SEPTEMBER 1965 THE ZOO
On September 20, after barely more than three weeks at Briarpatch, we were loaded into trucks after dark. As in all camp moves, we were blindfolded. and we traveled at night. There were now fifteen POWs in our group. The Vietnamese must have thought the camp might be a target for American aircraft to close it so soon after it was opened. What next? We always felt some apprehension when moved from familiar surroundings.
September in Hanoi is hot. Very hot. The oppressive heat mimicked the internal hell we all experienced. Guards led us from the truck to our new cells. When blindfolds were removed, four of us were in a large lighted room, perhaps eighteen by thirty feet, which was divided in the middle by an arched doorway. Phil Butler, Hayden Lockhart, Bob Shumaker, and I were together—all old friends by now.
The cell was empty, so we put our grass mats on the floor to get some sleep. As tired as we were, sleep was almost impossible due to the swarms of hungry mosquitoes that tormented us. We tried doubling up our mosquito nets to place over us. Although this provided some protection from the mosquitoes, the extra layers of netting made the heat almost unbearable.
Morning finally came. Still sweating and fatigued, we surveyed our new surroundings. We were not in a prison. There were no bars in the windows, and the door to our new cell was a lightweight louvered wooden one that would have provided little security against a determined effort to break out. The windows were covered with louvered shutters with boards nailed across them on the outside. Through cracks we could see other similar buildings and a swimming pool in the center of an open area. We soon discovered it was currently being used for raising fish. We were sure we were in Hanoi because we could hear a streetcar, vehicles, and other noises of the city. Escape became the foremost topic of conversation in this minimum security camp. If we were going to do it, now was the time, for security would surely tighten.
We could come up with no good ideas that would provide even a minimal probability of successful evasion once out of camp. Our size, skin color, clothes, speech, and lack of local knowledge would make recapture almost certain in this densely populated area.
Perhaps we could get some outside help by cultivating or bribing a guard or a worker in the camp? Perhaps we could find the location of an embassy that would give us asylum? Perhaps . . .
Tap, tap, tap tap, tap—to the meter of “shave and a haircut”—sounded from the next cell. This standard call-up told us that Americans were trying to contact us.
Instead of tapping back, we spoke softly through our louvered window. “Who is there?”
“Red Berg and Pop Keirn. Who are you?”
Within a short time, we had the complete lineup of all the men who had moved from Briarpatch. We were all in similar cells in the same building. A wooden board covered a two-foot-square hole between Red and Pop’s cell and ours. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, we had pulled it loose and were able to shake hands and talk directly to our friends. Hearing guards approach, we quickly replaced the board, pushing the nails that had held it into their previous holes.
Directly in front of our building was a small ditch. Two Vietnamese began building a fire and bringing in some large pots and utensils. While we watched through cracks in our shutters, our first meal was prepared at the Zoo, as our new camp came to be called. It was very apparent that almost no preparations had been made for our move.
The Zoo was located approximately five kilometers southwest of downtown Hanoi, on the outskirts of the city. Apparently, it was a former movie studio, as movie posters and film cans were found at various places around the camp. The buildings were concrete and were topped with tile roofs. Initially, the Zoo served as a temporary encampment to house the prisoners from Briarpatch, which had continued to be under fire. And though the cellblocks were sturdy, they were initially unsuited for prison use. That would quickly change.
We had almost no interrogations now, except to be threatened and harangued when we were caught communicating with our fellow POWs. However, Pop Keirn was taken to an interrogation room, where he found Rabbit and a Frenchman who was introduced as a writer.
At the end of a short interrogation, the Frenchman gave Pop a book titled Wing Leader by Group Captain J. E. Johnson of the Royal Air Force. He told Pop he could keep it for two or three days. For the next few days, Pop, Red, and the four of us in my cell took turns reading the book. Someone was reading it twenty-four hours a day except when we were interrupted by guards opening our cell doors. For almost six months, I had had nothing to read except a couple of propaganda pamphlets from our captors. My mind was like a dry sponge, yearning to soak up knowledge of any kind.
The book was particularly interesting to us because it was a personal story of a fighter pilot in World War II. The interest of the enemy in the book was apparent also. The entire book had been reviewed carefully, and all references to tactics used by fighter pilots were underlined in red ink. Someone was trying to learn lessons that would be of benefit to North Vietnamese pilots who were flying Russian-built MiG aircraft. We passed the book back and forth through the board-covered hole until everyone had read it—and just in time, for true to his promise, Rabbit made Pop give back the book.
New POWs began to arrive in camp. Through our communication system, we found that one of them was Alvarez. We were elated. Not only had Alvy been in solitary confinement for over a year, but he had also been completely isolated from other POWs. We all had experienced some isolation and knew how terrible it could be—especially when there was no other American with whom to communicate. Alvy seemed no worse for the experience. He was mentally sharp, had strongly resisted all enemy propaganda efforts, and was in good spirits. He was a real inspiration to all of us and epitomized the indomitable spirit we must try to emulate.
Camp security tightened. Workers came in and began bricking up our windows, leaving out a couple of bricks near the top so we would have some air. The heat was oppressive. Our doors were replaced with very heavy cell doors, with the usual barred peepholes at eye level so that guards could observe us. A high wall topped with barbed wire was begun around the perimeter of the camp.
While construction was in process, POWs were moved from building to building. Shu, Phil, Hayden, and I were moved to a building with the old rickety doors. By pushing out on the bottom of the door, we could produce a crack large enough to observe all activity in the camp. We now had no communication with other POWs, but we could watch them as they emptied their buckets or picked up their food. After just two days in the new cell, while Shu was pushing out on the door, the clasp holding our lock broke loose and the cell door flew open. Some guards standing nearby got excited and shouted in Vietnamese while they trained their guns on us.
Shu was taken to interrogation and accused of an escape attempt. When he returned, the guards with him took each of us to a new cell for solitary confinement.
My new cell was almost airless. There were two bed boards, supported by sawhorses, in the cell. By placing one sawhorse on my bed, I could climb up to look out a brick-sized hole that had been left at the top of the former window. Fortunately, the hole faced the end of another building where there was a small toilet. With the door open, I could see the only sit-down type commode, without a seat, that I had observed in North Vietnam. Many of the POWs in the camp emptied their buckets here, so I was able to see and occasionally pass a word or two to the men when they were not guarded closely.
Mosquitoes were unbelievably thick in my new cell. The only openings for them to enter were small holes at the top of my bricked-over windows. The bare light that burned constantly in my cell must have attracted them. Each morning, I spent an hour or more swatting them with a rubber sandal, particularly under the bed boards. I kept count of the ones I killed—never fewer than one hundred per day and often twice that number.
Scotty Morgan and Ron Storz moved into the cell next to me. We tapped to each other, but a better method of communication seemed possible. A doorway between the two cells had recently been bricked up. The Vietnamese had used such a poor mixture of concrete that it was not difficult to dig it out with a sharp tool. I broke off a piece of metal strap used with our food dishes and went to work. Within a day I had made a hole almost an inch across through the concrete. Now we could talk directly to each other. To prevent the guards from finding the hole, we used it only after our cell doors had been locked for the night.
Before we went to bed, we put a plug in the hole made from a chunk of loose concrete broken from the sloppy concrete job on our windows. Rubbing a similar piece of concrete on the floor produced a powder, which when mixed with a few drops of water made a paste that covered up the cracks around the plug. Our efforts at communication not only kept our minds busy and morale up but also occupied many hours of time. It was important that we not succumb to the debilitating effects of complete boredom and inactivity.
Ron Storz was a hard-nosed resister who continually gave the Vietnamese a hard time. When guards entered our cell, we were supposed to stand at attention. None of us did, although we did stand up slowly and take a slouchy posture. This usually satisfied the guards, but Ron’s attitude and lack of cooperation would often infuriate them. One entered his cell and demanded by gestures that Ron put his heels together. Ron refused or pretended not to understand. The angered guard struck Ron in the shins with his bayonet, but still Ron did not put his heels together. I could hear Scotty Morgan telling Ron, “Don’t lose your head and hit him.”
We all knew that attacking a guard was not smart. Though in pain, Ron maintained his composure. The guard left but came back soon with help to take Ron away. Within a day or two, we found out that he had been terribly beaten. His arm was injured and useless, and he was on half rations in solitary confinement.
Seeing and hearing friends suffer was almost as excruciating as suffering myself. Moans, groans, and sometimes screams often poured out of my brothers, though we all tried to stifle the misery as best as we could. The horror of the sounds of suffering around me was especially disturbing at the beginning of my captivity. And I hated to see the suffering of my cellmates when they came back from a torture session bruised and broken, both literally and figuratively. The lack of medical attention for our injuries after a torture session was an additional torture. Often, when we were already injured, the guards would manipulate the injury, adding even more excruciating pain. My broken shoulder was manipulated numerous times until it finally healed.
We tended to each other as best we could, not only physically but also emotionally. When our brothers were able, we also encouraged them to give us as much information about their torture session as possible, including the questions asked during the session. We would then tap this on to the Senior Ranking Officer (SRO), thus making all of us better prepared for our torture session, which we all knew would eventually come.
Though we didn’t have much to offer our suffering brothers, prayer was our greatest medicine. Our suffering did make us stronger, and now, so many years later, the sting of its memory has faded. But I will never completely forget the misery I witnessed.