Word: dengler
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Married. Lieut, (j.g.) Dieter Dengler, 28, German-born U.S. Navy pilot who last July became the first captured airman to escape from North Viet Nam, after six months of torture and imprisonment; and Marina Adamich, 24, Yugoslavian-born Stanford University chemistry research assistant, his fiancee of two years, who said, days before the wedding: "He's changed. We just could never marry now," but then obviously changed her mind; in Reno...
...Dengler was marched at the double along jungle trails and staked out among mosquitoes at night with arms and legs wide apart; when he refused to sign a statement condemning the U.S. in Viet Nam, his captors tied him upside down from a tree and let ants swarm over him. Then they dragged him into unconsciousness behind a water buffalo...
Laotian Roulette. When he came to, his guards amused themselves with Laotian roulette: "I was tied to a tree and used for target practice-the guards tried to see how close they could come to hitting me." Finally, three weeks after his crash, Dengler was led into a bamboo stockade somewhere near the trail and locked up in crude, wooden "footcuffs" with six other U.S. flyers. The prisoners were fed a handful of rice twice a week, supplemented their diet with snakes and anything else that crawled through their hut. "Once," Dengler recalled, "we caught a snake that had swallowed...
Escape was constantly on Dengler's mind, but the prisoners decided to wait until monsoons had swollen the streams and rivers down which they hoped to float. On June 29 they made their break. Dengler slipped his footcuffs, grabbed four rifles and a bag of rice while the guards were eating. The prisoners killed six of their captors in a flurried firefight, then split into pairs in hopes of making their escape route difficult to follow...
Loaded with Death. Dengler's teammate was Air Force Lieut. Duane Mar tin, 26, of Denver, whose rescue helicopter had been shot down in September 1965. Twice the pair slept in abandoned villages; then they built a raft and floated downstream until an unexpected waterfall smashed their craft. They came upon a third village that appeared abandoned: it was instead loaded with death. A man sprang from a hut and hit Martin on the leg with a machete; a second swipe hit the stumbling Air Force pilot between shoulders and neck, beheading him. Dengler fled back into the bush...