A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy

by Thomas J. Cutler

  Although forbidden to communicate with one another, the Americans used a quadratic alphabet code that was simple to learn and could be used by tapping on the walls of their cells or even as a series of coughs. With practice, many became very proficient at using it. The letters of the alphabet were arranged in a five-by-five grid (excluding K as unnecessary, to keep it symmetrical).

  The first series of taps represented the number in a row (across) and the second indicated the number in the column (down). So five taps followed by four taps would be the letter U; three taps then four would be S; three taps followed by three would be N; and so on. With patience—and courage—a great deal could be transmitted this way.

  Another means of fighting off despair was for the POWs to maintain their sense of honor. Their tormentors could take away the Americans’ sense of dignity by providing just a tin can for a toilet. They could challenge their sanity by allowing them nothing to read except Communist propaganda. They could sap their strength by keeping them confined in leg irons that prevented them from exercising. They could torture them in ways that made death a tempting alternative. But as long as these men could maintain their sense of personal honor, the enemy could not defeat them.

  They accomplished this in a number of ways, not the least of which was their commitment not to accept an early release. At times, to serve their propaganda purposes, the North Vietnamese would offer to let one or more of the POWs go home to America. Accepting the opportunity to leave this hell, to be reunited with their families, was incredibly tempting. But through their tap code and other means of communicating, they vowed to each other that not one would go home until all could go home.

  Doug Hegdahl was no exception. As any sane person would, he desperately wanted to go home, yet his sense of personal honor made that an impossibility. At a very young age, fate had placed him in the most challenging circumstance of his entire life. His fellow prisoners were older; they had college educations and a great deal more training, and they were being paid more than he was. But in spite of his youth, inexperience, and bizarre circumstances, Hegdahl’s upbringing in South Dakota and the training he had received in the Navy made him wise enough to realize that while accepting an early release might be a welcome solution to his misery in the short term, it would mean a lifetime of regret. He had seen a few of the POWs accept early releases, and it was clear to him that they were wrong to do so. It was clear they had traded their honor for their freedom. Hegdahl resolved that if he were going to survive this ordeal, he wanted to live the rest of his life knowing he had behaved with honor.

  But even this simple (if incredibly difficult) commitment was going to be challenged. As it happened, Dick Stratton and others had a different plan for Seaman Apprentice Hegdahl.

  During one siesta period, Hegdahl asked Stratton if he knew the Gettysburg Address. Using a brick as a writing implement, the two men began to scrawl it out on the floor of the cell until they were convinced they had it right. Then Hegdahl, staring thoughtfully at their creation, asked, “Can you say it backward?” Not surprisingly, Stratton said, “No.” Hegdahl began to do just that. Stratton followed along using their floor-inscribed version and, to his utter astonishment, found that Hegdahl was doing it without error. Stratton concluded that this was no ordinary memory. He was further convinced when Hegdahl revealed to him that an Air Force officer named Joe Crecca had taught him how to memorize the names, ranks, and services of all the pilots imprisoned in Vietnam, at that point more than 250. It was also clear that Hegdahl had memorized a great deal of information about his captors, the prisons he had been in, and what he had managed to see beyond the prison walls when his guards were napping.

  Soon, tap-coded messages were flying about, and the senior POWs concluded that Seaman Hegdahl could do all of the POWs much good and their enemies more harm if he accepted an early release and carried his information home to the United States. The North Vietnamese had deliberately withheld the identities of the men they had in captivity as one part of their many attempts at undermining the will of the American people. Consequently, many Americans had no idea whether their loved ones were alive or dead. Finding out that your husband or son was a POW in North Vietnam was no pleasant revelation, but it was far better than living in uncertainty—and infinitely better than finding out he was dead.

  And there was another factor. In those early days of the Vietnam War, the brutal treatment of the American POWs was not widely known or recognized. The North Vietnamese had convinced many sympathizers in the world that they were treating their captives humanely. Doug Hegdahl, of course, knew better.

  If he could take his head full of information back to the United States, he could give renewed hope to many of those waiting in dreadful uncertainty, he could help to dispel the fiction of humane treatment, and he could also provide other knowledge to military authorities that might well prove useful. To the senior POWs, it was clear that Hegdahl should accept an early release.

  But it was not so clear to the young seaman apprentice. Hegdahl had seen the way the other POWs had felt about those among them who had accepted an early release, and he shared their disappointment in those men. He had heard Stratton declare, “I’d have to be dragged feet first all the way from Hanoi to Hawaii screaming bloody murder all the way.” From early in his captivity, Hegdahl, like the vast majority of his fellow POWs, had staked his personal honor on staying until the day they all would be released, no matter how long that might take. Some of the POWs had been there two years longer than he had. It just did not seem right for him to go.

  Stratton worked on Hegdahl, trying to convince him that he was an exception, that he could go home and take his honor with him. Stratton told him: “You are the most junior. You have the names. You know firsthand the torture stories behind many of the propaganda pictures and news releases. You know the locations of many of the prisons.”

  In the end, it took a direct order before Hegdahl relented and accepted an early release, taking his head full of names and other accumulated intelligence back to the United States. Before going, he told Stratton he was worried that once he “spilled the beans” back in the safety of America, the Communists would take revenge on Stratton and the others. Stratton looked Hegdahl in the eye and said: “Don’t worry about me. Blow the whistle on the bastards.”

  There was no question that the POWs had made the right decision in making an exception of Seaman Apprentice Hegdahl. The Communists soon learned that they had gravely misjudged “the incredibly stupid one.” As predicted by Stratton and the others, Hegdahl’s ability to recite the names of the other POWs proved invaluable, even if the people debriefing him were somewhat surprised to find that he sang the names to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (his unorthodox but effective way of remembering the information).

  The other information he brought back proved useful as well. He was able to pinpoint the exact location of the prison the POWs had dubbed “The Plantation,” describing it as “located at the intersection of Le Van Binh and Le Van Linh, number 17,” something he had learned one day while sweeping around the camp’s front gate. He told all who would listen of the terrible conditions and torture. He eventually went to Paris, where North Vietnamese and American negotiators were meeting. When one of the North Vietnamese delegates said, “Our policy is very humane in the camps,” Hegdahl responded, “I was there.” That ended any further reference to “humane” treatment of the POWs.

  One day back in Hanoi, Dick Stratton found himself facing another interrogation, but this one was to prove different from the many others he had endured over the years. His captors brought him into a room where a table had been laid with cookies, candy, sugared tea, and quality cigarettes. This was not unusual; the Communists would often tempt the POWs with such things or use them as a means of torment by letting the prisoners see such nice things but not allowing them to consume them. A North Vietnamese interrogator, dressed in a tailored suit and wing-tipped shoes instead of the drab military garb his
interrogators normally wore, entered the room. It appeared that he might be some sort of government official—definitely higher up the North Vietnamese pecking order than the usual tormentors. With a very serious look on his face, the Communist asked, “Do you know Douglas Hegdahl?”

  Stratton thought, “Uh-oh, here it comes.” He answered, “You know I do.”

  Without changing expression, the interrogator said, “Hegdahl says that you were tortured.”

  Stratton laconically replied, “This is true.”

  “You lie,” the Vietnamese said, his voice rising.

  Stratton calmly rolled up the sleeves of his pajama-like striped prison uniform and pointed to the scars on his wrists and elbows. “Ask your people how these marks got on my body; they certainly are not birth defects!”

  The interrogator examined the marks carefully and then sat back, staring at Stratton. At last he said a strange thing. “You are indeed the most unfortunate of the unfortunate.” Stranger still, he then got up and left the room, leaving Stratton with the table full of food and cigarettes. It was not until some time later that Stratton was able to figure out what had happened. This encounter had occurred shortly after Doug Hegdahl had openly accused the Communists in Paris of having killed Stratton. “The incredibly stupid one” had figured that by doing so, the Communists would likely want to keep Stratton alive so that they could produce him at the end of the war to prove Hegdahl wrong.

  Beak Stratton did survive. He eventually came home—along with the other POWs who had preserved their personal honor by remaining in captivity, some for more than eight years. Stratton remained in the Navy and retired as a captain after many years of service. Today, he maintains a Web site where he has posted the following words: “‘The Incredibly Stupid One,’ my personal hero, is the archetype of the innovative, resourceful, and courageous American Sailor. These Sailors are the products of the neighborhoods, churches, schools, and families working together to produce individuals blessed with a sense of humor and the gift of freedom, who can overcome any kind of odds. These Sailors are tremendously loyal and devoted to their units and their leaders in their own private and personal ways. As long as we have The Dougs of this world, our country will retain its freedoms.”

  Douglas Hegdahl went on to serve the Navy for many years as an inspirational and highly effective instructor at the James B. Stockdale Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape School in Coronado, California, where he was able to prepare thousands of others for the challenges they might someday face if they fell into enemy hands. He never lost his wry sense of humor. One day, some thirty years after his imprisonment in Hanoi, Hegdahl confessed that he’d fooled Beak—he had not been able to recite the Gettysburg Address backward. He had been reading it over Stratton’s shoulder as his gullible senior had his head down following along. That feat of memory may have been a ruse, but the one that counted was not.

  The POWs have occasional reunions, where they gather to reinvigorate the bonds of friendship and mutual respect that were forged during their terrible ordeal. They do not invite those who took early releases without the consent of the others, but they do always invite Doug Hegdahl.

  At a reunion in Yorba Linda, California, in 1998, Douglas Hegdahl paid a special tribute to his fellow POWs by singing a song. It was to the tune of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” and the lyrics were, in alphabetical order, the names, ranks, and services of more than 250 American POWs who, like him, had come home with honor.

  Guided missile cruiser USS Wainwright, also known as “The Lonely Bull,” one of the Navy’s participants in Operation Praying Mantis. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive

  A Nation’s Honor

  Richard Molck and Robert Reynolds had come to Philadelphia on a sad mission. Both men had served in the Navy in the guided-missile cruiser Wainwright in the late 1980s. It had been a good time, when they had belonged to a special club where lifelong friendships were made and where boys became men. Today, 11 September 2001, they had come to bid farewell to their ship.

  Wainwright’s nickname had been “The Lonely Bull,” and on this day she looked particularly lonely. Her days of service were over and she was slated to be committed to the deep as a target ship. Molck and Reynolds had come to the shipyard in Philadelphia to salvage a few artifacts from the doomed cruiser so that some part of her might live on. They had removed a number of items and had gone to get a truck to transport them. As they drove the truck back through the streets of the old shipyard, bumping their way over railroad tracks under a bright blue sky, bulletins began coming in over the radio, saying that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center’s north tower. Not sure what was happening, but sensing that it was momentous and foreboding, Molck felt a sense of comfort when they arrived at the pier and saw the American flag flying from Wainwright’s fantail, just as it had in those days when he had been a young fire controlman second class in her 4th Division.

  The Pentagon after being struck by a hijacked civilian airliner on 11 September 2001. All on board the aircraft and 125 people in the Pentagon were killed. U.S. Navy (Cedric H. Rudisill)

  Not knowing what else to do, and on a mission for which there might not be a second chance, the two men went back aboard their old ship. They climbed down into the after steering compartment to continue their salvaging. They had not been there long when they heard that a second plane had hit the other tower of the World Trade Center, and when they heard that the Pentagon had been hit as well, they knew the nation was, once again, at war.

  As they continued to work, Molck heard approaching footsteps on the deck above; the sound reminded him of that April day in 1988 when he had heard the pounding of feet along the steel passageways as the Sailors in Wainwright’s crew rushed to their battle stations.

  In the dimly lit missile plot room, Petty Officer Richard Molck listened intently as reports of the approaching Iranian fast attack craft Joshan continued to flow in. Four times, the Americans had warned the Iranians to turn back. But Joshan continued to close on Wainwright and the other ships of SAG Charlie. Joshan was a 154-foot, 2,334-ton vessel whose name translated to “boiling oil.” No stranger to combat, she was a veteran of earlier battles in the Iran-Iraq War, having once used her deadly Harpoon missiles to destroy two Osa patrol craft during an assault on the Iraqi ports of Al Faw and Umm Qasr.

  When the Iranian vessel was within thirteen miles, Captain J. F. Chandler, Wainwright’s commanding officer and commander of SAG Charlie, took the ship’s bridge-to-bridge radio in hand and said: “This is United States warship Wainwright. I order you to stop your engines and abandon ship. I intend to sink you.”

  Recounting this engagement in Great American Naval Battles, Michael Palmer wrote that “the scene was reminiscent of an earlier action” by a U.S. naval commander when, “in February 1800 Captain Thomas Truxtun, commanding the frigate Constellation, intercepted the French frigate la Vengeance [and using] a speaking trumpet, demanded that the French frigate ‘surrender to the United States of America.’” The more heavily armed la Vengeance ignored the demand and was then soundly defeated in battle by Constellation. Like the Frenchman in 1800, the Iranian in 1988 also ignored the American demand. Just who was to be soundly defeated on this day remained to be seen.

  Peering into the glowing cathode-ray tube of his radar repeater in Wainwright’s CIC, Operations Specialist Third Class Steven Twitchel stared at the glowing pip that represented the approaching Iranian vessel. With every sweep of radar the contact grew brighter. Suddenly, his keenly trained eyes detected video separation, and he knew what that meant. His natural impulse was to stare in shocked dismay at what he was seeing, but discipline and training took precedence, and he immediately reported a missile inbound. Joshan had fired a Harpoon at Wainwright.

  Chief Gunner’s Mate Douglas Brewer had been serving in “The Lonely Bull” since October 1986 and was Wainwright’s leading weapons chief. His actual battle station was gun repair, but his duties during general quarters required him to
move about to the various weapons stations. When Joshan attacked, Chief Brewer was out on deck, just aft of the forward 25-mm chain gun that had been added to Wainwright’s armament to protect against small-craft attack. From his vantage point he could see some of the chaff launchers and was glad to see them firing soon after he heard the report of a missile inbound. With luck, these decoys might lure the missile away from Wainwright so they might all live to see another day.

  On the bridge, Chief Warrant Officer Jon Fischman knew that chaff had to be employed carefully because if it were haphazardly placed, it could cause the missile to acquire one of the other ships in the SAG. As Wainwright’s officer of the deck, Fischman also knew that Captain Chandler’s other options were limited. The Vulcan Phalanx close-in weapon system had locked on to the missile, but with the Harpoon coming “down the throat” as it was, the ship would probably be seriously damaged if the Phalanx caused it to detonate by engaging it. There was little they could do but hope that the missile missed.

  Up in CIC, Operations Specialist Second Class Tom Ross, who had been serving in Wainwright since 1985, heard the captain tell all to brace themselves and felt his heart thumping in his chest. He remembered that an earlier Iranian propaganda broadcast had warned that the Americans would “never leave the Persian Gulf alive.”

  Out on deck, Doug Brewer actually saw the Harpoon as it roared in toward his ship. He fervently hoped the Harpoon’s acquisition radar would prefer the fluttering chaff “tinfoil” to the ship beneath his feet.

  From the starboard bridge wing, Jon Fischman watched as the missile grew larger at a very rapid rate. At less than one hundred feet, he could see the lettering on its side, and he realized that he would not be seeing those letters if the missile were coming straight at him.