Word: hellers
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After months in Communist Chinese prisons, the four-all jet pilots lost during the Korean war-had been abruptly "deported." Colonel Heller, commander of an F-86 Sabre-jet squadron, had been imprisoned for 28 months; Captain Harold Fischer Jr., 28, of Swea City, Iowa, an F-86 flight commander, for 38 months; Lieut. Lyle W. Cameron, 26, of Lincoln, Neb., F-84 fighter-bomber pilot, for 31 months; and Lieut. Roland Parks, 25, of Omaha, F-86 pilot, for 33 months. From the bridge to freedom at Lo Wu, Air Force officers escorted the four pilots to the comfortable...
...side of the Sham Chun, splashed across the puddles on the bridge at Lo Wu and stepped into freedom. Among the first to greet them was Father Ambrosio Poletti, a Roman Catholic missionary based in Hong Kong, who offered them a pack of Lucky Strikes. Said Lieut. Colonel Edwin Heller, 36, of Wynnewood, Pa., as he lit up: "Gosh! Remember them...
...Honolulu's Hickam Air Force Base, they went through the mill of physicians, psychiatrists and intelligence officers. Colonel Heller, whose left leg had been broken when he parachuted out of his crashing plane, has undergone repeated surgery in a Chinese hospital, now has a plate in his shortened leg, and probably will need further surgery. Lieut. Parks had an eye ailment; Captain Fischer needed dental work. But in general, all four were in good health. The clothes that had. been bought from, pre-prison measurements fit fairly well...
...Force Harold E. Talbott personally telephoned the families of the four men to say that the Air Force would fly them to Honolulu for a reunion. After the big Air Force Constellation carrying the families landed at Hickam, the first passenger out of the door was Judith Heller, who had gathered together a whole "trousseau" for the reunion. She paused, looked at the husband she had not seen for 34 months, and gasped. From the throat of Airman Heller there came a choked cry, and then he bounded up the steps toward his wife...
...ease before the microphones and the cameras, and answered questions promptly and clearly. But they left much untold. As their condition showed, they had been treated well, as Communist treatment of prisoners goes. They had been in solitary confinement from six months (Lieut. Cameron) to 26 months (Colonel Heller), but they were not otherwise physically abused. The food was a Chinese rice diet (with side dishes, said Colonel Heller, that "ranged from seaweed to bird's-nest"), but they did not go hungry. When they were moved from Mukden to Peking, in April, apparently in preparation for their release...