POW*MIA Flag, created in 1971

Monday February 13, 2023, marks the 50th anniversary of Operation Homecoming – the name used by the U. S. government – to describe the start of the return of American POWs after years of captivity in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

paris peace accords of 1973

The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 included provisions for exchanging prisoners of war. . . . Prisoners were to be returned to U.S. control during February and March 1973, with the longest-held generally returning first. . . . OPERATION HOMECOMING returned 591 POWs: 325 Air Force personnel, 77 Army, 138 Navy, 26 Marines and 25 civilians [who had been held in North Vietnam and others held] in South Vietnam by the Viet Cong . . . A total of 660 American military POWs survived the war.¹

televised return of the pOWs

All the returning POWs were flown to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines with the first group arriving on Tuesday, February 13, 1973. Television networks provided live coverage of the POWs disembarking from the planes. American families sat glued to their television sets as they watched their loved ones walk down the steps to be greeted by cheering crowds and military leaders. For years, in one case nine years, American families had not known whether their loved ones were alive or dead because the North Vietnamese government refused to release the names of American POWs. It was only after the peace accord was signed that the lists of names were finally released. The first list was made public on February 12, 1973, and the last list was released on March 14, 1973.

You can see a snippet of two families as they saw their loved ones emerge from the transport planes here: https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/06/23/vietnam-pows-seventies.cnn (accessed 2/1, 2023). Even now, after all these years, I cannot watch that video without tearing up and I didn’t have any family members or friends who were captives of the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong.

But what about the MIAs

Everyone was thrilled that American POWs were being released, but that joy was muted among the families who still had loved ones Missing in Action (MIA). The U. S. government had a list of MIA service members, and in some cases had reports from other American troops who’d seen planes crash, shot down, or had seen survivors for a few moments before the survivors had disappeared. The anguish of the MIA families was palpable. They were overjoyed for their neighbors whose husbands, fathers, sons and brothers were returning home but the MIA families still had no information. Were their loved ones alive or dead? Would their names appear on a POW list yet to be released?

MIA families in Salina, Kansas

February, 13, 1973, I was married, pregnant, and living in Salina, Kansas, with my then husband, Robert K. (Rocky) Entriken, a reporter and editor for The Salina Journal. One of his assignments was to report on issues related to the four MIA families who lived in the Salina area. He wrote extensively and eloquently about their plight.

First Lieutenant Dennis Pugh

One family, Cloyd Pugh and his wife Camie, lived in Salina. They were the parents of Ft. Lt. Dennis Gerard Pugh who was shot down on March 19, 1970, while flying over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Pugh was promoted to the rank of Major while still listed as MIA and then declared Killed in Action (KIA) on January 29, 1982. You can read more about Ft. Lt. Pugh and see his photo at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60694308/dennis-gerard-pugh.

The other three families lived at Schilling Manor, housing area of the former Schilling Air Force Base just south of Salina, Kansas. Schilling Manor became housing for families of servicemen sent to Vietnam.³

Captain Bruce Johnson

One of the three MIA families was the wife, Kathleen (Bonnie), and three children of Captain Bruce G. Johnson. Johnson had been listed as MIA since 1965 when the helicopter on which he was a passenger crashed shortly after takeoff near Thuan Loi Airfield in South Vietnam.⁴ Some years after he was shot down, Capt. Johnson was promoted to lieutenant colonel. “On 27 Feb 1978, the Secretary of the Army issued a Presumptive Finding of Death for Bruce Johnson, who had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel while in MIA status.” ⁵ You can read more about Captain Johnson at https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaProfile?id=a0Jt0000000KYYxEAO (accessed 2/9/23).

Bonnie was a founding member of The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia and an outspoken advocate for all the POW/MIA families. She attended talks in Paris as the U.S. and North Vietnam struggled to reach a peace deal. She gave countless public presentations and interviews speaking eloquently urging the North Vietnamese to release the names of POWs and allow mail and packages to be sent to them. She comforted other MIA wives who were new to the horrific world of watching, waiting, and not knowing.

Major James Fitton, Jr.

Another MIA family living at Schilling was Judy Fitton, wife of Major James Crosley Fitton, Jr., and the Fitton’s three young children.

Maj. Crosley J. Fitton, Jr., pilot, and Capt. Cleveland S. Harris, co-pilot , of an F105F which was one in a flight of four F105s sent on a combat mission on the outskirts of Hanoi on February 29, 1968, [were shot down after] the aircraft was hit by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). Maj. Fitton was listed as MIA/KIA and some time later he was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel. In 1975 the Vietnamese found [Fitton’s] remains and they were returned to the U. S.⁶ Fitton’s remains were interred at the Fairview Cemetery in West Hartford, CT, in January of 1976.⁷ To learn more about Lt. Col. Fitton go to: https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/f/f016.htm (accessed 2/11/23)

Clark*

The third family was Margaret Clark. She was from England. Unfortunately I could not find, and Rocky could not recall, the name of Mrs. Clark’s husband who was determined to be MIA during the war. I reviewed a lengthy list of servicemen, all with the last name of Clark, but was unable to identify which one was her spouse.

It’s been 50 years and I don’t recall the exact date of the “Watch Party” where the three Schilling MIA families gathered at Bonnie Johnson’s house to watch the returning POWs disembark at Clark Air Base. Rocky and I were invited to that party because of his detailed and compassionate coverage of the plight of the MIA families.

the watch party

Here’s what I do recall. The living room, dining room and kitchen were open to each other and the space was full of children, adults, food and drink. The first list of names of POWs had come out the day before, so the wives of the three missing men already knew that their husbands’ names were not on the list.

Hope, alive and strong, was present in that room – it takes a lot to kill it.

But as the evening wore on, the room got quieter and the looks on the faces of the three wives more grim. I didn’t know anyone in the room except Rocky, although I had been introduced to Bonnie Johnson at least once. I was then and still am an introvert so I sat back and watched the women as the hours passed. I became increasingly upset fearing, as they did, that their husbands would not return. I struggled to keep from weeping and I think that the wives may had the same struggles as I.

Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer and I asked Rocky to take me home. We said our good-byes and left . . . a house where eventually hope died and new lives had to be constructed.

I don’t watch Vietnam War movies. I don’t watch Vietnam war news stories on the internet. Until I decided to write this blog, I had not seen any of the televised footage showing returning POWs since that night in 1973.

You don’t have to know someone to feel sorrow for them and what they have endured. I hope to God this nation never has to endure such torture again.

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Status of the POW/MIA issue: January 18, 2022

“1,581 Americans are now listed by DPAA as missing and unaccounted-for from the Vietnam War: Vietnam – 1,241; Laos–285; Cambodia-48; Peoples Republic of China territorial waters–7.  (These numbers fluctuate due to investigations resulting in changed locations of loss.)”⁸ 

Notes

¹https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/197496/operation-homecoming/ (accessed 2/9/23)

² https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/p/p081.htm (accessed 2/9/23)

³Schilling Manor was the only U. S. military base that offered housing and support services to military dependents for all four branches of service – Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

⁴https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=213495 (accessed 2/11/23)

⁵https://www.virtualwall.org/dj/JohnsonBG01a.htm (accessed 2/10/23)

⁶https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/f/f016.htm

⁷https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/crosley-j-fitton-jr (accessed 2/10/23)

*If you know the name and rank of this serviceman

 ⁸https://www.pow-miafamilies.org/status-of-the-issue.html (accessed 2/8/23)

Special Thanks to —

Rocky Entriken for fact-checking this blog and for helping to re-create memories from 50 years ago.

The Salina, Kansas Public Library for going through their archives to find stories about Schilling Manor and the MIA families living in the Salina area.