September 18, 2024 • 36 mins
Porter Halyburton was born in Florida and grew up in North Carolina. After college, he got married and joined the U.S. Navy with a clear goal of becoming a naval aviator. He got his wish, flying the F-4. Shortly after becoming a new father, he was deployed to Vietnam in May of 1965. He wouldn't come home for more than seven years.
In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," you'll hear the first half of Porter Halyburton's story of being a pilot, being shot down, and the horrors he endured after being captured by the North Vietnamese.
He takes us moment by moment through his experience of being hit by enemy fire, his decision to eject, his futile effort to avoid capture, and what he experienced after becoming a POW.
Halyburton also explains how the clear training he went through in case he was captured was very helpful in some circumstances but unnecessarily burdensome in others. He also shares what he suffered for refusing to answer questions from his captors. And he details how the North Vietnamese tried to use racial politics to turn him and a fellow prisoner against one another - an enemy plan that backfired spectacularly.
In our next edition, you'll hear how Halyburton learned the U.S. government and his family thought he was killed in action, how the prisoners used the famous tap code to keep their hopes up, and how he finally came home.
In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," you'll hear the first half of Porter Halyburton's story of being a pilot, being shot down, and the horrors he endured after being captured by the North Vietnamese.
He takes us moment by moment through his experience of being hit by enemy fire, his decision to eject, his futile effort to avoid capture, and what he experienced after becoming a POW.
Halyburton also explains how the clear training he went through in case he was captured was very helpful in some circumstances but unnecessarily burdensome in others. He also shares what he suffered for refusing to answer questions from his captors. And he details how the North Vietnamese tried to use racial politics to turn him and a fellow prisoner against one another - an enemy plan that backfired spectacularly.
In our next edition, you'll hear how Halyburton learned the U.S. government and his family thought he was killed in action, how the prisoners used the famous tap code to keep their hopes up, and how he finally came home.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton, a
flight officer who spent seven and a half years in
captivity after a forced ejection over North Vietnam. He is
also the author of Reflections on Captivity, which recounts his
experiences as a prisoner of war and those of many others.
(00:36):
Commander Haliburton was born in Florida, but spent most of
his youth in Davidson, North Carolina. He told us about
his education, his pursuit of military service, and finding a
bride who could have had no idea what their marriage
would bring in just a few short years.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I was born in Miami, Florida, but I was raised
in Davidson, North Carolina, from the age of two up
until I went to Swani Military Academy for last two
years of high school. I came back to Davidson and
attended Davidson College and graduated in nineteen sixty three with
(01:16):
a degree in English literature. Marty and I had met
during college. She went to Queen's College and I went
to Davidson and they just, you know, twenty miles apart,
so she still had a semester to go, and we
(01:37):
got married in December of nineteen sixty three while I
was in pre flight and she was still in college.
And so from there we went to various training bases
and so on.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
A desire to fly F four has led him to
pursue a Navy preflight program in Pensacola, and that was
just the beginning of getting prepared to serve in combat
as a naval aviator.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
My IT tests showed that I had twenty twenty five
in one eye, and so they put me into the
NFO pipeline Naval Flight Officer pipeline rather than the pilot pipeline.
And make a long story short, I passed the AI
test and was slated to go back to pilot training,
(02:22):
and I don't know it never never paperwork never got
to the right place. And anyway, I qualified for F
four's and so that's what I really wanted to do. Anyway,
so I stayed with that, and we wound up in
the rag It Replacement Air Group in the VF one
(02:44):
oh one in Key West, Florida. And when I finished,
when I finished that training, I was going to join
my first squadron, which was VF eighty four in Oceana, Virginia,
and Harty was eight months pregnant at the time, and
(03:05):
so I moved her up to Miami where she had
some family, and I went on to join the squadron.
But then she called as I stopped off in Davidson
to see my folks, she said, I think I'm gonna
have this baby. So I got emergency Lee went back
to Miami and I saw my daughter for five days,
(03:27):
and then I had to go on and until I
joined the squadron. And then that was in April of
nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
A month later, as a brand new dad, Porter Halliburton
deployed to Vietnam. He wouldn't return home for years.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
In May, we deployed aboard the USS Independence for Vietnam.
The Independence was the first East Coast carrier to go
to the West coast operations in the South China Sea.
And of course the F four and what we've been
(04:07):
trained to do was air to air defense, you know,
we had air to air missiles and so on, and
yet in Vietnam we were going to be doing lots
of other things as well, and so we we sort
of did some training for that in preparation for that,
but it was pretty cursory and it took a month
(04:29):
to get to Vietnam, and we began began operations in
what was called Dixie Station, which was off of South Vietnam,
and we flew missions for a week or so under
the control of Air Force Facts forward air controllers that
were designating targets in South Vietnam, and so we we
(04:54):
worked with that and kind of a warm up to
go up to Yankee Station and began operations and rolling
thunder against North Vietnam. Our operational period there was divided
into three operational periods of forty.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Five days each and with.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
R and R in between or going back to QB
Point in the Philippines for maintenance and all of that.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Commander Haliburton gradually began experiencing misgivings about the missions he
was undertaking in Vietnam. Given the high risk and frustrating
rules of engagement for American pilots. He seriously doubted how
effective or worthwhile these missions were in the grand scheme
of the war.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I had flown over seventy missions, mostly with the pilot
that I thought was the best in the squadron. His
name was Lieutenant Commander stan Olmsted, and of course I'm
just I think I made Lieutenant JG. While we were,
you know, in operations and so on, I was becoming
(06:02):
kind of disillusioned with what we were doing, you know,
just missions that didn't seem to be worth anything, and
we were risking our lives and our airplane and all
of that.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And so.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
We came back from R and R in Japan, and
on our third line period, we were due to be
back in the United States by Christmas, and so we
were all looking forward to that. And then finally we
got a notification that we were going to have a
mission that was one of those that McNamara and Johnson controlled.
(06:42):
Wouldn't you wouldn't normally be able to tack these missions
and so on. And it was a bridge from China
to Hanoi across the river at Taiwing, and it was
a rail and road bridge, and so it was a
major communication between China and Vietnam and taking it out
(07:03):
really would have disrupted their ability to supply of course,
that was independent of stuff that was coming in by
ship to high Fall, and I think we were pretty
frustrated with the rules of engagement. I mean, for example,
(07:25):
we still have air to air mission protecting, you know,
tar cap, bar cap, all kinds of things, but the
rules of engagement said you had to have visual identification
of the airplane that was not squawking, not identifying itself. Well,
once you do, once you get close enough to visually
(07:47):
identify the airplane. The two kinds of missiles that we
had were not very effective, and so it was very frustrating.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Finally, Commander Halliburton was sent on a mission that he
felt was worthwhile. However, a strike from an anti aircraft gun,
possibly from a surface to air missile site, sent his
plane down and changed the course of his life forever.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
But finally we were getting a mission that I thought
was worthwhile. And there were about thirty or more airplanes
from our squadron, I mean from our air wing that
were involved. And we had four aircraft from our Air
Force squadron and four from the other Air Force squadron,
(08:36):
which is VIA forty one, and we were assigned flak suppression,
meaning we were going to duel it out with the
anti aircraft guns that protected the tiwing, and so we
were flying pretty low level to avoid sam two missiles
(08:56):
which don't operate well below three thousand feet, but it
put us right in the envelope for an aircraft fire,
and so standing I got hit on the way to
the target, and we took a hit right in the
front cockpit, and Stan was killed, I think immediately, and
(09:22):
my oxygen masks blown off my I had piece of
metal sticking out of my hand. There were papers flying around,
holes in the canopy and everything, and so I knew
that I had to make a decision, you know, whether
to get out of the airplane or not. And so
(09:43):
I decided I would, And so I ejected and very
short riding the parachute and very near village that was
shooting at us while we were well, I was coming down.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But there were really two decisions. The first one was
whether to eject at all, which he obviously did. The
second decision was how to eject.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I had two choices for ejecting. There are two ways
to do it, and the primary and preferred way is
handles that are up here above the seat that you
pulled down and it pulls a canvas shield in front
of your face to protect you from the blast of ejection.
(10:32):
And all of that well, I reached up there to
do that and I felt twisted up metal, and I
pulled it down. I realized it was my kneeboard that
held all of our papers and maps and everything I
all twisted up. So that was the indication that we've
been hit pretty hard. And so I threw that down
(10:55):
and decided. I didn't know whether this was damaged or what,
but I made a quick decision to use the other.
And there's a d ring between your legs here, and
you just pull up on it and bang, there you go.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's retired to US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. In Just
a Moment, Halliburton describes trying to avoid capture in North Vietnam,
being captured and what happened next. I'm Greg Corumbus. This
is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Sixty Seconds of Service.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
This sixty Seconds of Service is presented by T Mobile.
T Mobile offers exclusive discounts for a veteran and military
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(11:52):
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(12:15):
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Speaker 1 (12:25):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. Just
a moment ago, Haliburton told the story of his plane
being shot down, making the decision to eject and safely
parachuting to the ground. But he wouldn't be safe for long.
(12:46):
Just like every other downed to American aviator, his first
choice was to avoid capture. He landed near the village
over which his plane had been shot down, and from
there began his fight to survive, and he could see
his odds of avoiding capture dwindling. By the moment.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I knew there was a there was a village. There
were people shooting at us, at me, uh and uh.
When I landed, I got on my radio and said,
you know that I've been We've been hit, I ejected,
I was on the ground, I was okay all of that.
I got no response from it at all.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And so I began to try to go to the
opposite direction from this village, try to get over this
little hill, because I knew that the that the carrier
had sent a rescue helicopter on a destroyer pretty pretty
far up into Hollong Bay or Gulf of Donkey, and
(13:45):
I knew that there was a chance that you know,
that helo might get in, and so I wanted to
get away from the gunfire and so on.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I never made it over the hill.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Because I just ran out of water and energyed everything.
I've probably in some kind of shock, and so I
had to stop and rest. And at one of the
funny incidents, there was I looked for the place of
best cover, which is just some kind of bushes. It
(14:21):
wasn't much, and so I started for that, and right
in front of me, a big black snake starts going
for the same bush, and so I decided, well, I'll
let that guy have that and I'll go somewhere else,
which was not very good cover anyway. And so anyway,
(14:41):
the villagers came and I didn't take them long surround.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
They knew pretty much where.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I was and so on. So I was captured and
taken to their village. And as I was as we
were walking back, the airplanes from that we're coming back. Unfortunately,
they had the same track out as they came in,
(15:07):
and so a couple more airplanes were shot down. I
think three other airplanes were shot down simply because they
came back exactly the same way it went in, and
the gunners are there waiting. I later I heard nothing
on my radio, but I destroyed it right before I
(15:30):
was captured, just because I didn't want the North Vietnamese
to have it, because we knew that they used that
to try to lure in rescue helicopters and to a trap.
And so when I cut that cord to the radio.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
That was I knew that was my last bit of.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Attachment to the world that I was leaving behind, and
so I had no idea what lay ahead, but I
knew it wouldn't be it wouldn't be good in any
in any sense. But right then I determined that I
was going to do everything I could to survive. And
(16:20):
for example, in the little village, they treated me pretty
well actually and allowed me to I indicated I was
very thirsty.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
They gave me some water, a little what.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
What passed for soup for them, and rice, and I
wasn't at all hungry, but I ate it out of
just determination that I was going to eat everything, and
I didn't want to offend these people, you know, by refusing.
And so I made some decisions right there that that
(16:55):
I kept with me throughout my captivity.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
The villagers treated Halliburton fairly well. The North Vietnamese army
was a different story.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was there in that village for probably several hours,
and again they I don't think they'd ever seen a Caucasian.
Maybe we hadn't bombed up in that area much at all,
and so they were just they were curious about all
this equipment.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I had everything.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Matter of fact, I was very afraid that they were
going to fool around with my seat pan, which has
a life raft in it, and I thought they were
you know, if they actuate that in this little room
where we were, the life raft is going to you know,
explode and they're going to feel like, you know, this
(17:51):
was some kind of a booby trap or something. And
so I was really trying to keep and then they
had my gun, my thirty eight, and I was fully
with it and went off. You know, right, he didn't
kill anybody, had it pointed up. But so anyway, they
were very curious. And then after a couple of hours
a jeep a ride with some military or I don't
(18:14):
know where they were, regular military, I think they were,
and I was, you know, handcuffed and blindfolded, and we
went off and it took a couple of days to
get the Hanoi. Even though it was only forty miles.
The road was just absolutely terrible. I mean sometimes you
(18:35):
would just go in one or two miles an hour
trying not to get and of course I'm handcuffed and blindfolded,
and it was a pretty rough trip. And we stopped
at a village, and that's where my first interrogations began.
(18:56):
And the interrogator who was civilian, I think, but he
didn't speak English, but he had a phrase book, you know,
and so he could write out questions and push the
paper over to me with a pencil and want me
to write the answers, and of course I pushed the
(19:17):
paper back, and anyway, that became a very tense situation
because that happened back and forth several times. I wound
up with a guard with AK forty seven next to
my temple, and I thought, well, okay, that's that's that's
the end of this. This is how it's going to end.
(19:38):
So but they didn't want to kill me, and so
they got him away anyway, and then we spent the
night a couple of nights in some kind of an
army army camp, army base or something. And then I
wound up arriving in the morning at the Hanoi Hill.
(20:01):
I was by this time my thirst was just overwhelming.
I just was so thirsty. And they set me down
in this hallway and there was a spicket there, and
I just turned that spicket on and drank, not really
even thinking about the fact that you don't do that.
(20:24):
You don't drink this water. It has to be boiled.
But I never got sick from it, so I was
very lucky. But this began. Then I moved into Heartbreak Hotel,
where there were six other guys there, all of us
having been shot down either on the seventeenth or the sixteenth, all.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
From our ship.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
We had four POWs from our ship, and then two
that had been photo reki on five c's to take
pictures before all of this operated. Of course, they got
shot down, and what they missed was another SAM site
(21:13):
that we did not know about. And I'm pretty sure
that the anti aircraft fire that got us was part
of that SAM site. So I'm told that the next
day of the day after that, a strike specifically went
in to wipe out this SAM site.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
That's retired to US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. When we
come back, we'll learn how Halliburton's rigorous training for what
to do if captured as a prisoner of war helped
him out in some circumstances and made his life much
worse and unnecessarily so in other circumstances. He also explains
how his refusal to cooperate with his interrogators led to
(21:58):
him having worse and worse living conditions over time, but
he also tells us the amazing story of how the
North Vietnamese effort to put him in the worst possible
situation ended up being one of the best. I'm Greg Corumbus,
and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm
(22:18):
Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is retired to
US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. Halliburton and other American service
members had been taught very clearly what they could and
could not divulge to their enemy captors, and Halliburton abided
by that carefully, but he says his life would have
been easier if he and others could have mentioned other
(22:40):
information that was of no value to the North Vietnamese.
The strict policy complicated his time in the camp and
also kept his loving wife and family in the dark
about his true situation.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I had been offered opportunity to write a letter home.
I said yes. I knew that we were guaranteed that
by the Geneva Conventions, and I said yes, I'd like
to write a letter home. And they want to know
the address where I would send it, I'd take it.
I didn't wear a wedding ring, no identification other.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Than you know, my.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
My ID card and dog tags and so on. And
they wanted to know the address that I would send
the letter, and I said, I'll just send it to
the US. That wasn't allowed. So I passed up the
opportunity to write. And that's one of the regrets that
(23:39):
I have, because this training that we had in Seer
School was really black and white. It was just you know, name, rank, service, summer,
date of birth, nothing else. You're willing to die, give
your life before anything else. In Seer School, I had
(24:03):
been undergoing interrogation, you know, by this guy that was
wearing a uniform that looked like a Soviet uniform and
yet you know he's supposed to be Korean. And it
was crazy. And they said, okay, here's an academic situation.
You were lying on a table here and you have
(24:25):
a bubbling chest wound. You need an immediate blood transfusion.
What's your blood type? And they said, oh, start the
program again.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
We're alive.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
What's your blood type? I said, APOSTI quick.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
As I could. It's on my dog tags.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
It's you know, it's on my ID card, but I
wanted them to know that because I would die without
a blood So I was criticized for that. It was
not name, ranks, date of birth, it was blood type.
So that was the error of our training in the
(25:07):
in the code of conduct, It's not It took it
away from any kind of leadership decisions, uh, analysis of
what your situation is, Uh, how you are going to
survive in captivity without communication with your captors over particularly
(25:29):
over a long period of time. And so the first
until we kind of figured all this out, it was
very rough time because trying to stick to the name
right and service number, date of birth was very difficult.
You know, ours kneel on your knees, or or in
(25:50):
leg irons, or or.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Being beaten or threatened and all of this.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Commander Halliburton's refusal to answer questions got him moved to
worse and worse locations until he eventually had to complete
a stint in solitary. But it was just when he
reached his darkest moment that the North Vietnamese made a
critical error and ended up revitalizing Haliburton and improving his outlook.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
So finally I was given a choice, and they said,
if you continue to refuse to talk to us, we're
going to move you to a worse place. Well, my god,
I was in this little cell in Heartbreak, which is
just two concrete bunks with built in leg irons and
(26:35):
a bucket, and not a whole hell of a lot
more than that. I couldn't imagine a worse place. On
the other hand, if you talk to us, we'll move
you to a better place, a much better place. You
be with your friends, you get better food, you'll play games,
write letters. It would be wonderful, you know. And of
(26:56):
course I wasn't going to do that. And so I refuse, used,
and moved to a worst place. And so long story short,
I moved to three more worst places. Each one was
worse or bad in its own way, not exactly like
the little cell in Heartbreak, And so I was I
(27:20):
wound up in what I think was the worst place
I had. It was a storage shed out by the
back wall of this prison that we call the zoo.
I wasn't in the ann or Hilton anymore. And it
was full of coal dust that had been used to
(27:40):
store coal, and filthy it would have had every vermin
rats were running in and out, and.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
I was.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Very sick.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
They left my food outside for the ants and the
rats to get before they put it inside for me,
and then I couldn't eat it. It was just really
and I really thought I was going to die there.
I couldn't see how I would survive. And so when
(28:14):
I was given this same choice again, it was really
it was the hardest decision I'd ever had to make
in my life, aside from whether to get out of
the air plate or not. And I just I knew
I couldn't see any good outfit if I said yes
or no, you know, and so it was very difficult,
(28:39):
but I finally I said no, you know, I said, well,
if I'm going to die, I'm going to die, you know,
without sacrificing my my integrity, honor, whatever, and letting down
your your buddies, your fellow POW's was a huge motive
(29:00):
motivation aside from your own feelings about.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Right and wrong and doing your duty and all of that.
I mean, you just.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Couldn't let these guys down. You didn't, you'd be disgraceful.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
You couldn't live with that.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
When I said no and was blindfolded and led up
to another cell block. I I had no idea what
it was going to be like. And they opened the
door to this cell and pushed me inside and said,
you must care for Cherry. And it was plain, you know,
(29:37):
I was going to be this guy's servant. I was
gonna be caregiver. I had to take care of him
and do everything for him. And it was Major Fred Cherry,
a Black Air Force pilot, and he was very badly injured.
He'd almost had his arm ripped off his body. He
(29:58):
had broken foot and all kinds of things. And in
their eyes and their concept about racial relations in the
United States, they thought were putting a young southern white
boy in with a black man and being told to
take care of him would be the worst thing that
(30:20):
they could do to me, And of course it wasn't.
I was so hungry to be with another friendly human being.
I didn't care what he looked like or anything. The
significant thing, though, at the time, was that up until
this time, I'd been concerned with just very basic things. Survival,
(30:45):
doing my duty, getting home in as good as shape
as I possibly could. Those are the three things that.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I was concerned with.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
But now I'd been given something important to do. To
try and help a man survive, and this arm business
and everything wasn't it wasn't the thing that risked his life.
It was the fact that they later operated on his shoulder,
(31:16):
trying to put his arm back, because they had some
idea they might send him home early, because he was
the first black, first and only black at the time,
that they were going to send him home as a
propaganda gesture, and so they operated on him. And then
(31:37):
that's the thing that really really required my help. And
he says, I saved his life, and I think I did,
but I had no choice, and because by that time
we had become such close friends, and I learned so
(31:59):
much from him. I mean, hell, he was my senior officer,
you know, he outrang me by two ranks, and I
just I had never been in this kind of a position,
and having something important to do change my whole outlook
on captivity and what life's all about and everything. And
(32:23):
I realized that up until then, part of my duty
was communications and memorizing the names of everybody else who
was there and passing on information. But beyond that, you know,
it was just we all thought the war was going
(32:44):
to be over very soon. Now realized how important it
was to build a military structure with command and eventually
building a community. You know, we were all that was
our family now, and so it was time with Fred.
(33:08):
I was with him for eight months. When we were separated,
it was one of the saddest days in my life.
I just I didn't know what was going to happen
to him. He was still in bad shape.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
After his time caring for Colonel Cherry. Commander Halliburton was
once again facing these sub human conditions of Vietnamese prison alone.
And the tides did not begin to turn until after
the death of Hochi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader, in
nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So that's when the terrible decision was made by the Vietnamese.
They sent us on the Hanoi March. And there's the
other time that I thought we were going to die
was in the Hanoi March.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
But we survived.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And I know that they were threatening to put us
on trial for war crimes and execute us. And when
that was announced, President Johnson said, if you do that,
I'm going to use the B fifty twos to level Hannoi.
(34:17):
And so they did not put us on trial, but
they did institute a policy of systematic torture to get
what they had not been able to get before, and
so this began the worst period of our captivity. I
(34:37):
went out to another prison out in the country, very
bad place called the Briar Patch. I was back in
solitary confinement and went through some really, really tough times
out there.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
And that period.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Lasted from the summer of nineteen sixty six until late
sixty nine or seventy, when the policy was changed again
for the better. Hoach you men died in late sixty nine,
(35:16):
and so they took that opportunity to change her policy
towards us, because I think even they realized that what
they were doing was having a counter effect. Now the
world knew that we were being tortured.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That's retired to US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. This was
part one of our conversation with Commander Halliburton. In part two,
we'll learn how he learned that he had been declared
killed in action, and that's how his family thought of
him for a long time. We'll also discuss how that
got fixed, how the famous tap code developed and kept
(35:55):
morale as high as possible among American prisoners. And of
course how he got home and what his life is
like since please join us for that. I'm Greg Corumbus
and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus
(36:19):
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans
Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're at AVC update.
Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full
(36:40):
oral histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe
to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time
for Veterans Chronicles
This is Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton, a
flight officer who spent seven and a half years in
captivity after a forced ejection over North Vietnam. He is
also the author of Reflections on Captivity, which recounts his
experiences as a prisoner of war and those of many others.
(00:36):
Commander Haliburton was born in Florida, but spent most of
his youth in Davidson, North Carolina. He told us about
his education, his pursuit of military service, and finding a
bride who could have had no idea what their marriage
would bring in just a few short years.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I was born in Miami, Florida, but I was raised
in Davidson, North Carolina, from the age of two up
until I went to Swani Military Academy for last two
years of high school. I came back to Davidson and
attended Davidson College and graduated in nineteen sixty three with
(01:16):
a degree in English literature. Marty and I had met
during college. She went to Queen's College and I went
to Davidson and they just, you know, twenty miles apart,
so she still had a semester to go, and we
(01:37):
got married in December of nineteen sixty three while I
was in pre flight and she was still in college.
And so from there we went to various training bases
and so on.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
A desire to fly F four has led him to
pursue a Navy preflight program in Pensacola, and that was
just the beginning of getting prepared to serve in combat
as a naval aviator.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
My IT tests showed that I had twenty twenty five
in one eye, and so they put me into the
NFO pipeline Naval Flight Officer pipeline rather than the pilot pipeline.
And make a long story short, I passed the AI
test and was slated to go back to pilot training,
(02:22):
and I don't know it never never paperwork never got
to the right place. And anyway, I qualified for F
four's and so that's what I really wanted to do. Anyway,
so I stayed with that, and we wound up in
the rag It Replacement Air Group in the VF one
(02:44):
oh one in Key West, Florida. And when I finished,
when I finished that training, I was going to join
my first squadron, which was VF eighty four in Oceana, Virginia,
and Harty was eight months pregnant at the time, and
(03:05):
so I moved her up to Miami where she had
some family, and I went on to join the squadron.
But then she called as I stopped off in Davidson
to see my folks, she said, I think I'm gonna
have this baby. So I got emergency Lee went back
to Miami and I saw my daughter for five days,
(03:27):
and then I had to go on and until I
joined the squadron. And then that was in April of
nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
A month later, as a brand new dad, Porter Halliburton
deployed to Vietnam. He wouldn't return home for years.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
In May, we deployed aboard the USS Independence for Vietnam.
The Independence was the first East Coast carrier to go
to the West coast operations in the South China Sea.
And of course the F four and what we've been
(04:07):
trained to do was air to air defense, you know,
we had air to air missiles and so on, and
yet in Vietnam we were going to be doing lots
of other things as well, and so we we sort
of did some training for that in preparation for that,
but it was pretty cursory and it took a month
(04:29):
to get to Vietnam, and we began began operations in
what was called Dixie Station, which was off of South Vietnam,
and we flew missions for a week or so under
the control of Air Force Facts forward air controllers that
were designating targets in South Vietnam, and so we we
(04:54):
worked with that and kind of a warm up to
go up to Yankee Station and began operations and rolling
thunder against North Vietnam. Our operational period there was divided
into three operational periods of forty.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Five days each and with.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
R and R in between or going back to QB
Point in the Philippines for maintenance and all of that.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Commander Haliburton gradually began experiencing misgivings about the missions he
was undertaking in Vietnam. Given the high risk and frustrating
rules of engagement for American pilots. He seriously doubted how
effective or worthwhile these missions were in the grand scheme
of the war.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I had flown over seventy missions, mostly with the pilot
that I thought was the best in the squadron. His
name was Lieutenant Commander stan Olmsted, and of course I'm
just I think I made Lieutenant JG. While we were,
you know, in operations and so on, I was becoming
(06:02):
kind of disillusioned with what we were doing, you know,
just missions that didn't seem to be worth anything, and
we were risking our lives and our airplane and all
of that.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And so.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
We came back from R and R in Japan, and
on our third line period, we were due to be
back in the United States by Christmas, and so we
were all looking forward to that. And then finally we
got a notification that we were going to have a
mission that was one of those that McNamara and Johnson controlled.
(06:42):
Wouldn't you wouldn't normally be able to tack these missions
and so on. And it was a bridge from China
to Hanoi across the river at Taiwing, and it was
a rail and road bridge, and so it was a
major communication between China and Vietnam and taking it out
(07:03):
really would have disrupted their ability to supply of course,
that was independent of stuff that was coming in by
ship to high Fall, and I think we were pretty
frustrated with the rules of engagement. I mean, for example,
(07:25):
we still have air to air mission protecting, you know,
tar cap, bar cap, all kinds of things, but the
rules of engagement said you had to have visual identification
of the airplane that was not squawking, not identifying itself. Well,
once you do, once you get close enough to visually
(07:47):
identify the airplane. The two kinds of missiles that we
had were not very effective, and so it was very frustrating.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Finally, Commander Halliburton was sent on a mission that he
felt was worthwhile. However, a strike from an anti aircraft gun,
possibly from a surface to air missile site, sent his
plane down and changed the course of his life forever.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
But finally we were getting a mission that I thought
was worthwhile. And there were about thirty or more airplanes
from our squadron, I mean from our air wing that
were involved. And we had four aircraft from our Air
Force squadron and four from the other Air Force squadron,
(08:36):
which is VIA forty one, and we were assigned flak suppression,
meaning we were going to duel it out with the
anti aircraft guns that protected the tiwing, and so we
were flying pretty low level to avoid sam two missiles
(08:56):
which don't operate well below three thousand feet, but it
put us right in the envelope for an aircraft fire,
and so standing I got hit on the way to
the target, and we took a hit right in the
front cockpit, and Stan was killed, I think immediately, and
(09:22):
my oxygen masks blown off my I had piece of
metal sticking out of my hand. There were papers flying around,
holes in the canopy and everything, and so I knew
that I had to make a decision, you know, whether
to get out of the airplane or not. And so
(09:43):
I decided I would, And so I ejected and very
short riding the parachute and very near village that was
shooting at us while we were well, I was coming down.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But there were really two decisions. The first one was
whether to eject at all, which he obviously did. The
second decision was how to eject.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I had two choices for ejecting. There are two ways
to do it, and the primary and preferred way is
handles that are up here above the seat that you
pulled down and it pulls a canvas shield in front
of your face to protect you from the blast of ejection.
(10:32):
And all of that well, I reached up there to
do that and I felt twisted up metal, and I
pulled it down. I realized it was my kneeboard that
held all of our papers and maps and everything I
all twisted up. So that was the indication that we've
been hit pretty hard. And so I threw that down
(10:55):
and decided. I didn't know whether this was damaged or what,
but I made a quick decision to use the other.
And there's a d ring between your legs here, and
you just pull up on it and bang, there you go.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
That's retired to US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. In Just
a Moment, Halliburton describes trying to avoid capture in North Vietnam,
being captured and what happened next. I'm Greg Corumbus. This
is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Sixty Seconds of Service.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
This sixty Seconds of Service is presented by T Mobile.
T Mobile offers exclusive discounts for a veteran and military
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(11:52):
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(12:15):
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Speaker 1 (12:25):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is retired US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. Just
a moment ago, Haliburton told the story of his plane
being shot down, making the decision to eject and safely
parachuting to the ground. But he wouldn't be safe for long.
(12:46):
Just like every other downed to American aviator, his first
choice was to avoid capture. He landed near the village
over which his plane had been shot down, and from
there began his fight to survive, and he could see
his odds of avoiding capture dwindling. By the moment.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I knew there was a there was a village. There
were people shooting at us, at me, uh and uh.
When I landed, I got on my radio and said,
you know that I've been We've been hit, I ejected,
I was on the ground, I was okay all of that.
I got no response from it at all.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
And so I began to try to go to the
opposite direction from this village, try to get over this
little hill, because I knew that the that the carrier
had sent a rescue helicopter on a destroyer pretty pretty
far up into Hollong Bay or Gulf of Donkey, and
(13:45):
I knew that there was a chance that you know,
that helo might get in, and so I wanted to
get away from the gunfire and so on.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I never made it over the hill.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Because I just ran out of water and energyed everything.
I've probably in some kind of shock, and so I
had to stop and rest. And at one of the
funny incidents, there was I looked for the place of
best cover, which is just some kind of bushes. It
(14:21):
wasn't much, and so I started for that, and right
in front of me, a big black snake starts going
for the same bush, and so I decided, well, I'll
let that guy have that and I'll go somewhere else,
which was not very good cover anyway. And so anyway,
(14:41):
the villagers came and I didn't take them long surround.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
They knew pretty much where.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I was and so on. So I was captured and
taken to their village. And as I was as we
were walking back, the airplanes from that we're coming back. Unfortunately,
they had the same track out as they came in,
(15:07):
and so a couple more airplanes were shot down. I
think three other airplanes were shot down simply because they
came back exactly the same way it went in, and
the gunners are there waiting. I later I heard nothing
on my radio, but I destroyed it right before I
(15:30):
was captured, just because I didn't want the North Vietnamese
to have it, because we knew that they used that
to try to lure in rescue helicopters and to a trap.
And so when I cut that cord to the radio.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
That was I knew that was my last bit of.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Attachment to the world that I was leaving behind, and
so I had no idea what lay ahead, but I
knew it wouldn't be it wouldn't be good in any
in any sense. But right then I determined that I
was going to do everything I could to survive. And
(16:20):
for example, in the little village, they treated me pretty
well actually and allowed me to I indicated I was
very thirsty.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
They gave me some water, a little what.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
What passed for soup for them, and rice, and I
wasn't at all hungry, but I ate it out of
just determination that I was going to eat everything, and
I didn't want to offend these people, you know, by refusing.
And so I made some decisions right there that that
(16:55):
I kept with me throughout my captivity.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
The villagers treated Halliburton fairly well. The North Vietnamese army
was a different story.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I was there in that village for probably several hours,
and again they I don't think they'd ever seen a Caucasian.
Maybe we hadn't bombed up in that area much at all,
and so they were just they were curious about all
this equipment.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I had everything.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Matter of fact, I was very afraid that they were
going to fool around with my seat pan, which has
a life raft in it, and I thought they were
you know, if they actuate that in this little room
where we were, the life raft is going to you know,
explode and they're going to feel like, you know, this
(17:51):
was some kind of a booby trap or something. And
so I was really trying to keep and then they
had my gun, my thirty eight, and I was fully
with it and went off. You know, right, he didn't
kill anybody, had it pointed up. But so anyway, they
were very curious. And then after a couple of hours
a jeep a ride with some military or I don't
(18:14):
know where they were, regular military, I think they were,
and I was, you know, handcuffed and blindfolded, and we
went off and it took a couple of days to
get the Hanoi. Even though it was only forty miles.
The road was just absolutely terrible. I mean sometimes you
(18:35):
would just go in one or two miles an hour
trying not to get and of course I'm handcuffed and blindfolded,
and it was a pretty rough trip. And we stopped
at a village, and that's where my first interrogations began.
(18:56):
And the interrogator who was civilian, I think, but he
didn't speak English, but he had a phrase book, you know,
and so he could write out questions and push the
paper over to me with a pencil and want me
to write the answers, and of course I pushed the
(19:17):
paper back, and anyway, that became a very tense situation
because that happened back and forth several times. I wound
up with a guard with AK forty seven next to
my temple, and I thought, well, okay, that's that's that's
the end of this. This is how it's going to end.
(19:38):
So but they didn't want to kill me, and so
they got him away anyway, and then we spent the
night a couple of nights in some kind of an
army army camp, army base or something. And then I
wound up arriving in the morning at the Hanoi Hill.
(20:01):
I was by this time my thirst was just overwhelming.
I just was so thirsty. And they set me down
in this hallway and there was a spicket there, and
I just turned that spicket on and drank, not really
even thinking about the fact that you don't do that.
(20:24):
You don't drink this water. It has to be boiled.
But I never got sick from it, so I was
very lucky. But this began. Then I moved into Heartbreak Hotel,
where there were six other guys there, all of us
having been shot down either on the seventeenth or the sixteenth, all.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
From our ship.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
We had four POWs from our ship, and then two
that had been photo reki on five c's to take
pictures before all of this operated. Of course, they got
shot down, and what they missed was another SAM site
(21:13):
that we did not know about. And I'm pretty sure
that the anti aircraft fire that got us was part
of that SAM site. So I'm told that the next
day of the day after that, a strike specifically went
in to wipe out this SAM site.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
That's retired to US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. When we
come back, we'll learn how Halliburton's rigorous training for what
to do if captured as a prisoner of war helped
him out in some circumstances and made his life much
worse and unnecessarily so in other circumstances. He also explains
how his refusal to cooperate with his interrogators led to
(21:58):
him having worse and worse living conditions over time, but
he also tells us the amazing story of how the
North Vietnamese effort to put him in the worst possible
situation ended up being one of the best. I'm Greg Corumbus,
and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm
(22:18):
Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is retired to
US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. Halliburton and other American service
members had been taught very clearly what they could and
could not divulge to their enemy captors, and Halliburton abided
by that carefully, but he says his life would have
been easier if he and others could have mentioned other
(22:40):
information that was of no value to the North Vietnamese.
The strict policy complicated his time in the camp and
also kept his loving wife and family in the dark
about his true situation.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I had been offered opportunity to write a letter home.
I said yes. I knew that we were guaranteed that
by the Geneva Conventions, and I said yes, I'd like
to write a letter home. And they want to know
the address where I would send it, I'd take it.
I didn't wear a wedding ring, no identification other.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Than you know, my.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
My ID card and dog tags and so on. And
they wanted to know the address that I would send
the letter, and I said, I'll just send it to
the US. That wasn't allowed. So I passed up the
opportunity to write. And that's one of the regrets that
(23:39):
I have, because this training that we had in Seer
School was really black and white. It was just you know, name, rank, service, summer,
date of birth, nothing else. You're willing to die, give
your life before anything else. In Seer School, I had
(24:03):
been undergoing interrogation, you know, by this guy that was
wearing a uniform that looked like a Soviet uniform and
yet you know he's supposed to be Korean. And it
was crazy. And they said, okay, here's an academic situation.
You were lying on a table here and you have
(24:25):
a bubbling chest wound. You need an immediate blood transfusion.
What's your blood type? And they said, oh, start the
program again.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
We're alive.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
What's your blood type? I said, APOSTI quick.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
As I could. It's on my dog tags.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
It's you know, it's on my ID card, but I
wanted them to know that because I would die without
a blood So I was criticized for that. It was
not name, ranks, date of birth, it was blood type.
So that was the error of our training in the
(25:07):
in the code of conduct, It's not It took it
away from any kind of leadership decisions, uh, analysis of
what your situation is, Uh, how you are going to
survive in captivity without communication with your captors over particularly
(25:29):
over a long period of time. And so the first
until we kind of figured all this out, it was
very rough time because trying to stick to the name
right and service number, date of birth was very difficult.
You know, ours kneel on your knees, or or in
(25:50):
leg irons, or or.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Being beaten or threatened and all of this.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Commander Halliburton's refusal to answer questions got him moved to
worse and worse locations until he eventually had to complete
a stint in solitary. But it was just when he
reached his darkest moment that the North Vietnamese made a
critical error and ended up revitalizing Haliburton and improving his outlook.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
So finally I was given a choice, and they said,
if you continue to refuse to talk to us, we're
going to move you to a worse place. Well, my god,
I was in this little cell in Heartbreak, which is
just two concrete bunks with built in leg irons and
(26:35):
a bucket, and not a whole hell of a lot
more than that. I couldn't imagine a worse place. On
the other hand, if you talk to us, we'll move
you to a better place, a much better place. You
be with your friends, you get better food, you'll play games,
write letters. It would be wonderful, you know. And of
(26:56):
course I wasn't going to do that. And so I refuse, used,
and moved to a worst place. And so long story short,
I moved to three more worst places. Each one was
worse or bad in its own way, not exactly like
the little cell in Heartbreak, And so I was I
(27:20):
wound up in what I think was the worst place
I had. It was a storage shed out by the
back wall of this prison that we call the zoo.
I wasn't in the ann or Hilton anymore. And it
was full of coal dust that had been used to
(27:40):
store coal, and filthy it would have had every vermin
rats were running in and out, and.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
I was.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Very sick.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
They left my food outside for the ants and the
rats to get before they put it inside for me,
and then I couldn't eat it. It was just really
and I really thought I was going to die there.
I couldn't see how I would survive. And so when
(28:14):
I was given this same choice again, it was really
it was the hardest decision I'd ever had to make
in my life, aside from whether to get out of
the air plate or not. And I just I knew
I couldn't see any good outfit if I said yes
or no, you know, and so it was very difficult,
(28:39):
but I finally I said no, you know, I said, well,
if I'm going to die, I'm going to die, you know,
without sacrificing my my integrity, honor, whatever, and letting down
your your buddies, your fellow POW's was a huge motive
(29:00):
motivation aside from your own feelings about.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Right and wrong and doing your duty and all of that.
I mean, you just.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Couldn't let these guys down. You didn't, you'd be disgraceful.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
You couldn't live with that.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
When I said no and was blindfolded and led up
to another cell block. I I had no idea what
it was going to be like. And they opened the
door to this cell and pushed me inside and said,
you must care for Cherry. And it was plain, you know,
(29:37):
I was going to be this guy's servant. I was
gonna be caregiver. I had to take care of him
and do everything for him. And it was Major Fred Cherry,
a Black Air Force pilot, and he was very badly injured.
He'd almost had his arm ripped off his body. He
(29:58):
had broken foot and all kinds of things. And in
their eyes and their concept about racial relations in the
United States, they thought were putting a young southern white
boy in with a black man and being told to
take care of him would be the worst thing that
(30:20):
they could do to me, And of course it wasn't.
I was so hungry to be with another friendly human being.
I didn't care what he looked like or anything. The
significant thing, though, at the time, was that up until
this time, I'd been concerned with just very basic things. Survival,
(30:45):
doing my duty, getting home in as good as shape
as I possibly could. Those are the three things that.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I was concerned with.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
But now I'd been given something important to do. To
try and help a man survive, and this arm business
and everything wasn't it wasn't the thing that risked his life.
It was the fact that they later operated on his shoulder,
(31:16):
trying to put his arm back, because they had some
idea they might send him home early, because he was
the first black, first and only black at the time,
that they were going to send him home as a
propaganda gesture, and so they operated on him. And then
(31:37):
that's the thing that really really required my help. And
he says, I saved his life, and I think I did,
but I had no choice, and because by that time
we had become such close friends, and I learned so
(31:59):
much from him. I mean, hell, he was my senior officer,
you know, he outrang me by two ranks, and I
just I had never been in this kind of a position,
and having something important to do change my whole outlook
on captivity and what life's all about and everything. And
(32:23):
I realized that up until then, part of my duty
was communications and memorizing the names of everybody else who
was there and passing on information. But beyond that, you know,
it was just we all thought the war was going
(32:44):
to be over very soon. Now realized how important it
was to build a military structure with command and eventually
building a community. You know, we were all that was
our family now, and so it was time with Fred.
(33:08):
I was with him for eight months. When we were separated,
it was one of the saddest days in my life.
I just I didn't know what was going to happen
to him. He was still in bad shape.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
After his time caring for Colonel Cherry. Commander Halliburton was
once again facing these sub human conditions of Vietnamese prison alone.
And the tides did not begin to turn until after
the death of Hochi Minh, the North Vietnamese leader, in
nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
So that's when the terrible decision was made by the Vietnamese.
They sent us on the Hanoi March. And there's the
other time that I thought we were going to die
was in the Hanoi March.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
But we survived.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
And I know that they were threatening to put us
on trial for war crimes and execute us. And when
that was announced, President Johnson said, if you do that,
I'm going to use the B fifty twos to level Hannoi.
(34:17):
And so they did not put us on trial, but
they did institute a policy of systematic torture to get
what they had not been able to get before, and
so this began the worst period of our captivity. I
(34:37):
went out to another prison out in the country, very
bad place called the Briar Patch. I was back in
solitary confinement and went through some really, really tough times
out there.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
And that period.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Lasted from the summer of nineteen sixty six until late
sixty nine or seventy, when the policy was changed again
for the better. Hoach you men died in late sixty nine,
(35:16):
and so they took that opportunity to change her policy
towards us, because I think even they realized that what
they were doing was having a counter effect. Now the
world knew that we were being tortured.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That's retired to US Navy Commander Porter Halliburton. This was
part one of our conversation with Commander Halliburton. In part two,
we'll learn how he learned that he had been declared
killed in action, and that's how his family thought of
him for a long time. We'll also discuss how that
got fixed, how the famous tap code developed and kept
(35:55):
morale as high as possible among American prisoners. And of
course how he got home and what his life is
like since please join us for that. I'm Greg Corumbus
and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus
(36:19):
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow the American Veterans
Center on Facebook and on Twitter. We're at AVC update.
Subscribe to the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for full
(36:40):
oral histories and special features, and of course, please subscribe
to the Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks again for listening, and please join us next time
for Veterans Chronicles
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