The story of Vietnam Prisoners of War (POWs) is now being told through a new exhibit at the National Naval Aviation Museum located on NAS Pensacola.
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Return With Honor, Vietnam is a walk-through experience that gives visitors a deeper understanding of the harrowing ordeals faced by the pilots who were captured and tortured as prisoners of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton and the struggles their families faced.
Retired Rear Admiral Kyle Cozad, President & CEO of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, said the idea for an exhibit paying tribute to Vietnam POWs started with a vision four years ago.
“You know, in 1973, 591 Prisoners of War came home to the United States, and it’s been 52 years now, and we wanted to do something in the museum that eternalized their story, something that would be immersive for the public when they came here,” said Cozad. “And, whether you knew about the Vietnam War, whether you knew about the Hanoi Hilton or not, we wanted to create something that was an unforgettable experience and would be burned into your brain.”
Before entering the exhibit, visitors can see various photos, a map of Southeast Asia, a model of a prison camp, known as “The Zoo,” and displays showing the names of all POWs from the region.
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Once inside, the exhibit is told through different chapters of the story, beginning with the home front.
“A really important part of that whole experience was the families that were left behind, many times not knowing the fate of their loved ones, their husbands, their brothers, their sons, that were incarcerated in North Vietnam,” Cozad stated. “So, we start with the home front and that missing aviator that’s somewhere fighting the war.”
This opening chapter features a typical living room from the mid-60s. The video appears to be playing from a projector on a screen in front of a wood-paneled wall, with a big floor-model TV, record player, and harvest gold chair completing the scene.
“I was a very protected young girl growing up at a convent school, and there I met this sophisticated gentleman who just snapped me up, and I learned how to be an Air Force wife,” said the spouse of a POW in the video. “On the morning of the 4th of April, the phone rings, and it’s my mother from the States, and she said, ‘Oh, my God, darling, I’m so sorry. You don’t know about Smitty being shot down?’”
As the exhibit progresses, there’s an element that features the shoot-down event. During the Vietnam War, 1,120 U.S. aircraft were shot down in action over North Vietnam, according to a video graphic from “The Capture” part of the exhibit.
“The ring of about 30-mile ring around Hanoi. There were 19,000 anti-aircraft guns. It was the most heavily defended airspace in the history of air warfare. If you went down right around Hanoi, there was no effort made to come pick you up; it was too dangerous,” an aviator recalls in the video.
After the capture, the U.S. pilots were taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton, with large double doors depicting the entrance to the prison. The mood in this area is justifiably dark.
“Once inside, there’s a torture room,” Cozad began. “That was the first place that every POW went when they were captured is the North Vietnamese would take them into an interrogation room and try to get them to sign a confession and, of course, each of the POWs, each of the service men and women, had a code of conduct that they lived by that said “name, rank and serial number” and I won’t tell you anything more than that.”
However, with the torture they endured, that code was hard to maintain, admitted one of the POWs in an exhibit video.
“We were trained not to break past name, rank, and serial number, and date of birth, but I had done that, and I felt terrible grief that I had done it and betrayed my country by breaking, because we had been trained to do this until you die,” said the naval aviator.
Adm. Cozad pointed to the torture room as the first place of brutality on day one that each one of the POWs endured. “And quite frankly, they endured many, many more in the years to come.”
Continuing through the exhibit, you see some replicas of the jail cells that the U.S. aviators were held in.
“Many of these guys were in isolation for years upon years, until Ho Chi Minh died (in 1969),” said Cozad.
After going through the prison section, visitors come out the other side as if they’re walking off an airplane, much like American POWs did following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973.
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A large mural shows a serviceman being welcomed home. According to Admiral Cozad, it’s patterned after the pilots’ real experience coming into Clark Air Force Base and being free for the first time.
He explained that they tried to display everything the POWs went through during their long imprisonment, including their homecoming and the aftermath.
“Commander (Ret) Everett Alvarez was imprisoned for over 3,000 days, eight-plus years,” said the admiral. “So, think about all the things that had changed back at home that he wasn’t able to see: the Man on the Moon, the cost of milk, all the big events: Super Bowls, World Series, presidential elections. So, we kind of captured that."
As part of the homecoming chapter, Cmdr. Alvarez, who was the first U.S. aviator to be captured during the Vietnam War, is featured prominently, with an AI version for visitors to interact with.
“It’s called Story File, and it looks like it’s a realistic rendering of him. He moves, he walks, he talks, and he’ll answer your questions, whether they’re typed in or you can ask him directly,” Cozad explained.
Additionally, the exhibit features some of the items the POWs brought back home with them from Vietnam. Included among the artifacts displayed is the flight jacket that Alvarez was wearing as a Lieutenant Junior Grade when he was captured in 1964. Also displayed is the helmet purported to be worn by Navy Lt. Commander John McCain when he was shot down in 1967. Additionally, the pajamas worn by Navy Lt. John Ensch, who was captured in 1972, are displayed, along with his hand-carved metal drinking cup.
“So, we think this is a fitting tribute to those folks, and the goal is years from now, generations from now, everybody understands the heroes that came home from North Vietnam,” said Cozad.
