Former POW ends sortie after 40-year detour

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Gerardo Gonzalez
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan (AFPN) --  Retired Maj. Wesley Schierman finally landed his last sortie with the 67th Fighter Squadron here Sept. 19 after a 40-year detour.

Originally, he began his flight as a captain with the 67th Tactical Fighter Squadron during the Vietnam War flying an F-105 Thunderchief out of Korat Air Base, Thailand.

But while leading a formation of four aircraft Aug. 25, 1965, on a mission to attack a military barracks near Hanoi, something happened.

His gun jammed.

He bailed out.

He became a prisoner of war.

"I was captured within an hour of ejecting from the aircraft," Major Schierman said. "They started stripping my gear and the first thing they took was my boots. You don't travel around very much in the jungle on bare feet."

He spent the next three nights heavily guarded in a cave, and then three more nights in back of a truck before arriving at Hoa Lo Prison -- the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

"I was interrogated for 10 days and 10 nights," Major Schierman said. "I politely declined to answer their questions."

His lack of cooperation earned him some threats and slapping around by his captors, but it did not faze him -- at first.

"I got it worse from my fourth grade teacher," he said. In fact, when they threatened to lock him down in his tiny cell with leg irons, he was not too concerned. That changed after wearing them for three days.

"I thought this was about the worst thing you could do to someone," he said. "Little did I know (what was to come)."

Rope torture. Beatings. Isolation. Disease. Guilt. Misery. Seven-and-a-half years of it.

He wasn't alone in his suffering. Initially he was the 23rd prisoner, but the number grew to 368, and he knew all their names.

Some prisoners died directly from the torture; others succumbed to illness.

"We had guys live with open wounds for four years," he said.

But many prevailed because of a strong will to live and their creative efforts to communicate with each other through a tap code.

"I am convinced that without the tap code we would have lost a lot more people," Major Schierman said.

He credits fellow prisoner and aviator "Smitty" Harris with teaching POW's the simple, secretive tap code.

"It made a world of difference to be able to pass policy, communicate resistance or just pass the time," he said. "We could tap the code, sweep it, cough it and scratch it."

Major Schierman even used Morse code to communicate with a Navy lieutenant. Back then, Morse code was a requirement for many in the Navy.

"It became my language," Major Schierman said. "It indicates how adaptable humans can be if they have the will."

Through the years, he and the others were relocated to different prison camps. Their captivity nearly ended in November 1970 when U.S. Special Forces raided the Son Tay prison camp.

Unfortunately the Americans were no longer there.

Though the rescue attempt failed, conditions for the prisoners improved greatly afterward.

Then there was the "greatest show on Earth" as Major Schierman describes it. Operation Linebacker II began Dec. 18, 1972. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers pummeled North Vietnam day and night for 11 days, forcing the North Vietnamese back to the negotiation table.

A peace agreement was signed in January, and Feb. 12, 1973, Capt. Wesley Schierman and the men he suffered with for all those years were freed.

The “Freedom Bird” delivered them to a cheering crowd at Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

"I'm just really proud to have served with those guys," he said. "Most of us did a heck of a job under the circumstances. … We served with honor."

From Clark he was flown to Travis Air Force Base, Calif., to the open arms of his wife, Faye, and to the life he had known before Vietnam.

He returned to his prewar job as a commercial airline pilot and retired in 1995 after 22 years with Northwest Airlines.

Major Schierman’s ceremonial flight aboard an F-15 Eagle helped today's pilots of the 67th FS understand the true meaning of mission completion, said Lt. Col. Jeff Gustafson, squadron commander and pilot for Major Schierman's final flight.

It also provided a climactic end to a highly personal 40-year journey of a former Kadena AB pilot.