John McCain – 5½ years as a prisoner of war

Time stranded: 5.5 years

Distance traveled: stationary

Terrain types: jungle, prison

Deaths: 0

Situation ended: released by captors

Location: Hanoi, Northern Vietnam

(Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton. The place john stayed for most of his time in captivity)

On August 29, 1936, John McCain was born at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station located on the Panama Canal. He was the son of a high-ranking commander and came from a long line of people who fought for the United States all around the world, from one of his ancestors serving in the staff of George Washington to others fighting in the Second World War. As a child, he claimed he didn’t like that his life was so pre-organized, and being the child of a naval commander meant he would move from base to base and only stay for a short while at each one.

His upbringing and family history deemed it inevitable that he would follow in his ancestor’s footsteps and he joined the military in 1956 after graduating from school. He started training at the United States Naval Academy and quickly became a favorite amongst his classmates, who saw him as a natural leader and he was known for standing up to bullies. He may have been well-liked by his classmates, but the higher ranks had a different opinion as he was known for having a big problem with authority. His overall class rank was 894 out of 899, but this was not an accurate reflection of his intelligence, which was tested to be around 130.

He graduated from the academy in 1958 and began training in the Navy as an aviator with the rank of ensign. In 1960 he completed flight school and became a pilot of ground attack aircraft before being assigned to various ships over the years, usually being stationed in the Caribbean. His flying skills were below average and he was known to be reckless, which was probably the reason he crashed two of his planes and flew another one into a set of power lines, all of which left him uninjured.

(John McCain during his training years as a pilot in 1965, he is on the bottom right)

After years of training, he requested to be sent on combat duty, and in 1967 when he was 30 years old, he was sent to take part in the Vietnam War. He was stationed on a carrier called the USS Forrestal and joined a squadron of A-4 Skyhawks, a single-seat light-attack aircraft.

He was made a lieutenant commander the same year shortly before almost dying in the USS Forrestal fire. An electrical anomaly caused a rocket on one of the planes to fire, which hit the fuel tank of another plane, and the resulting chain reaction caused a fire that killed 134 sailors and took an entire day to put out. John was sitting in a jet at the time and had to escape after burning fuel running along the deck reached his plane. He jumped out and ran over to another pilot who was having trouble getting out of his plane when the fire caused a bomb to explode.

(The USS Forrestal, the site of the fire that killed 134 people)

He was hit in the chest and leg by fragments but wasn’t fatally wounded and made a speedy recovery. He volunteered for assignment onboard the USS Oriskany as a pilot and was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star Medal for missions he flew over the north of the country, but this successful streak of missions was about to come to an end.

On October 26 he was flying his 23rd bombing mission over the north of the country when his A-4 Skyhawk was hit by an enemy missile. The plane was going down fast and his only option was to eject. His seat burst out of the cockpit and John was sent flying into the air where he activated his parachute, which luckily deployed as it was supposed to, but what was not supposed to happen was his landing in the middle of Trúc Bạch Lake. This lake was located right in the center of the capital city of the northern forces, or rather the people he had been bombing for several months.

(A U.S. Navy A-4 Skyhawk on route to a target, taken on 21 November 1967)

Escaping from an area like this after being seen by thousands of people was impossible, and John almost drowned in all his equipment before making it to the shore of the lake. There were plenty of people waiting for him and he was immediately pulled out and beaten on the shore. His shoulders were seriously hurt after being hit so many times with the butt of a rifle, and he was stabbed several times with a bayonet.

He was taken to Hỏa Lò Prison, a world-famous prison that has been nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. He wasn’t treated for his wounds and had to sit in an overcrowded and dirty cell in tropical conditions. He was beaten and interrogated several times but it wasn’t until he revealed that his father was an admiral that he received medical care. He was in the hospital for 6 weeks and lost about a third of his body weight, with the experience being so traumatic that his hair had now turned white. When there was no more information to gain from him, he was sent to a smaller camp on the edge of the city to wait out the war.

(John McCain meeting president Nixon shortly after his release in 1967, still unable to walk properly)

He was in such bad condition that his cellmates didn’t expect him to last more than a week after arriving, but somehow he recovered. In December of the same year, he was placed into solitary confinement and stayed there for the next two years, during this time his father was named as commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater. The North Vietnamese tried to use this and offered John an early release for propaganda reasons, but John refused unless all the men before him could also be released, which was refused. this greatly angered his captors and he was subjected to frequent torture and beatings, with anything he told them being used as a propaganda tool against America.

Towards the end of 1969, the beatings and bad treatment became less frequent until he got his first ray of hope in December of 1972 when all the prisoners cheered the U.S. Christmas bombing campaign, which was big enough to bring the North Vietnamese to terms. He was finally released on March 14, 1973, in a group of over 100 Prisoners of war, after having served 5 and a half years in some of the worst conditions imaginable.

The treatment he suffered during the war left many permanent physical and psychological injuries, including not being able to lift either of his arms higher than his head. He returned to the site of his captivity several times over the years with his family and second wife to try and come to terms with what had happened.