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

  Ron rapped to his neighbor Jim Mulligan, “Don’t believe him, don’t believe him; we are not going to move.”

  Resigned to his friend’s delusion, Jim told Ron to eat and to request a cellmate when the time came, hoping that perhaps some other American might care for him. In turn, Ron asked Jim to see his wife, Sandra, if and when he returned to the United States. Although he thought Ron would likely die in North Vietnam, Jim asked Ron to visit Louise should he return home first.

  Like so many other prisoners throughout history, Jim had carved a record of his stay into the wall of Cell Eleven. “Jim Mulligan,” he had etched. “20 March 1966, CDR. USN here 25 Oct. 1967–.”

  Now he could add an ending, “9 Dec. 1969.”

  With guards waiting outside his door to begin his transfer, Jim hurriedly tapped the last message Ron Storz would ever receive from a fellow American, “GBU CU LATR…” Jim added the three periods for emphasis.

  Ron tapped back, “GBU.”

  * * *

  That evening, the rest of the POWs began vacating Alcatraz, having each spent twenty-five months—more than 750 days—in those cells. They wondered how they had survived and thanked the Lord that the Camp Authority decided to let them out. They hadn’t met their worst fear: dying old and forgotten in this small corner of the world.

  Softsoap had returned to help Frenchy manage the transfer, and as guards put Jerry in the waiting truck, the former commandant stopped him. “Ah, Denton, this time you will not ride in handcuffs,” Softsoap said. “We will blindfold, but you will not be uncomfortable. And Denton, do not forget tea basket.”

  With a wink, Softsoap handed Jerry his tea basket; he likely knew Jerry had converted the basket into a treasure chest of contraband. Jerry didn’t know how to react to such a gesture from a man who had treated him like an animal for so long. Before he could decide how to respond, another guard tied on his blindfold and pushed him into the truck with the others.

  A few of the men thought this next journey would end at Gia Lâm airport, at the doors of a waiting U.S. Air Force transport. Jim Mulligan, Howie Rutledge, and Jerry Denton let themselves think of waking up with their families on Christmas morning, far away from Alcatraz, far away from Hỏa Lò, far away from Pigeye’s ropes. McKnight and Coker prepared themselves for the possibility of something even worse; false hopes had burned them too many times. Each mulled his own thoughts as they rode in silence through the chilly streets of Hanoi, never to see Alcatraz again.

  They did not drive to the airport. Instead, the convoy rumbled south through the city, eventually slowing as the trucks eased over a curb. The POWs heard gates swing open. A familiar smell of squalor, fear, and sixty years of misery filled each man’s nostrils. They had returned to the Hanoi Hilton. Tears began streaming down Jim Mulligan’s face as guards put him in a one-man Stardust cell. He had allowed himself to entertain the possibility of repatriation, and the bleak reality of even more harsh confinement initially dispirited him, then stoked his anger. “You bastards!” he ranted. “You can’t do this to me! I’m supposed to be going home!”

  When Howie Rutledge saw how little had changed inside the Hilton, he wondered if the interrogation practices remained the same as well. He had thought the North Vietnamese had ended torture when Hồ Chí Minh died; he’d become used to the gentler regime at Alcatraz. When he looked at the small cells, heard the scurrying bugs and vermin, and sensed the unchanged wretchedness surrounding him, he wondered if the concessions had only applied to Alcatraz. He thought he’d survived the worst, but had Hỏa Lò now become even more austere than Alcatraz? He hoped the Eleven would at least be together. He reported in from his one-man cell at the end of the Stardust hallway and learned Harry was across the hall.

  “Johnson?” someone else whispered.

  “Down here,” Sam called loudly.

  “Mulligan over here,” Jim said; Jerry Denton called out as well.

  “Shumaker and Tanner over here,” Shu reported.

  A voice asked, “Where are Coker and McKnight?”

  “They rode over with us from Alcatraz, so they must be here somewhere.”

  “What about Ron?” someone asked. Jim Mulligan had not had time to tell the others about his final exchange with their ailing friend.

  “Ron!” the returnees began shouting. They heard no answer. Then a guard stormed into Stardust yelling, “Shut up! Shut mouth! No talk!”

  The seven men in Stardust brazenly talked on, unafraid of the Camp Authority. Sam Johnson felt a relative sense of relief as he lay down for his first night without leg irons in more than twenty-five months. They all had rejoined the rest of the American POWs after exile to Alcatraz, but Sam couldn’t stop thinking about Ron Storz. He, along with the rest of the returnees, also wondered if CAG was now close by. They’d learned nothing of his fate or whereabouts since he’d been taken from Alcatraz ten months before.

  By month’s end, the group had learned that George Coker and George McKnight, now famous throughout the POW population for their 1967 escape from Dirty Bird, occupied adjacent cells in the Mint, where they had spent their last days before transferring to Alcatraz. They found it no less miserable than they remembered. The nine men returning from Alcatraz had all endured two years of purgatory only to find themselves in the exact place they left in 1967, prospects for homecoming no brighter.

  When Jerry Denton could locate no higher-ranking officer available and able to lead, he formally took command of the approximately eighty POWs in Hỏa Lò and the roughly 280 other prisoners scattered throughout camps in and near Hanoi. Hỏa Lò held six officers senior to Jerry, but for various reasons, they could not take command. The Camp Authority had sealed Robbie Risner inside New Guy Village and had also sequestered several air force colonels who had virtually no contact with the POW population. During one of Sam Johnson’s trips to the bathhouse, another POW whispered that Cat had Jim Stockdale confined to a cell in Thunderbird with an air force lieutenant colonel who threatened to report him if he communicated. In fact, the man feared Jim’s tactics would land him in trouble, and Jim considered him a psychopath. When Cat returned Jim to his old cell in the Mint later in 1970, isolated as he was, he actually felt relieved to escape his cellmate. Whatever the circumstances surrounding other leaders, some POWs felt nobody but Jerry Denton had the guts to take over.

  On his first morning back in the Little Vegas section of the Hanoi Hilton, Jerry encountered Cat. The two seniors passed each other in the courtyard. One wore ragged shorts and carried a towel, soap, and honey bucket; the other led a cadre of attendant soldiers and wore a well-pressed uniform with recently shined shoes.

  “Ah, Denton, I believe,” Cat said with his hand extended.

  “Yes, Denton,” Jerry confirmed, coming to attention but chafing at Cat’s intentional slight. Cat knew exactly who Denton was; the pretense infuriated him.

  “Long time since I see you, Denton,” said Cat.

  “Yes, not since the banana and the torture,” Jerry growled, the memory of Christmas 1968 still in his mind. As always, Cat took meticulous care of his appearance, but Jerry noticed something had changed. The commandant of the prison system had lost his swagger. Unbeknown to Jerry, he had also lost his position. Once commandant of the entire prison system, Cat now commanded only Hỏa Lò, a significant demotion. Cat, it seemed, had become a scapegoat when the government had changed its policy on torture.

  Although he could never explicitly acknowledge it, Cat likely knew that Denton would serve as the prison’s ranking American officer, and the next morning, he called Jerry into his office. “I have some very important announcements, Denton,” he said bluntly. “I, other officers, and many of the guards had in our rage allowed ourselves to vent our anger on the prisoners and were responsible for deviations from our Vietnamese tradition of humane treatment. I have been required to make public self-criticism for my mistakes, and from now on you will be allowed to follow the Code of Conduct.”

  The statement floored
Jerry; Cat had actually admitted he had tortured Americans. He’d almost apologized.

  “I will prove by my deeds that my words are true,” Cat continued, “and I want ideas from you on how we can apply humane treatment, including games and movies. We shall have many discussions in the future. Here are French-Vietnamese and English-French dictionaries for consultation to make sure we understand each other. Maybe you would like to explain to the girls in the kitchen about menus.”

  The married father of seven declined Cat’s insinuated offer, saying, “No, we can’t accept that.”

  With a suit-yourself gesture, Cat said, “Just follow reasonable orders and don’t insult guards.”

  This cordial meeting differed in almost every way from the pair’s last encounter, during Christmas 1968 when Jerry and Cat feuded over the banana. After the two men parted, Cat kept his promise. No American ever faced the ropes again.

  * * *

  The Alcatraz Eleven, as they’d become widely known to other POWs, had been removed from the Hilton on October 25, 1967. In the approximately two years since then, Jerry found that the Camp Authority had made life easier for its other prisoners, introducing new amenities such as a community pool table. Nine prisoners had accepted early release, and while some stalwarts who remained behind had done their best to lead, the past two years had in general seen the organization built by Stockdale and Denton wither. For a variety of reasons and in several cellblocks, the collective will to resist the North Vietnamese had waned.

  Upon his return, Jerry found a group of POWs in the Desert Inn who were not toeing the line, as he saw it. Some did not know tap code, and many read antiwar statements on the camp radio. Some also wrote articles for New Outlook, a camp propaganda magazine. Jerry heard these prisoners received better food, enjoyed exercise outside, and voluntarily decorated the prison’s utility room for Christmas and Tết. Rumors emerged that cooperative parties even got beer, and to bored prisoners, rumor quickly became fact. The Alcatraz veterans set about rectifying the situation.

  They let Little Vegas know that torture had ceased in September of 1969; POWs could refuse to comply without fear of the ropes. Jerry’s first order called for everyone to abide by Jim Stockdale’s old BACK US policies. He also issued a simple corollary. “No write, no read, and no talk on the radio.” The Alcatraz men began sending out the orders by tapping, whispering over shower stalls, and flashing across courtyards. The phantom electrician of Alcatraz even commandeered the camp speaker network to spread them. Using the wiring in his cell’s speaker to buzz code through the public address system, Harry created a campwide telegraph system that baffled the prison staff. He broadcast Jerry’s directives across Little Vegas using the Camp Authority’s own propaganda system.

  From the Stardust cell he shared with Bob Shumaker, Nels Tanner began observing the routine of four isolated air force seniors. Every day a guard walked them from their cells in New Guy Village to the Little Vegas bathhouse. “Try writing a note,” Shu suggested to Nels. “Just hold it up in the window when they walk by. Maybe we can get them to write one back.”

  The next day the officers passed the open window. Nels whispered, “Pssst! Psst!” One prisoner looked up, and Shu recognized Robbie Risner, his face alight with excitement. Risner’s eyes flashed to the message scrawled on brown toilet paper, “Write note.”

  The next day, Shu and Nels had a new message ready, “Pool room under right table leg,” referring to the pool table the Camp Authority had placed in Riviera, which they’d seen Risner visit. On their next trip to the pool room, Shu and Nels found a note from Risner and left one of their own in its place. Shu also stashed other notes in the communal room. Several weeks later, one fluttered down from a light fixture while Mulligan and Denton were playing pool; Denton quickly palmed it before a guard noticed. Jim marveled at Shu’s craftsmanship; every nook in Little Vegas seemed to hold one of his tightly rolled notes. Comm between Stardust and the Desert Inn often relied upon Shu hiding and receiving notes in a designated bathhouse stall; he’d use pajama string and small balls of soap to affix notes behind the pipes that supplied the sinks. Thus the Alcatraz Eleven—the Alcatraz Gang, as some had taken to calling them since Ron Storz had yet to turn up—continued bringing American POWs back into the resistance network.

  * * *

  Some prisoners had no interest in listening to the hard-liners from Alcatraz, and many of their whispers and notes went unanswered. In particular, three senior officers in the Desert Inn refused to stop reciting statements over the radio and writing antiwar articles, not wanting to forfeit the better food and outdoor privileges they received. With no prospects of release anytime soon—based on reports from Hanoi Hannah, it seemed the war might last indefinitely—they had little interest in revisiting the days of subhuman treatment, even though they’d been told torture had ended. In contrast, other prisoners began testing the Camp Authority, finding it had fewer teeth. Most Americans stopped giving up propaganda and ceased reading statements over the camp radio, which immediately raised morale. Undeterred by their exile to Alcatraz, the seven members of the Eleven in Stardust restored the system of resistance and subversion they’d run so effectively during their last stay in the Hilton.

  Just before Christmas 1969, on December 23, Jim Mulligan moved into Stardust Six with Jerry Denton. Since his capture in July 1965, Jerry had lived in solitary confinement with the exception of the less than four months living with Jim during the summer of 1967. After nearly 1,500 days locked up without a friend, Jerry’s isolation had at last ended. The two men pounded each other’s backs in a tight embrace. When they stepped back to look at each other, each thought the other looked like hell. Jim thought Jerry had aged ten years. “My God,” he said to himself. “What are they trying to do with us?” As the two Catholics offered prayers of thanksgiving that night, they also remembered Ron Storz and others still in solitary. “God, it’s hard to live alone,” Jim thought.

  Two days later, on December 25, Hawk, the guard who’d confiscated Jim Stockdale’s note in the Mint the previous summer, led Jerry and Jim Mulligan to a room decorated with a Christmas tree and a nativity scene. They found Bug waiting for them with an uncharacteristically friendly attitude. He directed them toward a wall covered with photographs and typed pages. Upon inspection, Jim and Jerry found images of visiting U.S. antiwar delegations and peace demonstrations. One picture showed the aging Vietnamese priest who had officiated Jim’s Christmas Mass leading a parade through the streets of Hanoi; Jim assumed he cooperated with the government in exchange for their tolerance of his ministry. The posted literature contained all manner of antiwar propaganda and Communist dogma. Whatever Bug’s intention, the displays just hardened the Americans’ attitudes toward their captors.

  The two forgot the propaganda when Hawk appeared with hot coffee laced with sugar. Jerry and Jim relished every sip. To their surprise, Hawk poured refills. Jim—so deflated upon his return to Stardust—began to believe he had, in fact, endured the worst. What followed cemented that impression. As the two POWs drank their second cup, Cat entered the room in his khaki uniform. He took two heaping plates from a shelf of food and personally offered them to Jim and Jerry. “Feast yourselves,” he said. Jim thought his one slice of turkey was more meat than he’d seen altogether since his capture. Cat left and returned with large bowls of noodles in meat broth. Grinning broadly, he said, “Eat, Denton. Eat, Mulligan.” The recipients bowed politely and said, “Thank you, Commander.”

  Jim said grace and asked the Lord to care for their families at home. Then the two men cleaned their plates of turkey, carrots, potatoes, and greens; they drained their soup bowls. Having digested more food at once than he had in nearly three years, Jim issued a loud burp. Hawk heard it and smiled. That evening, Bug called the roommates to quiz and distributed mail and staples from home. Louise and Jane had sent freeze-dried coffee, toothpaste, vitamins, Life Savers, protein pills, and soap. The men went to bed reading short six-line COLIAFAM letters fro
m their wives and feeling truly optimistic.

  20

  MAYDAY!

  Two months into 1970, guards escorted Harry Jenkins into the cell occupied by Howie Rutledge. For most of their days in Hanoi, the two men had been within 30 feet of one another; they’d lived through twenty-five months at Alcatraz in adjacent cells. Since November of 1965, Harry had never relented in his insistence that he’d gotten bagged because he’d volunteered to cover Howie’s birthday flight. The story had formed the basis for a close friendship.

  The reunion of these two proved particularly fortuitous since a flu epidemic swept through the cellblocks, plaguing a number of POWs, including Howie. After more than four years without dental care, Howie’s crowns had taken to falling off as well. POWs forever fretted about dental problems, since a broken crown or cavity could lead to tremendous pain or serious infection. While desperately ill with the flu, Howie accidentally swallowed a crown as he chewed the bits of cabbage in his soup. Nearly immobile on his bunk, he still managed to panic. Harry assured him it would come out in the end. The next day, Harry searched through the fresh slop in Howie’s honey bucket and fished out the crown. Ever after, Howie maintained that no man ever demonstrated truer friendship. After the incident, Harry began collecting gum and anything sticky he could scrounge. He’d stash the material inside the curved handle of his drinking cup until Howie needed fresh adhesive to anchor his crown. His bonding agent of choice soon became Wrigley’s chewing gum, which often appeared in the intermittent care packages that the Camp Authority allowed through as 1970 progressed.