Theirs is a story that was often overlooked in the telling of the larger tales — accounts of the war itself, of battles fought and lives lost, of the prison the world will forever know as the “Hanoi Hilton.”
But what of “Alcatraz,” the nickname given to that separate prison? What of the 11 men once caged there?
They went to war, they were taken captive, they suffered tortures unimaginable. In a society that is fast and loose with the word “hero,” those 11 men were, by any measure, the real thing.
Ten came home from Vietnam; today, six survive. Four will be in Atlanta Wednesday at a veterans’ dinner at the Georgia Aquarium.
Coca-Cola hosts the dinner, which also honors Coke employees who are veterans. Coke is recognizing the four, said a spokeswoman for the soft-drink company, because this year marks the 50th anniversary that the prison took its first American POW.
The honorees: George Coker, George McKnight, James Mulligan and Robert Shumaker.
They, along with James Stockdale, Jeremiah Denton, Sam Johnson, Howard Rutledge, Harry Jenkins, Nels Tanner and Ronald Storz, endured the worst treatment one human can inflict on another.
All but Storz, who died in captivity, were released in 1973. Since then, Stockdale, Denton, Rutledge and Jenkins have died.
In addition to the four honored today, Johnson and Tanner are still alive.
The 11 men “were the leaders,” said Alvin Townley of Atlanta. He’s the author of “Defiant: The POWs Who Endured Vietnam’s Most Infamous Prison, the Women Who Fought for Them, and the One Who Never Returned.” Townley, director of corporate philanthropy and veterans programs at the Woodruff Arts Center, also is a guest at the dinner. Louise Mulligan, a POW activist and James Mulligan’s wife, is an additional guest.
The 11 men set a standard for bravery, said Townley.
“They always took the first punch,” he said. “They knew they had to keep their men united. Their one creed was to return with honor. And they did.”
Some also went on to national acclaim. Denton was a U.S. senator; Johnson is a congressman from Texas; and Stockdale received the Medal of Honor for his bravery and leadership as a POW, and was a vice-presidential running mate with 1992 presidential contender H.Ross Perot.
Troublesome prisoners
He’d taken off from the USS Coral Sea, flying not far from Dong Hoi, a city on the edge of the South China Sea, when cannon fire hit him. Lt. Cdr. Bob Shumaker’s F-8 Crusader lost altitude. He bailed, landing hard and hurting his back. The enemy found him.
Shumaker, now a retired rear admiral living in Virginia, recalls the Feb. 11, 1965, moment clearly. He was 30, and figured he’d not see 31.
“They held me in front a firing squad,” said Shumaker. Standing before his captors, Shumaker likened his situation to an extreme version of going to the dentist: “It’ll hurt for a little while, then it’ll be over.”
They took him, instead, to a prison built in the previous century. It was named Hoa Lo, loosely translated as “fiery furnace.” Before long, American servicemen, never at a loss for creating derisive nicknames, had given it a new name: Hanoi Hilton. As the war continued, its population grew. Among its most famous prisoners: future Sen. John McCain, incarcerated in 1967.
Some prisoners were more troublesome than others. Shumaker, his captors discovered, was one of the worst. He helped create a secret code of taps, by which prisoners stayed in touch. The enemy, he said, never decoded it. “It thwarted all their efforts.”
Enraged with the Navy aviator, the jailers took him from the larger prison and put him and 10 others in a separate dungeon — Alcatraz.
Johnson was one of the 11. An Air Force pilot, he faced his captors quietly determined not to succumb to threats and forced confessions. And, like the others inside Alcatraz, Johnson made a discovery: He needed the support of others to survive.
He made it through captivity, Johnson wrote in an email, with "prayer and encouragement — spiritual and mental — from my compatriots."
They were incarcerated in Alcatraz for two years before their captors moved them out. All were freed on Feb. 12, 1973, two weeks after the Paris Peace Accords, an agreement to end the war. Storz, weakened by his captivity, died in 1970.
“I’ve stayed in touch with my fellow POWs, and whenever we are able to meet up together to see one another and our families, it’s always a special time,” wrote Johnson, who could not attend today’s dinner. “We are all very blessed.”
Shumaker thinks so, too. The man whose captors once shoved a metal bar down his throat — it stopped his screams while he underwent beatings — returned home to his wife and 9-year-old son, who was an infant when he shipped off.
Shumaker served 36 years in the Navy. His captivity and torture, Shumaker said, are but one chapter in his life. He doesn’t revisit it often.
“I decided I didn’t want to look back,” he said. “You’re only hurting yourself when you dwell on the past.”
Perhaps, but sometimes we need to look back — to hear stories about the war, of battles fought, of lives lost. To hear it from real heroes.
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