Former Vietnam POW Remembers 42nd Anniversary of Rescue

Former POW Lt. Bill Tschudy recalls captivity in Vietnam on anniversary of his freedom 
News Observer
By Paul A Specht
February 15, 2015

Retired Navy Cmdr. Bill Tschudy was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than seven years.

PAUL A. SPECHT

CARY — Until July 18, 1965, Navy Lt. Bill Tschudy was focused on performing his duty as a bombardier-navigator during the Vietnam War.

Tschudy remembers that mission shifting a bit, though, after he was shot down over a heavily defended bridge over the Ma River. As he abandoned the doomed A-6A Intruder jet, his parachute floated toward the middle of an enemy-controlled village.

“Your war now is survival,” he thought to himself.

His landing spot, an enemy trench, didn’t inspire confidence.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I landed in a burial site,’ ” recalled Tschudy, with a laugh, in an interview at his Cary home.

Tschudy, then a married 30-year-old with a 6-month-old son, was captured quickly by North Vietnamese forces.

Then-Cmdr. Jeremiah Denton Jr., the late Alabama senator, was Tschudy’s pilot and also was captured. The two were imprisoned together and tortured for 7 1/2 years. The 42nd anniversary of their release was Thursday.

Time Magazine reported part of Tschudy’s story in a December 1970 issue that featured his face on the cover, and various national news outlets wrote stories after his release.
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