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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS LISTING:

This is about American POW Richard Stratton.  Stratton was shot down January 5, 1967 and he was held for 7 years.  Stratton was famous for being photographed while a POW and it appeared he had been tortured and brainwashed.  this helped begin the US government effort to get information about the POWs treatment.  

Prisoner of war and "The Stratton Incident"

On January 5, 1967, as part of an armed reconnaissance mission Stratton was flying an A-4 Skyhawk. The mission's aim was to bomb the My Trach ferry. When the ferry could not be found, Stratton spotted a set of barges one mile further upriver and rolled in to attack the craft with rockets. Stratton was forced to eject from his plane when he was shot down. He was captured shortly after parachuting to the ground.[2]

In 1967, American journalist Lee Lockwood arranged a trip to North Vietnam, making him the first Western journalist to visit the country in nearly a decade. While there, the North Vietnamese presented Lockwood with a confession read by Stratton, attacking the U.S. military action in the region. Lockwood described Stratton as "looking like a puppet" whose "eyes were empty". The photos that Lockwood took on the trip became the material for "North Vietnam Under Siege", an article that appeared in the April 7, 1967, edition of Life magazine, which included a widely distributed a picture of Stratton in prison garb bowing deeply as ordered by a North Vietnamese officer.

In the Department of Defense history of the Vietnam POW situation, "The Long Road Home", the author, Vernon Davis, in a section labeled "The Stratton Incident" recounts the worldwide revulsion engendered by the incident and the eventual decision of the USG to go public with POW mistreatment. A 1978 book by Scott Blakely, Prisoner at War: The Survival of Commander Richard A Stratton, explores the bowing incident and its complicated history.[6]

Stratton used the Lockwood press conference to perform in such a way that it would raise doubt and confusion regarding the so-called confession to the discredit of his captors. His nom de guerre, while attached to the 4th Allied POW Wing in Hanoi, changed frequently to confuse his captors: "Dick"; "Penis", "Wiz" (Wizard). He served under the direction of Cdr.James Stockdale  (MOH), the Senior Officer Present - Navy. A full account of Stratton's prison experience is contained in Scott Blakey's biography. "Prisoner at War" and his oral history, U.S. Naval Institute.