US POW Parade in Hanoi - July 1966.

[Carl Robinson]

I don't know if many Old Hacks would remember this rather notorious incident which I'm sure you won't see in many tourist brochures and 'potted histories' about the Vietnam War.   My own memory was jogged by research for my e-guide project where I'd stumbled onto a French language guidebook's reference the history of Hanoi's Opera House which is a rough copy of the one in Paris and a notable landmark at the top of the city's former French commercial quarter at the top of Trang Tien, ex-Avenue Paul Bert.     I was aware this is where the Vietnamese red-and-gold star flag was flown for the first time from an upstairs balcony on 17 August 1945 at the end of World War II.  But I did not know of the building's role during the Vietnam War when it was where a parade of some 50 US POW's ended their horrible march through city streets where they were jeered and jostled by an angry crowd of some 100,000 people on 6 July 1966.    The public show was part of Hanoi's strategy of putting these pilots on trial as "war criminals".    The pilots -- and the North Vietnamese -- were lucky none of the POW's were actually killed by the rampaging mob.  But the move totally back-fired on Hanoi with near-world-wide condemnation and, some thought, a threat of even more serious consequences from the Americans.    They never tried anything like that again although weren't beyond putting POWs on show or coercing them into broadcasting anti-war messages every chance they could.   Knowing the city of Hanoi as I do today, I can easily picture the march taken -- from a sports stadium near Ba Dinh Square and then through the diplomatic quarter and down into the city and the Opera House.   

It's a grim reminder of just how tough-fought the Vietnam War was and how conveniently Hanoi has gone totally amnesiac on such war-time actions today.   I'd love to know if the original film footage from this march is still around somewhere! 

Here is an interesting link to the incident:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/peopleevents/e_march.html.   And click onto highlighted "prisoner of war camps" to understand where they were located.   

Best, 

Carl

   

      

[Drew]

Carl: the film of Americans being paraded in Hanoi was gotten for the
WGBH series, Vietnam: A Televison History and a sequence was used in
the program titled America's Enemy. (I did America Takes Charge-
program # 5, about grunt disillusion, which grew over the years '65
through '67)

The series can be bought on DVD here:
http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-Television-History-Everett-Alvarez/dp/B0001WTWOC

The best website for checking out the series is here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/series/fd.html

Transcript page for the series: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/series/pt_05.html

America's Enemy transcript for the section that includes the North
Vietnamese parade of US POWs: (earlier in the transcript there's a
nice section from an interview with Earl Young in Long An Province
about the VC "shadow government." Long An is where I knew Earl first,
though later he was in Laos. I've lost track of him in recent years.
Anyone have a phone or email?)

Quote from the "parade section,":EVERETT ALVAREZ: One evening of July
the 6, they came around and gave us new pajamas that we wore. These
had numbers stamped, they had stamped numbers on our pajamas. We were
always so hopeful and optimistic that this thing was going to end and
we figured, ah hah, this is step number one and we're going to be
going home guys. We were sort of feeling good about this, and as we
started walking, you know, I thought we were going to walk right
around the park. But no, as we got to the opening of a big street, I
looked -- we could see down, and it was just, I mean this was, this
was the New Year's Eve parade. I mean there was just thousands of
people in stands and along the streets and as we started to march, I
could hear the cheerleaders with megaphones getting the crowd going.
And one of the interrogators, we called "the Rabbit," he saw me, and
he turned to the crowd and he was leading them in this cheer. The
cheer said, "Alvarez, Alvarez, son of a bitch, son of a bitch."
So pretty soon the whole cheering section started, you know. You know,
I had played sports before, but this was a different sport altogether.
But we progressed down, the crowd started to press in, and the guards
would come along and they'd tell you to bow to the people, bow to the
people. You know, I was just trying to keep my head, not to bow, but I
was just trying to head in that direction. And after a few blocks of
this the crowds became uncontrollable and they started throwing
things. And then somebody hit from behind and I was, I just about went
out, next thing I know, I was sort of drowsy and we were led to the
infield and sat there, and they brought us all in, we all made it.
ROBINSON RISNER: Then they started with my wrists, with my arms behind
my back, and wrapped my arms together under the armpits. Well, the two
arms were together and they just pulled my shoulders out of joint, you
know; that, and they did some similar things to my legs. I tried to
endure the pain knowing that an American military man should be able
to endure torture until he died, but never to give nothing to the
enemy (never give anything to the enemy). And I tried my best, and my
best wasn't good enough.
And during the night I heard someone screaming in the distance and I
thought, my, they're torturing another prisoner, and I felt so sorry
for him, you know. And then I could come back more closely to
consciousness, and found out that it was me I was hearing in the
distance; I was the one who was doing the screaming. And they tortured
me all night. And by daylight, they had reduced me to such a place
that I would give them more than name, rank, serial number and dates
of birth.
And they hurt me pretty bad. They pulled my shoulders out of joint,
and they did some things to my legs. But I found out that I was not as
strong as I thought. I couldn't be tortured to death, that my will
would give before my heart stopped beating. It was very disconcerting.
I lived in abject misery for the rest of the time I was a prisoner.
End of quote from America's Enemy transcript.

[Carl Robinson]

Thank you very much, Drew, and as we know Alvarez -- who was the first pilot shot down and over Ha Long Bay at that -- was the very last POW released in 1973.  

For those of us working in Saigon, the entire POW issue -- even the bombing of the North -- was quite abstract and difficult to grasp.   (We'd just get the statistics on number of air strikes and where and losses -- oh, and the occasional brand-new "ace" who'd fly into TSN for media interviews.)   Even seeing any images, such as this parade, was difficult as we often didn't even see how our own stuff was used.   

No question these guys did it tough and it's good to pay our respects by remembering them now, even if that entire bombing campaign was a near-total waste.  But more revealing is what that entire parade back in 1966 says about the northern mentality.  Good old Ho Chi Minh himself would've sanctioned it personally, I'm sure.  They were real bastards.  

Best,

Carl

        

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[Drew]

Of course, we were too (bastards) in our special way...

[David Brown]

I'll concede that Ho might well have sanctioned such a parade, tho normally he had a better sense of how things would play abroad than his fellow revolutionaries (Truong Chinh, Pham Van Dong, Le Duan et al.).  However, it's my understanding that by the time the POWs were paraded thru the streets of Hanoi, Ho had pretty well been eased into a figurehead role.   

[Carl Robinson]

Yes, Drew, we were all bastards, some more than others.  And speaking of guidebooks and things which prompted this original entry, I've been rather "shocked" to see what the Lonely Planet -- the best-selling Bible of World-Travellers everywhere -- has to say about war-time Hanoi.   (I know, I shouldn't be agitating myself over what others are saying!)    As usual, they're using the old line that the city was targetted, parts of it destroyed and hundreds killed.   From what I've studied, the city was never a deliberate target although certainly parts suffered collateral damage, often trying to knock out the Long Bien Bridge.  (I'd attribute the B52 strike which hit the Hanoi Railway Station and Bach Mai hospital in the Christmas Bombing of 1972 more to SAM's throwing 'em off course.)    Hanoi came through remarkably unscathed.           

But LP's real "howler" is about Hanoi's Long Bien Bridge.  I'd never heard the one -- as in "It is said" -- that the Americans stopped bombing the bridge after Hanoi said US POW's would be used to repair it.   

During the American War, US bombing destroyed parts of Hanoi and killed hundreds of civilians; almost all the damage has since been repaired. One of the prime targets was the 1682m-long Long Bien Bridge, originally built between 1888 and 1902 under the direction of the same architect who designed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. US aircraft repeatedly bombed the strategic bridge, yet after each attack the Vietnamese managed to improvise replacement spans and return it to road and rail services. It is said that the US military ended the attacks when US prisoners of war (POWs) were put to work repairing the bridge.

Has anyone heard this one before ?!  

Best,

Carl

[don kirk]

Might check out what the current edition says about Hue. Last time I looked, Lonely Planet had U.S. planes bombing the hell out of the city, including the Citadel. Having been in the Citadel shortly before, during and soon after the four-week-long Tet 1968 battle, I remember seeing a lot of bullet-spattered walls and one shell hole in the roof of one of the palaces  near the front. Don --- On Sun, 3/11/12, Carl Robinson <robinso...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Carl Robinson]

Thanks, Don, you mean this?!!!   http://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam/central-vietnam/hue/history .   Of course, Hue was never an "American stronghold" for starters, in fact always a bit of de facto "neutral zone" as I recall, but at least they got the VC hauling off those people for execution right.    Of course, overlooked is that the entire city was never occupied, only its northern side and then mostly inside the old city walls.  

And then:

"When the South Vietnamese army units proved unable to dislodge the occupying North Vietnamese and VC forces, General Westmoreland ordered US troops to recapture the city. Over the next few weeks, whole neighbourhoods were levelled by VC rockets and US bombs.

"Over the next month, most of the area inside the Citadel was battered by the South Vietnamese air force, US artillery and brutal house-to-house fighting.  Approximately 10,000 people died in Hué, including thousands of VC troops, 400 South Vietnamese soldiers and 150 US marines, but most of those killed were civilians."

Anyway, it's all bloody typical short-hand stuff.   Certainly, as y'all would gather from my Travels, it's not going to my style putting mine together.   Still, musn't quibble too much or I'll get too distracted.  But it's good for a bit of a laugh anyway.     

[don kirk]

Yes, looks like they embroidered on what I remember reading more than 15 years ago. They seem to have built on the mythology as put out by latter-day Vietnam guide books.. Don't see these quotes mentioning the 5,000 or so civilians hauled away for execution -- just that most of those who died were civilians. "Whole neighbourhoods" were not "levelled" -- by either VC rockets, deadly enough but not that powerful, or U.S. bombs. Re the U.S. "stronghold" claim, U.S. had an advisory team across the Perfume river, not inside the Citadel, and ARVN first division was responsible for the Citadel. I interviewed ARVN CG and advisory team people about a week beforehand. Neither had a clue what awaited them The ARVN CG got out -- I saw him in Virginia post-1975.. A number on the U.S. advisory team were killed.. Don

[Carl Robinson]

If you click onto that link, you'll see their entire entry on the history of Hue.   They cite at least 2500 civilians executed.   Best, Carl.

Here it is again anyway:  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/vietnam/central-vietnam/hue/history.

[Lance Woodruff]

Don, 

I was in Hue days before Tet. (As far as I can tell), I lost my dearest Vietnamese friend in Tet, and what happened and my response is wrapped in a tangle of memory and imagination. I went to Bangkok with a gift for my fiance from my Vietnamese friend, Ton Nu Bien. Bien was a midwife at the provincial maternity hospital.

In Bangkok I was supposed to be on a plane for Saigon, and then to a conference in Dalat. As the airport was closed I did not fly back. I watched the front end of Tet on TV in Bangkok.

Lance  

Dogwood & Lotus 

Lance Woodruff Writing+Photography

566 Sukhumvit 65 (Chaiyapreuk)

Phrakanong Nua, Wattana

Bangkok 10110 Thailand

Mobile: 087-070-0594

Email: lance.w...@gmail.com

[don kirk]

That's much better --  would be hard to get it all in the space. Remember Gavin Young very well. He was Observer corr based in Bangkok, frequent visitor to  Vietnam in early days of the war. Wrote very literate, colorful, thoughtful stuff. (Mark Frankland or Franklin replaced him -- saw a lot of him.) Don