Robert Russell Garwood (born April 1, 1946) is a former United States Marine. Often cited as the last verified American prisoner of war (POW) from the Vietnam War, Garwood was captured on September 28, 1965 by Việt Cộng forces near Da Nang, Quang Nam Province.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lists 684 POWs returned home alive from the Vietnam War — the majority after the U.S. pulled out of the war in 1973. (The war officially ended April 30, 1975). There are 1,582 Americans still unaccounted for, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Operation Homecoming was completed on March 29, 1973, when the last of 591 U.S. prisoners were released and returned to the United States.
Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking Navy officer POW in Vietnam, was held there for nearly eight years. Navy Cmdr. James Stockdale exits an A-4 fighter-bomber weeks before being shot down over Vietnam.
United States Army Colonel Floyd “Jim” Thompson, the longest held prisoner of war (POW) in American history, and his wife, Alyce, were products of the idealism of post-World War II America. When Thompson was shot down and captured, they began a journey that changed them forever.
Joseph Alexander became a POW at 15. He was a military and civilian worker at Kelly AFB. Joseph Alexander never got to enjoy his youth. At just 14 years old, and with his grandmother by his side, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and is said to have been the youngest American prisoner of war.
Tran Hung Dao was one of the first great Vietnamese military strategists. His use of guerrilla warfare to harass and eventually defeat a more powerful enemy provided a model for communist guerrilla warfare in the 20th century.
The Viet Minh took 37,000 French prisoners in the 1945-54 Indochina war. About 60 percent died. Only 2,000 survivors remain alive. Boudarel remained in Vietnam after the war.
They were tortured, isolated, and psychologically abused in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, to which North Vietnam was a signatory. Some POWs were paraded before reporters and foreign visitors and forced to confess to war crimes against the people of Vietnam. Others resisted torture and refused to comply.
Our research and operational missions involve coordination with hundreds of countries and municipalities worldwide. As of the latest update on May 22, 2023, more than 81,000 Americans remain missing from WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Gulf Wars/other conflicts.
59 American women who served as civilians (including nurses) in Vietnam were also killed and died in that war. 4 were POWs.
Garwood. Robert Russell Garwood (born April 1, 1946) is a former United States Marine. Often cited as the last verified American prisoner of war (POW) from the Vietnam War, Garwood was captured on September 28, 1965 by Việt Cộng forces near Da Nang, Quang Nam Province.
North Vietnamese torture was exceptionally cruel--prison guards bound POWs' arms and legs with tight ropes and then dislocated them, and left men in iron foot stocks for days or weeks. Extreme beatings were common, many times resulting in POW deaths.
An Integral Allied Force in the Vietnam War
South Korean units were as tough and professional as any in the United States Army or Marines, and came to be justly feared by the communists. More than 300,000 Korean troops passed through Vietnam at some point, and more than 5,000 were killed.
Năm Cam's trial in the Ho Chi Minh City's People's Court was one of the largest in Vietnam's history. Margie Mason of the Associated Press wrote of the trial that "Vietnam's most notorious underworld boss has appeared in court with 154 others in what could be one of the Communist country's most important trials.
April 8, 1968
U.S. forces in Operation Pegasus finally retake Route 9, ending the siege of Khe Sanh. A 77 day battle, Khe Sanh had been the biggest single battle of the Vietnam War to that point. The official assessment of the North Vietnamese Army dead is just over 1,600 killed, with two divisions all but annihilated.
The Army suffered the most casualties, 38,179 or 66% of all casualties. As a branch of the US forces, however, the Marine Corps lost the highest percentage of its own men (5.0%) which in turn accounted for 25.5% of all casualties.
Acclaimed screenwriter and director Oliver Stone, whose work includes "Wall Street" (1987), "The Doors" (1991), "JFK" (1991) and "Nixon" (1995), served in the Army and deployed to Vietnam from 1967 to 1968. His wartime experiences would shape some of his later films.
The Midnight Massacre is remembered for being "the worst massacre at a POW camp in U.S. history". A museum was opened at Camp Salina in 2016.
Of the 22,376 Australian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, some 8,031 died while in captivity. After the end of the war, War Crimes Trials were held to investigate reports of atrocities, massacres and other causes of death.
Over 22,000 Australians became prisoners of war of the Japanese in south-east Asia.