CDR Salamander - Fullbore Friday

“Just a 20-year old undesignated Seaman.”

Never say that.

Titans walk amongst us in the most humble attire.

A war is raging ashore. You’re just a 20-year-old Seaman Apprentice from landlocked South Dakota on your old swayback gun cruiser, USS Canberra (CA-70), off Vietnam when, well, you fell overboard.

No one noticed.

You should have drowned. But you didn’t.

You should not have been able to survive for half a day without flotation. But you did.

Your enemy should have been able to use you to their advantage. But they didn’t.

Your fellow Americans in prison had a stories untold, many of them not known to be alive.

You made sure all were known, with the help of the enemy, you outsmarted from the first day.

What follows is an incredible example of character, smarts, survival, and service.

Douglas Brent Hegdahl.

I will steal the below liberally from the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes, I don’t think they’ll mind.

…he was then assigned to the USS Canberra, a missile cruiser positioned in the Gulf of Tonkin, three miles off the coast of Vietnam. On April 6, 1967, Douglas was knocked overboard by a blast from the ship’s guns. His shipmates did not report him missing for two days. Having fallen overboard with no life preserver and no identification, Douglas was assumed to be dead and the crew held a memorial service. What they didn’t know was that Douglas had floated for 12 hours until Cambodian fishermen found him and brought him to shore. Once he arrived in Vietnam, Douglas was turned over to Vietnamese militiamen and was taken to Hỏa Lò Prison, also known as Hanoi Hilton.

The interrogators at Hanoi Hilton did not believe Douglas’s story about being knocked overboard and insisted he was a CIA agent. Rather than give up information to his captors, Douglas pretended to be an illiterate fool. When he was instructed to write anti-war statements against the U.S., he agreed but pretended to be unable to read or write. The Vietnamese were shocked, but thought they had found the perfect candidate who was gullible enough to be tricked into publicly supporting their cause. They assigned someone to teach Douglas to read and write, but when he appeared incapable of learning, his captors gave up on him. Douglas became known as “the incredibly stupid one.” Deemed non-threatening, he was given free rein of almost the entire camp.

During his time at Hanoi Hilton, Douglas was given the task of sweeping prison grounds. He used this as an opportunity to do what he could to thwart the Vietnamese. When no one was looking, he once filled five army trucks’ gas tanks with dirt and leaves so they would not operate. Douglas would also take advantage of his freedom within the camp, often passing notes and communicating with other prisoners as he swept. His most amazing accomplishment, however, was saving the lives of hundreds of prisoners and providing a wealth of information about Hỏa Lò Prison to the United States. Douglas had a remarkable memory and was able to memorize the names of prisoners, the dates they were captured, the dates they arrived at the prison as well as other personal information. Using the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald Had a Farm” as a mnemonic device, he memorized over 250 prisoners’ names.

When the Vietnamese decided to release three prisoners from the camp, Douglas didn’t want to go. The captured American soldiers had made a “No Go Home Early” pact in which they agreed that they would all go home together or not at all. But Douglas was ordered by his commanding officer to return home in order to share the valuable information he had acquired at Hỏa Lò, and was thus released with two other POWs on August 5, 1969.

Back in the United States, Douglas provided names of military and intelligence personnel who were thought to be deceased. His global impact came when he confronted the Vietnamese at the Paris Peace Talks in 1970. The information Douglas provided, including the locations and horrible conditions of the prison camps, as well as the torture practices used by the Vietnamese, were finally shared with the world. Exposing the Vietnamese this way led them to keep POWs alive until the war was over, saving hundreds of prisoners.

He lost 60 pounds as a POW. More details over at Coffee or Die.

Give it a read.

Fullbore.

If you want an extended discussion, Veterans Breakfast Club has 90 minutes for ‘ya.

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