Latest news with #VeteransBreakfastClub
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
How a POW humming ‘Old McDonald' at Hanoi Hilton saved lives
He couldn't recall how he had gotten there — all Douglas Hegdahl could remember was leaving behind his glasses in his bunk and going up to the top deck of the cruiser Canberra to watch the ship firing its guns off the Gulf of Tonkin. 'I can't tell you how I fell from my ship,' Hegdahl said after his release in 1969. 'All I know is, I walked up on the deck. It was dark and they were firing, and the next thing I recall I was in the water.' Picked up by a North Vietnamese fishing boat after treading water for hours, and handed over to the Viet Cong before being brought to Hỏa Lò Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton. It was there that the 20-year-old sailor from Clark, South Dakota, began one of the greatest non-combatant cons of the war. Deemed a low-value prisoner due to his low rank, Hegdahl began to exploit this perception. 'I had probably the most embarrassing capture in the entire Vietnam War,' Hegdahl said in a 1997 interview with author and veteran Marc Leepson. 'I found that my defense posture was just to play dumb. Let's face it, when you fall off your boat, you have a lot to work with.' Pretending to be illiterate and suffering from a cognitive disability, Hegdahl's ruse eventually led to his captors giving the American prisoner of war more leeway within the harsh confines of the prison, which often included regular use of severe torture and harsh interrogation. Unlike many prisoners who were not allowed to interact with one another, Hegdahl was given more freedom to interact with POWs — which he used to his advantage. After his initial capture in 1967, Hegdahl quietly began to collect vital information, covertly communicating with fellow POWs, memorizing the names, capture dates and personal details of approximately 256 other American prisoners, according to the Veterans Breakfast Club. He developed mnemonic devices, including the nursery rhyme 'Old McDonald Had a Farm,' and repeated the information constantly to ensure he would not forget it. He also managed to glean the exact location of the infamous camp. Dubbed 'The Incredibly Stupid One' by North Vietnamese guards, Hegdahl frequently frustrated their attempts to use him for propaganda purposes. Feigning compliance, Hegdahl would read out statements criticizing the U.S., but they were so laced with errors and the performance so flat that they were rendered unusable by his captors. 'I was so mad about their propaganda that it became a personal war to think how I could mess it up,' Hegdahl recalled in a 1972 interview. Despite most of the American officers having a 'No Go Home Early' pact, Hegdahl was released in 1969 with the support of imprisoned senior officers in order to bring back valuable intelligence to the U.S. government. His meticulous recall of names provided a comprehensive list of POWs held in Vietnam, including the reclassification of 63 service members previously listed as missing in action to POW. After his release from the Army, Hegdahl moved to San Diego, but never stopped serving his country. He began working as an instructor in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE, school in San Diego Bay. One of his students, William J. Dougherty, a CIA officer, was among the 52 hostages held in the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis. Dougherty credits Hegdahl's lectures with helping him keep his 'sanity, dignity and secrets intact.' According to Leepson, Hegdahl's quick thinking and coolness under immense strain should be recognized. 'I think it was one of the most heroic acts not in combat during the Vietnam War,' Leepson told The Independent. 'And I think that's something that people should know.'
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Decorated Tuskegee fighter pilot from Queens dies at 100
Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart, Jr., credited with taking down three Nazi planes in one fight while flying with the Tuskegee Airmen, has died at age 100. Born on July 4, 1924 in Virginia, Stewart developed his love for planes after moving to Queens, near what is now LaGuardia Airport. Stewart's legacy includes being among the first military pilots to win the Air Force 'Top Gun' contest in 1949, when his Black 332nd Fighter Group defied the odds by defeating teams of white pilots in a competition near Las Vegas. He spoke about his road to becoming a World War II hero during a 2024 Veterans Breakfast Club podcast. That included hanging around what was then called North Beach Airport and imagining himself in a cockpit. 'I used to walk over to the airport as a kid and hang out near the fence there and watch the planes take off and land and fantasize about my being the pilot of that aircraft flying people to different places,' he recalled. He later enjoyed going to see the P-39 Airacobras stationed in Queens shortly before World War II began. 'I took a big interest in that and used to go down, hope I could see one of them take off or land or something like that because they were considerably faster than most of the transport planes that were flying out of LaGuardia at the time,' he said. Stewart said he overcame polio and a heart problem before joining the Army Air Corps in 1943 and training to fly with about 900 other Black airmen in Tuskegee, Ala. He recalled being one of 355 Tuskegee pilots assigned to fly overseas and participate in combat during the war. His shining moment came on Easter Day 1945 over Germany when his squadron was attacked by Nazi fighter planes while on an escort mission. According to military site Task & Purpose, Stewart shot down two of those attackers and outmaneuvered a third plane, which got behind him, but crashed while trying to match his navigation skills during a dive maneuver. Three of the eight planes with his group were lost in that battle. Stewart reportedly completed 43 missions with his 'Red Tails' squadron and was decorated with a Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. He joked with the Veterans Breakfast Club that while flying over Europe at age 19, he still didn't know how to drive a car. 'That was because I was from New York City and, you know, we had the rapid transition system,' he said. 'A car was almost prohibited because of the traffic and that type of thing.' Stewart died at his home in Michigan on Sunday.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
One of the last remaining Tuskegee World War II veterans dies at 100
Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart, Jr., one of World War II's few remaining members of the original Tuskegee Airmen, died peacefully in his home in Michigan on Sunday, the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum confirmed. He was 100. Stewart was one of two surviving combat pilots from the World War II-era 332nd Fighter Group, a segregated all-Black wing of the United States Army Air Force. 'We are deeply saddened by his passing and extend our condolences to his family and friends around the world,' said Brian Smith, the president and CEO of the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum in Detroit. 'Harry Stewart was a kind man of profound character and accomplishment with a distinguished career of service he continued long after fighting for our country in World War II.' Born on July 4, 1924, in Newport News, Virginia, Stewart was among the first 1,007 Black Army pilots in the 1940s who were trained at the segregated Tuskegee Army Airfield in Alabama. From childhood, Stewart took a keen interest in flying. After moving to Queens, New York, with his family at the age of two, a young Stewart 'used to walk over to the airport as a kid and hang out near the fence there and watch the planes take off and land and fantasize about my being the pilot of that aircraft flying people to different places,' Stewart recalled during a Veterans Breakfast Club podcast. 'Then later when WWII was about to start, there was a squadron or company of P-39s Airacobras that was stationed there, and I took a big interest in that.' Despite a bout of polio as a child that left his right calf partially paralyzed, at 18 Stewart enlisted and was accepted into the Army Air Corps in 1943, before receiving his wings in June 1944. Assigned to the 301st Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group — known famously as the 'Red Tails' for their plane's distinctive coloring — Stewart's Fighter Group was among the few assigned to active combat duty. 'When the Army Air Corps said that they would recant and they would build a field, but it would have to be just for the Negro trainees there, I was willing to accept that in order to go ahead and get my wings,' Stewart told Friends of the National World War II Memorial in a 2024 interview. 'That was the prize as far as I was concerned. I was frankly willing to do anything to go ahead and get my wings. 'That's not also to say that I didn't have a strong streak of patriotism. I was a patriot, but I was also willing to turn my face the other way when it came to segregated training.' During the war Stewart would fly an incredible 43 missions, earning an Air Medal and a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery while escorting U.S. bombers over occupied Europe. One of Stewart's more memorable missions came on April 1, 1945, when he shot down three German aircraft in a single day. He became just one of four Tuskegee Airmen to achieve such a feat. In his book, 'Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airman's Firsthand Account of World War II,' Stewart recounted that he, along with seven others, were escorting a B-24 formation near Linz, Germany, after a succession mission to attack the marshaling yards at St. Pölten, Austria, when they encountered several German Focke-Wulf Fw-190s. 'I remember the excitement. … The thing about it was there were seven of us who were flying along, and we were on what's known as a fighter sweep and we were going around the Daube around one of the towns there, and I saw these two fighters in formation,' Steward told the Friends. While he wasn't initially the lead, he soon became the point man and in quick succession took out two enemy aircraft. However, after taking a slight turn Stewart heard yelling. 'He's on your tail.' The third and final Focke-Wulf had maneuvered behind the fighter pilot. Pulling all sorts of 'tricks' Stewart aimed the nose of his plane down, spiraling towards earth, he recalled. The Luftwaffe pilot followed suit but had overcontrolled and quickly spun out, crashing to the ground. Stewart managed to pull out of the dive and was credited with his third and final kill. After the war, Stewart earned a mechanical engineering degree from New York University but did not stop flying, becoming one of four pilots who formed a team from the 332nd Fighter Group to compete in the first ever 'Top Gun' Weapons contest trophy at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nevada, in May 1949. Stewart and the Tuskegee crew flew P-47s and defeated pilots flying more modern jets. When asked about the Tuskegee legacy, Stewart implored, 'I hope they remember when they hire a pilot or an astronaut … or hire a person in any endeavor that not heretofore been open to a Black is that they give that person their due consideration. Not based on their color but based on what they know and what they can contribute.' Of the original 355 Tuskegee Airmen who flew in World War II, only Lt. Col. George Hardy remains today.
