"When I realized in the morning that there was nothing I could do, and he’s pointing a gun at me, and I couldn’t run-- that was-- that was a pretty bad feeling."
Description of Interview:
Frank Anton enlisted in the Army in 1965 because the Air Force recruiter was “out to lunch.” He was 23 years old when he arrived in South Vietnam in 1967, and he was 30 years old after spending 1,897 days in captivity as a prisoner of war. The North Vietnamese released CWO Anton as part of Operation Homecoming on March 16, 1973. During his first ten months in Vietnam he flew UH-1D and UH-1C helicopters in combat from April 1967 until he was shot down on January 5, 1968. The Viet Cong captured Anton 12 hours after he crash landed and they rotated him between six prison camps in South Vietnam before walking him 500 miles to North Vietnam in 1971. He describes, in great detail, his relationship with guards, his diet, and the daily routine in the jungle prison camps in South Vietnam. At length he describes his homecoming and readjusting to life after five years as a POW.
Key Words: Fort Wolters, Mineral Wells, Hughes TH-55 Osage, Bell H-13 Sioux, Bell UH-1 Huey, Slicks, Firebird, gunships, Honour-Smith Compound in Bien Hoa, Iron Triangle, Chu Lai, Que Son Valley, Quang Ngai, Lockheed YO-3 Quiet Star, Hughes OH-6 Cayuse, Ho Chi Minh trail, Plantation Gardens POW camp, AK-47.
Key Names: Frank Carson, SP4 Robert Lewis III, PFC James F. Pfister, Jr., Dr. Harold “Hal” Kushner, Sgt. Edwin Russell "Russ" Grissett, Jr., PFC Robert Russell “Bobby” Garwood, Hanoi Hannah, CPT Jack Morrissey.
Unit:
71st Aviation Company of the 145th Aviation Battalion, 12th Aviation Group, 1st Aviation Brigade
Service Location:
Chu Lai, I Corps, six different POW camp in Quang Nam Province, the Plantation Gardens prison camp, Hoa Lo prison (Hanoi Hilton)
Read the Complete Transcript of this Interview.