and is an outstanding example of how patriotism, loyalty, courage, and inspiration are brought out in a person.
The Vietnam War's 200,000 forgotten victims: North Vietnamese prisoners of war. To this day, little is known in the West about the fate of the more than 200,000 Vietnamese prisoners of war who fell into the hands of the Americans and their allies. Many became victims of the increasingly brutal Vietnam War.