Vietnam POW shares his story of struggle, hope with Airmen

  • Published
  • By Ryan Stark
  • Nucleus writer
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Retired Airman William Robinson shared a story of struggle and hope about his seven years as a prisoner during the Vietnam War.

Robinson, a 23-year Air Force veteran who retired as a captain, was held the longest of any enlisted serviceman in American history.

His time as a prisoner included stints at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" and an even worse prison simply called "The Briarpatch."

Robinson's first speaking engagement at Kirtland was the Pararescue and Combat Rescue Officer Schoolhouse, followed by a talk at the 58th Training Squadron.

He grew up in rural North Carolina and joined the Air Force in 1965. After basic training, he served in posts in Oklahoma, South Korea and North Dakota. He later attended Officer Training School. It was during these postings he began to hear rumblings of a growing conflict in southeast Asia, including fellow Airmen who would leave and then come back to the units in which he was stationed.

"Guys would disappear," he said. "They'd come back and you'd ask where they'd been. They'd say something like, 'Oh, I've been crop dusting.'"

When Robinson was sent to southeast Asia, an initial briefing made clear what "crop dusting" meant. He and his crew would be helping to rescue downed Airmen in the combat theater.

He flew small aircraft with crewmembers who had come from Kirtland. Robinson and his fellow Airmen had to modify their planes for the combat conditions, including putting steel plates on the cockpit floor and having other crew sit on World-War-II-issue flack jackets for protection.

The way they added fuel to extend the range of their plane was of particular interest, he said.

"Our mid-air refueling (system) was a 55-gallon drum, two quick disconnectors and a garden hose," he said.

Once empty, they'd kick the drum out of the airplane, an action that he jokingly summarizes as, "I got credit for two bombing runs over North Vietnam."

In September 1966, Robinson's plane was shot down while on a rescue attempt. With rescue not immediate, Robinson and his downed crew tried to hide from the North Vietnamese military.

"Next thing you know, there were 100 of them standing in front of us, armed with everything from machetes to machine guns," he said. "My pilot said, 'Live to fight another day.'"

Shortly after, Robinson was made to kneel down by an open pit while what he described as a formal-sounding document was read behind him.

It was a mock execution, and Robinson was taken prisoner, rather than killed.

"I knew they may hurt me, but they're not going to kill me," he said.

His next stop was the Hanoi Hilton. Interrogations and torture by the North Vietnamese and solitary confinement were part of the experience, but also, he and his fellow prisoners would communicate from their five-by-six-foot holding cells through a system of taps on the wall.

The prisoners would even give misinformation to their interrogators -- such as Clark Kent of the Superman comics and actor John Wayne piloting American bombing missions.

In Robinson's mind, the ordeal became a three-day system, he said.

"Yesterday I was shot down, today I'm here and tomorrow I'm going home," he said.

Food, when the prisoners received it, was often only rice or bread.

"I found out that grass grows year-round in Vietnam 'cause I ate a lot of it," Robinson said.

The North Vietnamese classified Robinson and the others as criminals, rather than as war prisoners. That meant Robinson and the other prisoners were not offered a promise of being sent home when the war ended.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's 1966 public pronouncement that POW's were considered expendable did nothing to boost anyone's hopes. But hope prevailed. Through his trials at Hanoi Hilton and The Briarpatch, Robinson said faith in his fellow prisoners, in America and in God helped to preserve his hope of rescue. In 1973, his release finally came. Robinson said that keeping his hopes up was at the core of surviving the experience.

"We had high hopes, and we pushed forward," he said. He recalled the prisoners' guiding words: "Return with honor" and "never give up."