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

  Soon George Coker and George McKnight were transferred from their separate cells in the Mint to a room together in Stardust. Except for Jim Stockdale and Ron Storz, the Alcatraz Eleven had reassembled. By the end of February 1970, only one still lived alone: Sam Johnson. In Alcatraz, the eleven men had endured solitary confinement knowing they did so together. Now, Sam knew each of his friends in Stardust had a cellmate. He heard them whisper of playing pool together in Riviera. They took meals together, as if sharing a table in the mess halls and wardrooms they’d known before being shot down. Sam knew they talked quietly inside their cells and thus had less need to risk communicating with others; the North Vietnamese still forbade communication between cells, and unlike Softsoap at Alcatraz, the authorities in Little Vegas still punished offenders. Leg irons were a popular penalty for infractions, but the staff could no longer employ torture. Other inmates couldn’t risk causing trouble for themselves or for Sam, should he be caught. Gradually, the traffic of taps to Sam’s Stardust cell subsided. With nobody to monitor the hallway for guards while he tapped or whispered, his isolation grew. He sat dejectedly on his bunk, seeing no other souls but the guards who delivered his food or escorted him to the latrine. While other POWs visited the pool table with their cellmates, Sam shot pool by himself, never allowed a competitor and facing the difficulty of practicing with his injured arms and stiff right hand. Four years after dislocating one shoulder and breaking the other, they still didn’t have the strength to lift him above shower stalls or to the high windows in Stardust so he could see another American. He longed just to lay eyes upon a fellow prisoner. The chill of winter, the poor rations, and the stinking honey bucket all became secondary concerns. He tried to pray. Often, he could not even find words. In their stead came tears. Loneliness started to crush Sam Johnson.

  With the gang increasingly concerned about Sam’s isolation, Jerry Denton brought the problem to Cat’s attention. “Ah, Denton,” Cat said, “I am your good uncle. I have good nephews and bad nephews. Johnson is a bad nephew. He will never have roommate.” Two years in Alcatraz had apparently not lessened the grudge the Camp Authority held against Sam Johnson; Sam could never figure out why they considered him so deserving of special punishment. When Jerry passed the latest news to Sam, he tapped, “Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll think of something.” Truthfully, though, Sam’s fellow POWs could do little.

  The big, affable Texan had never experienced despondency like that which visited him during the winter and spring of 1970. Only his misery in the Mint, locked in stocks during the summer of 1967, could compare. He had no energy left, and his will to survive began to wane. The thirty-nine-year-old noticed he now walked with an old man’s shuffle. Even trips to the shower left him drained. Sometimes, he would stand and stare at his cell wall until he fell exhausted onto his hard bunk. Still, he could barely sleep. With each passing day, he had to struggle harder to endure the next hour.

  “It’s too much,” he thought. “I can’t go on any longer.” He wondered why Cat persecuted him so persistently. “They hate me,” he told himself. “They want to break me.” The reason didn’t matter; Cat was succeeding. Sam had not felt such fear since he stood before the village firing squad shortly after his capture and impromptu trial en route to Hanoi. Now he felt that dreadful emotion creeping into his mind once again. Without hope of relief, he turned to God.

  In his cell and without any other recourse, he dropped to his knees and asked the Lord for help. He implored him to take away all his fear, loneliness, and depression. Sam gave himself over to the God he hoped still retained control over his plight. He spent the next days in prayer. His cell became a church, and he found the assurance that God still watched over him. He gained a holy strength with which to fight.

  Like Ron Storz, Sam chose to use the only weapon he had: his own body. Since they’d left Alcatraz and treatment had improved for most, Sam suspected release was imminent; optimists Jerry Denton and Jim Mulligan were convinced of it. Surely, Cat would not release Sam looking horribly malnourished. Fasting seemed like his last option. He began eating only a portion of each meal. When the guards brought him larger servings, he ate only the same small amounts. Solitary confinement had driven Sam and Ron to the same dangerous conclusion.

  Once he became aware of Sam’s decision, Jerry Denton discussed the problem with the men in Stardust. Concerned with Sam’s survival, they agreed to initiate a broader hunger strike on their friend’s behalf. Like Sam, Jerry did not believe the Camp Authority would send their prisoners home looking like victims of Andersonville; nor did he believe they could afford killing the prisoners the outside world knew they held. Perhaps in this new era of relative humanity, a hunger strike would work. Jerry issued the order, and the fast began on April 30, lasting for three days. To Jerry and Jim’s knowledge, most POWs in Little Vegas participated. Cat and Bug were furious. After three days of no food, the POWs took half rations until May 11, when the fast ceased; most men were not strong enough to continue any longer. As a result, Cat did begin allowing some prisoners to visit other cellblocks, but he did nothing for Sam.

  The Alcatraz clan tried their best to help their friend, but for the most part, they could only tap or whisper encouragement during the short periods when guards left them in peace. If other opportunities arose, they took them. One day in the bathhouse, Sam heard a “psst” over the trickle of the bathwater. He looked up to see George McKnight’s broad smile appear over the stall’s partition. A guard saw it, too, and stormed in, screaming, “No! No!” before he herded George back to his cell. Still, just the sight of his friend had lifted Sam’s spirits.

  McKnight kept trying to help his fellow air force officer, and several days later, he found Sam in the bathhouse again. He began singing, “Ohhhh, there are no fighter pilots down in hell. Oh, there are no fighter pilots down in hell…” Sam joined him, singing the classic lyrics that countless overserved pilots have sung in bars around the world.

  “Oh, there are no fighter pilots up in Wing,” the air force men sang, launching into another verse. “Oh, there are no fighter pilots up in Wing. The place is full of brass, sitting ’round on their fat ass. Oh there are no fighter pilots up in Wing…”

  Before they could sing increasingly profane stanzas, the guard heard them and dragged a wet, naked, and grinning George McKnight back to his cell. The song lingered in Sam’s head for days, and it brought tears each time he sang the chorus to his audience of dingy walls.

  The moments with George alone could not rescue him, however. Sam continued his hunger strike, growing ever weaker. On May 15, he collapsed in the game room during one of his solitary sojourns to the pool table. After two guards returned him to Stardust, he received a message from Jerry Denton. “Sam,” Jerry tapped, “I’m giving you a direct order. Stop the fast. Don’t hurt yourself.” Sam obeyed, trusting God would provide another way out.

  During that trying spring of 1970, Cat did extend his bad nephew the privilege of writing his first letters home since his 1966 shootdown. Before penning any letters, Sam had to learn to write again. His right hand had still not recovered from his ejection and the torture sessions with Pigeye. He could not grasp a pen or pencil. Time and again, his paralyzed hand would drop the pen as he tried to write. Frustrated, he’d pick it up from the floor and try again.

  Eventually, he taught himself to write left-handed. He spent hours practicing the alphabet so Shirley could read his letters without realizing the extent of his injuries, which he knew would worry her, and he began mentally composing letters encrypted with the Martini code Bob Shumaker had taught him in Alcatraz. When guards arrived with the official six-lined COLIAFAM forms, Sam laboriously wrote out his memorized words as the guards watched impatiently. Under their very eyes, he secretly folded covert information concerning POW names and other strategic information into his sentences. When the letters were approved, Sam felt victorious. Those small triumphs gave him the strength to survive one more day.

  In June, Cat fi
nally ended his unexplained persecution of Sam Johnson. One day, a guard opened Sam’s Stardust cell and said, “Dress up. You’re going to visit your friend Denton.”

  Shaking all over, Sam pulled his pajamas over his boxers. He walked out of his cell, turned down the dim corridor, and walked to the next cell. The guard opened the door, and Sam Johnson faced Jerry Denton and Jim Mulligan. Sam had not seen either man face-to-face since 1967. With tears welling in his eyes, Sam pulled himself to attention and raised his crippled right hand to his brow. He held a rigid salute and said, “Major Sam Johnson reporting, sir.”

  Jerry returned the salute. Then the two seniors grabbed Sam and pulled him into the cell. The friends embraced and slapped one another on the back, each trying not to think about the appearance of the others. The haggard gauntness of Jim and Jerry had surprised Sam, as had Jerry’s graying hair. Even though they knew of his condition, the two cellmates had been shocked upon seeing Sam’s deteriorated appearance. His 6'2" frame weighed less than 125 pounds; gray had crept into his hair as well. Hard living in Hanoi took its toll on them all.

  Jim felt tremendous sadness seeing Sam and knowing the solitary hell he had endured these past three years, and the past five months in particular, but his joy at seeing his air force friend overpowered the sadness. Jim and Jerry shared the periodic gifts from home that the Camp Authority had allowed them, and the three captives spent the day together playing cards and simply being in each other’s company. Late that afternoon, a guard arrived to take Sam back down the hallway into solitary confinement. The three men stood, emotions overwhelming them. Sam could not even muster the words “good night.”

  Several days later, Sam got roommates: Nels Tanner and his French instructor at Alcatraz, Bob Shumaker. The three men had lived within 20 feet of each other for three years yet had never seen each other face-to-face. They remained in Stardust Three together until late July, when a guard opened the door, looked at Sam, and said, “Roll up!” Fear shot through Sam’s entire body. “Back to solitary,” he thought. “I can’t do that again. Please, Lord, I did forty-two months solo … please, no more.” He slowly gathered his belongings. Fearing the worst for their friend, Nels and Shu embraced Sam, careful not to hurt his shoulders. Sam walked into the hallway. The guard prodded him forward, then thrust Sam inside Stardust Four, which had only a single bunk. The door slammed, and Sam slid his back down the wall until he rested on the floor, depression sweeping over him like a fast-moving Texas thunderstorm. Then the door opened again, and the guard dragged Sam across the hallway and into Stardust Five. Inside, he found Jim Stockdale.

  * * *

  Shirley Johnson spent four years waiting for a letter from Sam. She and her family had never surrendered their ardent belief that he remained alive, even though they received no indication of his survival until released POW Doug Hegdahl carried his name out of Hanoi in August of 1969. Shirley had prayed and spent sleepless hours wishing to find an envelope postmarked Hanoi in her mailbox. Then, one day in the spring of 1970, it appeared. Six lines of text filled the small COLIAFAM card, but it wasn’t Sam’s handwriting. Yet from the words, it seemed as if Sam had written it. Shirley was baffled. She sent the letter to the Department of Defense in Washington, where analysts studied it and then telephoned Shirley. The young man on the phone surmised that Sam had written the letter with his left hand. Shirley refused to believe it. “That can’t be,” she said. “He’s right-handed.”

  “We’re quite sure,” the officer confirmed. “The analysis of his handwriting indicates he has been through a lot, but he has come through with strength. He’s okay.”

  Still, Shirley couldn’t believe her husband had been injured so badly. “I don’t believe it,” she thought. “That would mean he’s lost the use of his right hand. No, I won’t believe it. It’s got to be something else. He’s probably using a concrete surface to write on—that’s why the writing is so shaky and uneven.” At least Sam was still alive. At home, more voices had begun demanding the North Vietnamese treat him and the other POWs better and return them safely.

  Nobody had been shouting louder than Louise Mulligan. Despite his professed support for the POWs, Nixon had also talked about separating the prisoner issue from the issue of the war, but Louise would not have it. On a nationally syndicated talk show after her December 1969 White House visit, she discarded the polite deference she’d extended to the president in person. Furious that he had begun withdrawing U.S. troops without any assurances related to POWs, she charged, “This president is the first president to label our troops expendable.” Her volley mortified Bob Boroughs at the Pentagon, but he’d learned that Louise and Sybil were not his to control. Though the POWs did not yet know it, they had no better advocates than the women they loved.

  Louise shouted again as she opened the May 1, 1970, National League of Families conference in Washington, D.C., calling, “Mayday!” from the podium in Constitution Hall. She echoed the same international distress call so many pilots had uttered as their planes fell toward North Vietnam. National League members had come to Washington for this inaugural national conference to show their solidarity and determination. U.S. Senator Bob Dole, a World War II veteran, had personally taken up their banner, standing virtually alone at first. Dole had promised to fill Constitution Hall for them, and he delivered an audience of more than three thousand. While Louise and other wives remained unsatisfied with the government’s efforts—their husbands were still imprisoned—politicians from both parties began following the president’s lead and rallied to these women’s cause, which had finally captured the hearts of the nation. Senate doves Edmund Muskie and Michael Mansfield agreed to cosponsor the event along with hawks Barry Goldwater and John Stennis. Sybil Stockdale and Ross Perot served as cochairs; both had testified at a House National Security Subcommittee hearing on the prisoner-of-war issue two days earlier, along with Jane Denton. The Air National Guard flew seven hundred POW/MIA relatives to Washington for the event; the families drew strength from the assemblage of officials and military brass. Senators Dole and Goldwater, Vice President Spiro Agnew, and Secretary of Defense Laird all delivered speeches. Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell gave the keynote. Four of the five Joint Chiefs of Staff attended, and rank insignia twinkled like stars among the audience.

  Louise Mulligan, delivering her “Mayday” address, May 1, 1970.

  Despite the star power in the hall, perhaps Louise Mulligan’s stirring invocation affected the audience members most deeply. Upon hearing Louise’s shout, one MIA wife felt as if a large door had swung open, ending her solitary anguish. Louise couldn’t stay for the accolades, however. Immediately after her speech, she rushed out the rear door and returned home to Virginia Beach for her youngest son’s First Communion. Five of six Mulligan children still lived under her roof, and they needed their mother’s attention. Sybil Stockdale’s children, however, attended college or boarding schools, giving her more time to tend to official League business. She led the next day’s session, which incorporated the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, the new official name for the organization. Sybil became chairman of the board.

  The formally coalesced organization would continue its mission to educate the world about provisions for prisoner treatment as established by the Geneva Convention—and North Vietnam’s willful disregard thereof. Sybil and the National League aimed to supplement the government’s work and create a groundswell of indignation that would force North Vietnam to change its practices if it wished to be respected in the international community.

  She implored members to share their plight with the nation, and indeed the public rallied to the POW/MIA cause. For a brief moment, America focused on these women and their work, but only hours after Louise’s speech moved so many National League members, news broke about the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. Protests erupted throughout the country as citizens objected to Nixon’s expansion of America’s involvement in the region. On May 4, Ohio National
Guardsmen killed four student protesters at Kent State University, plunging America deeper into unrest and leading to even more demonstrations. Nearly 100,000 marchers converged on Washington, D.C., on May 9. Yet still, in the midst of this division, the National League’s activists gave patriots of all persuasions a common cause: military families and captured and missing servicemen in Vietnam. Women like Sybil and Louise reminded their countrymen that whatever their opinion of the war, they should support the men called to fight it and the families that bore their sacrifice at home.

  On the West Coast, students at San Fernando Valley State College—today renamed Cal State, Northridge—also mobilized to support America’s POWs and created what would become one of the defining symbols of the POW movement in the United States. It began with a chance visit by air force veteran and future congressman Bob Dornan to the campus offices of Voices in Vital America (VIVA), a conservative, student-run campus organization. Dornan had recently returned from South Vietnam, where he’d met a villager of the American-allied Montagnard tribe who kept a sliver of aluminum from a wrecked U.S. aircraft and wore it as a bracelet. The mountain tribesman gave Dornan one to wear himself so that he would not forget his allies in Vietnam; the tribe believed the bracelet established a special connection with their new friend. When he visited San Fernando Valley State, Dornan wore the bracelet as he introduced VIVA student volunteers to several POW wives. The families’ tragic stories moved the students, and after Dornan related the tale of the Montagnards, someone exclaimed, “We need to put one of those bracelets around every wrist in America!” VIVA had found a new calling, a way to remind America of the hardships faced by its POWs and MIAs.