Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam's Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned

by Alvin Townley

  Before the POWs even began their morning routine, the North Vietnamese were driving their leader through the streets of Hanoi, away from Alcatraz, away from the men he had led in resistance, away from the men who had followed him with absolute devotion. His soldiers would not learn his fate for nearly an entire year.

  Shortly after the noon siesta began that late January day, a guard came to Jim Mulligan’s cell; the time for punishment had arrived. Jim put on every stitch of clothing he had: socks, shorts, short-sleeved shirt, and sweater. Then he pulled on the dark shirt and pants he wore for quizzes. He wore the layers not as protection against the January chill but as padding against the punishing sticks, fists, and ropes he might soon face. The more clothes the better, POWs had learned. The guard pushed Jim out of his cell and to the left, toward the gate that led to the alley behind the Ministry of National Defense. As he shuffled along, he used a new version of tap code the Alcatraz prisoners had pioneered. Coughs or snorts represented ones or twos in the matrix, a throat clear was three, a hawk signified four, and spitting or sneezing meant five. Jim coughed and snorted “M MVG,” for “Jim Mulligan moving.”

  In response, he heard “Cough, cough—cough, cough (pause) cough—snort, snort (pause) hawk—spit,”: GBU (God bless you).

  Jim turned the corner to his left, walked several paces, then entered one of the camp’s quiz rooms. Softsoap was waiting. After Jim had bowed, Softsoap explained that the previous day’s commotion had embarrassed the Camp Authority and violated the camp rules. He fingered Jim as a prime instigator and demanded an apology. Jim declined. Softsoap put him against the wall with his arms raised. Eight hours later, Softsoap returned. “You must write an apology to the camp commander and all this will be over with,” he said.

  “All right,” muttered Jim. “I’ll write.” Softsoap provided pen and paper.

  “I apologize to the camp commander for my actions in support of the sick American who needed medical attention,” Jim wrote. “This event would not have happened if your guard on duty had done his job and reported to the authorities the American ‘Bào cào.’ (signed) J. A. Mulligan, CDR, USN.”

  Softsoap read the statement. “This will never do,” he said. “You must repent. You must give yourself over to me and do what I tell you.”

  “That’s it,” Jim said, pointing to his statement. “That’s all I’ll write.”

  “Then I must turn you over to my guards,” he declared. “They will persuade you to see the error of your ways. You cannot stand up against them, you cannot last!”

  “Maybe I can’t, but I’ll sure die trying,” Jim shot back.

  “You fool,” exclaimed Softsoap. “You fool! Do as I say before you are injured. No one cares about you. Your people won’t care about this. Write! Give yourself to me and do as I say. Things will go much better for you here. This is the bad camp. We have a good camp where you can go. There are Americans happy there. Make it easy on yourself and cooperate.”

  “No,” Jim yelled. “No! I won’t write. The others here won’t write. I don’t care if no one else cares what I do. I care and that’s all that counts.” He pointed in the direction of the Alcatraz courtyard. “And they care, too! What you do to one of us, you must do to all of us here.”

  “Then I leave you with my guards,” Softsoap said. He left, and Jim’s night began.

  Sad Sack and four other guards entered the room and clamped three sets of irons on Jim’s legs, then bound his hands and arms behind his back with ropes, immediately cutting off circulation. They pulled the ropes, yanking his arms nearly over his head and forcing his face into his crotch. Laughing, the guards turned Jim into a ball of agony. The numbness crept up his arms, starting in his fingertips, then progressing through his hands and wrists to his forearms and shoulders. His body shook uncontrollably. His head reeled from punches; his ribs ached from kicks. It went on and on. He finally said, “Bào cào.”

  “No bào cào,” mocked Sad Sack. Jim guessed that the riot he’d helped to cause had landed Sad Sack in trouble with his superiors. The guard saw his time with Jim as vengeance. He seemed to relish his grim business, ignoring the pleas coming from his victim. Jim wanted desperately to deny Sad Sack the satisfaction of hearing him scream—of knowing he had won. Yet he succumbed. When his scream drifted through the Alcatraz courtyard, his brothers suffered with him. They knew nobody could withstand torture; they had all reached the same point before. Perhaps worse, each POW knew that his own screams would soon follow. The North Vietnamese had launched another purge, another effort to force statements. Soon each Alcatraz inmate would find himself in that same torture room, facing the guards and their ropes, destined to break.

  When Sad Sack finally stopped, Mickey Mouse visited the convulsing remains of Jim Mulligan. “Will you write for me?” he asked, taking over the interrogation from Softsoap.

  “Yes, I’ll write,” Jim whispered. Days before, he had basked in the glory of a battle won, fought together with his brothers in Alcatraz. Now, defeated and alone, Jim sat at the table with what the POWs called a blue book—a blue-covered notebook—and copied a letter of apology that Softsoap had originally drafted.

  The administrators collected Jim’s completed letter, as well as his quiz suit, sweater, and socks. He stayed in the room for six days, always in irons, always cold, always hungry, always fearing the next click of the lock. During his stay in the quiz room, the camp commander made him write to President Nixon, the Enterprise, his squadron, and bases back home. Each time Mickey Mouse would ask for a letter, Jim would refuse. Then Sad Sack or another guard would rope him, beat him, or otherwise torture him until he submitted.

  When Jim returned to his cell, he found himself the sole occupant of the small three-room shed; the North Vietnamese had not brought back Jim Stockdale. Mulligan immediately began flashing under the door to Nels and Ron. They told him that two POWs from the nine-cell building had been pulled into quiz rooms. The Camp Authority had added renewed fervor to the Blue Book Purge of 1969.

  * * *

  After working over Jim Mulligan, Mickey Mouse deliberately made his way through his prisoners by rank. When Bob Shumaker’s turn arrived, he refused to write a letter of apology to Hồ Chí Minh for bombing North Vietnam. Guards forced him to kneel on the concrete floor of a quiz room for twelve days wearing irons around his ankles and cuffs around his wrists. Regular beatings were also administered. By the time he agreed to write, Shu could see the bones of his kneecaps. In an alley outside the walls of Alcatraz, guards beat Nels Tanner with a fan belt to coerce his statement, administering his punishment over seventeen grueling days. Yet all the victims kept their wits even as they submitted and wrote letters or taped insincere statements. They tainted confessions with as many tip-off phrases as they could manage. One confession noted, “Such famous men as the great Latin American humanitarian S.P. de Gonzales were against the war.” Spoken aloud, the name became “Speedy Gonzales.” The humor hardly balanced out the suffering, however.

  On his way to the quiz room, Major Sam Johnson tried to forget the screams he’d heard during the past weeks. Each cry had felt like a dagger. He’d prayed hard for his friends. Now he could feel their prayers for him.

  “The United States is going to leave you here, you know,” Softsoap began as Sam took his seat; Softsoap and Mickey Mouse had become joint leaders of Alcatraz quizzes. “The Vietnamese people love you, Sông. You do not understand that. They want to let you go home. But we cannot unless you write a letter of apology for your crimes.”

  “I can’t do that,” Sam answered.

  “You will think about it,” Softsoap ordered. Then he rose and walked out the door. Sam spent five days in the room, sleeping on the concrete floor in between daily lectures from Softsoap. On the fifth day, Sam sensed Softsoap’s patience waning. When he left, he gave Sam pen and paper to write a letter; instead Sam mentally practiced his French. He was thoughtfully conjugating verbs when Softsoap returned. “You have not written your letter,” he
observed. “You will be punished.”

  Softsoap walked out, and a guard entered. He tied Sam to a stool. Then four large, uniformed female soldiers entered the room. One shouted, and they descended upon him, hammering him with fists and rifles. With his hands tied behind his back, Sam could not defend himself against the blows. The women paid special attention to his temples and badly healed shoulders. When his stool toppled, they went after his ribs with their boots. The women’s shrieks filled the room as Sam prayed, “Oh, God, let me black out!” Then, with genuine trepidation, he began to think, “Maybe they won’t stop until I’m dead.” He tasted blood in his mouth; bile crawled up his throat. Finally, a guard ended the melee. Softsoap entered the room to accept the inevitable statement.

  “You sit there,” he said, referring to a small table. “Now you write.”

  “I can’t write,” Sam said truthfully. He still had little use of his arms or right hand, so Softsoap had him sign a typed statement.

  “What have I done?” Sam asked himself afterward, as he cried from pain, shame, and defeat. “I gave in too easily, I should have held out longer … In the end, we all give them something, just to hang on to sanity, to life … but it will be nothing of any real value. Anyone who knows me will recognize that letter is garbage.”

  As he tried to reassure himself, Sam heard a whisper and recognized the voice of Jerry Denton, whom Softsoap had secured in an adjacent torture room. “Sam,” Jerry whispered from his window, “Sam, it’s okay, buddy.”

  “I made them write it, Jerry,” the Texan whispered back, “but I had to sign it.”

  “It’s okay, Sam,” Jerry said. “You’re okay. Hang on. You did good.”

  When guards returned Sam to his cell, he prayed for forgiveness. Then he sent a message to Bob Shumaker. “I’m sorry,” he tapped to his neighbor. “Pass it down to the others.” Sam desperately needed absolution. Of course he had it already; everyone had been there.

  With Stockdale still absent, the ten inmates at Alcatraz endured the very worst the Camp Authority could mete out—fists, whips, belts, ropes, stools, and ever-cruel isolation. They began to notice that one of them, Ron Storz, had increasing difficulty handling solitary. Ron had always been tough, even high-spirited; nobody questioned his optimism and courage, but four years of harsh imprisonment had taken its toll on the thirty-four-year-old father of two. At Hỏa Lò, he’d taken to hunger strikes, and he decided to revive the practice at Alcatraz. By refusing to eat, he could retain control of one part of his life; Softsoap and Mickey Mouse controlled the rest.

  Some of his fellow Alcatraz inmates thought Ron believed release was imminent and wanted to go home gaunt, a walking testament to the cruelty of the North Vietnamese. Others believed that solitary confinement was gradually killing him—days upon weeks without real personal contact were wearing away his will to live. Above all other things, Ron loved watching the sunrise, and some thought that four years without seeing the sun’s bright rays spill over the eastern horizon simply broke his heart.

  Ron Storz with son, Mark, and infant, Monica, just weeks before he deployed to Vietnam.

  Whatever the ultimate reason for his decline, Ron’s 6'2" frame withered to 100 pounds. He was even skinnier than Jim Mulligan. His mental state declined as well. Through the wall with Shu, he told his fellow inmate that he worried he was getting fat. His statements left Shu dumbfounded; he had watched Ron’s formerly toned physique wither away. Bouts of irrationality seemed to plague Ron, perhaps partially attributable to a case of beriberi, a disease of the nervous system that Ron might have contracted due to deficiency in thiamine, or vitamin B-1, found in whole grains and fresh meats, vegetables, and fruits. With no fresh food, the POWs already had precious few nutrients in their diet; Ron’s reluctance to eat made him even more susceptible to such an illness. “If something doesn’t happen to me soon, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it through the summer,” he flashed across the courtyard to Jim Mulligan one day.

  Nels spent hours tapping on their shared wall, trying to lift Ron’s spirits, but Nels could do nothing to counteract the demoralizing abuse guards and interrogators could deliver in a quiz room. Eventually—and despite his condition—the Blue Book Purge reached Ron Storz. Mickey Mouse had him hauled into one of the quiz rooms outside the courtyard and broke him as he’d broken everyone else. Ron submitted and signed a statement admitting “crimes against humanity.” His weakness and failure—as he perceived it—left him feeling despondent. After securing his confession, the North Vietnamese permitted him to shave. They provided him with a razor and left him alone in the quiz room.

  That day, the Alcatraz prisoners heard a commotion coming from the vicinity of the interrogation rooms. Guards rushed out of the cellblock area, panicked. From Cell One, Howie Rutledge saw guards and doctors rushing along the alleyway. “What happened?” he yelled at a passing guard. “Storz dying!” the guard called back. Ron had used the razor to cut his wrists.

  For several days, the remaining nine prisoners learned nothing about their friend. Then a guard finally responded to Jerry Denton's persistent questions. “That guard,” he replied, pointing to another North Vietnamese soldier. “He gave Storz blood.” A transfusion had saved Ron’s life.

  When Ron returned to Cell Five, his friends encouraged him to eat. Jerry repeatedly ordered him to do so. Ron seemed to appreciate the concern but ignored the orders. He appeared far more interested in flashing across the courtyard to Jim Mulligan. Ron knew that Stockdale’s departure had left Mulligan isolated in the small three-cell shed, and he took it upon himself to keep Jim connected with the others. As they flashed code to each other beneath their doors, they developed a special friendship.

  Jim prayed for his family in Virginia Beach at reveille and taps; otherwise he locked away his memories of them so he could focus on surviving each day. Conversely, Ron flashed about his family constantly. He mused about his five-year-old daughter, Monica, just an infant when he’d been sent to Vietnam. He bragged to Jim about his son, Mark. Jim suspected their memories haunted Ron during his every waking hour. Jim began detecting the severe harm each day alone inflicted upon Ron’s ever more fragile mind. The Camp Authority only worsened his state by constantly threatening him, telling him, “You will die here.”

  One day in the early summer of 1969, Jim hunkered down on his floor to peek under the door and check for guards. He heard a thud come from the long cellblock and saw Ron’s scrawny arm emerge from the 4-inch gap beneath his door. His arm didn’t move. Jim called, “Bào cào,” to get the attention of the guards. This time, thankfully, they listened.

  Using a wire he scavenged from the bath area, Jim had drilled a multitude of tiny peepholes through the wall of his corner cell, giving him views of the prison yard. He removed the lint-and-soap plugs that concealed the holes, then watched what happened. Guards rushed to Cell Five, and when they opened the door, Ron’s unconscious body rolled out. Officers and medics arrived. Ron had passed out. Jim watched the guards carry his friend’s limp body outside the gate, where they put him in a room beyond the courtyard.

  The men saw Ron each day as the guards escorted him to the latrine. His skeletal frame and hunched walk terrified his friends. Always the pragmatist, Jerry Denton used Ron’s trips to the latrine to exchange information and orders as Ron scrubbed out his bucket, just yards away from Jerry’s cell. The guards had started to treat Ron differently from the others, often turning a blind eye as their increasingly erratic prisoner-patient conversed with his ranking officer. Jerry quickly learned that while Softsoap helped Ron recover by giving him a Bible, he also tempted him with offers of repatriation. Ron asked Jerry questions about amnesty and parole. Jerry explained conditions of early release to Ron, noting that POWs would not be violating the Code of Conduct if they accepted early release because their lives were in danger. Jerry hoped the information would convince his dying friend to leave. He hoped that Ron might accept an offer of freedom and save himself before it was too late.


  As the summer progressed, however, Ron’s condition continued to decline. On one of his visits to the latrine, when Ron didn’t hear Jerry’s response to one of his questions, Ron angrily shouted, “Well, I know who my real friends are!” His condition worried and saddened Jerry and the others, who had known Ron as a caring ally and resilient fighter. Torture, solitary, illness, and deprivation had taken their toll.

  The year 1969 saw the most brutal of times at Alcatraz, and not just for Ron Storz. The inmates were brought back to the quiz rooms, and their visits there grew progressively longer. The men accepted the challenge each time, knowing they’d lose, and wondering to themselves if they would ever leave Alcatraz. Hanoi Hannah and Mickey Mouse provided little encouragement. The inmates discounted everything they heard from the Camp Authority, but with no outside source of information, they wondered whether the reports of upheaval at home and the stalemate in Vietnam might be true.

  When Sam Johnson and Mickey Mouse squared off at a quiz in May 1969, the commandant asked the Texan how he could support Nixon’s new bombing campaign in Cambodia. “Your country is the aggressor,” Mickey Mouse said. “How can you support what they are doing?”

  Sam knew little of the campaign but said he hoped America would take all of Vietnam, to which Mickey Mouse replied, “The American people are against you. They will cause us to win this war.”

  Trying to ignore the North Vietnamese propaganda, the POWs debated their homecoming inside their cellblock. “The North has got to be scared that Nixon is going to destroy all their supply routes,” Sam commed to Shu.