“No Fail” Fridays
[This is the fifth in a series. It will be a weekly challenge to historians: The Son Tay Raid was a SUCCESS. No qualifier is appropriate. Over these next few Fridays, I’ll show you why.]
Challenge 5: There is a word that is too often used in conversations about the Son Tay Raid. That word should be banished from any analysis of the Raid. You could say it’s an ‘F-word.’ We will challenge your thinking. It may take some humility to accept the truth.
Below are hundreds of reasons for the Raid.
The following is a listing of the US POWs who were in prison on the night of the Raid. However, it’s important to notice that the locations listed reflect those of each POW on November 23rd, 1970, two days after the Raid. Notice that no POWs remain in Camp Faith on November 23rd as the North Vietnamese Army immediately rushed to consolidate all POWs into two camps deep in Hanoi. In fact no POWs remain at any of the outlying camps.
You see, the Son Tay Raid succeeded. It sent the message to the North Vietnamese Government (and the POWs) that America will not let stand the abuse of our countrymen in POW camps.
The list below was made possible only by the solemn commitment made by the POWs to memorize the names of all the other POWs. POWs recited these names upon their return, to ensure an accounting for their brothers, both the surviving and the dead. Some of these men are reading this post today. We rise to honor you today.
“HH” is the Hanoi Hilton. To understand the other POW camps, there are two maps below. The first map shows the outlying POW camps that were used until the Son Tay Raid. The second map shows the POW camps that all the POWs were consolidated into after the Son Tay Raid.
(Source: Honor Bound, Naval Press Institute.)
(Source: Honor Bound, Naval Press Institute.)
Read stories of many of these POWs, told in their own words, in Who Will Go.
Click Here: The book.