For years, they languished in prison camps in North Vietnam, fighting to keep hope alive. Then in 1973, a cargo plane later dubbed the "Hanoi Taxi" swooped down and took home a group of US prisoners of war.
Now, more than 30 years later, the Air Force is retiring the aircraft that in two trips rescued 79 POWs captured during the Vietnam War. Many of those who took the flights of freedom reunited on Friday to ride the Hanoi Taxi once more and relive the unforgettable.
"It brought back a lot of memories," Orson Swindle, 69, of Alexandria, Virginia, said of the 79-minute flight at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. Swindle, a POW for more than six years after being shot down 1966, said the feeling then of seeing the plane coming to take him home in 1973 "was just incredible."
PHOTO: AP
"When we landed over here, I was just overwhelmed with emotion," Swindle said. "So it was good to remember. I truly believe that we lose a lot if we don't keep remembering."
A total 124 POWs who flew the Hanoi Taxi or other rescue planes gathered at the base on Friday for two flights, with 62 aboard each. The C-141 Air Force Reserve transport plane, the last in service, retired yesterday after landing near the National Museum of the US Air Force on the base.
Those on the day's first flight, which took them over the Dayton area, said a loud cheer erupted as they took off and that the flight was filled with animated discussions, punctuated by quiet lulls of reflection.
"We sat there and just kind of looked out the window and did a lot of recollection," said Bill Robinson, 62, Madisonville, Tennessee. He was shot down in 1965 and freed in 1973.
"As I'm getting old, I realize I am part of history," he said. "It definitely was a re-enactment, a wonderful feeling."
The POWs were called by name, one-by-one, to board the plane, as was done when they left Vietnam. The plane had a black POW-MIA flag on its brow.
Reminiscent of the joyful scenes three decades earlier of homecomings from Vietnam, wives and other relatives dashed out onto the taxiway, arms outstretched, to greet the veterans at the end of their flight on Friday
Jerri Mechenbier, wife of retired Air Force Reserve Major General Ed Mechenbier, a POW who later flew the plane himself, said, "It's nostalgic. It's sad in a way. It's the end of an era."
In his last mission nearly two years ago, Mechenbier flew it to Hanoi to bring home remains of fallen comrades
"I haven't seen him upset, but he hides his feelings well, as all POWs do," she said. "My husband never dwells on the painful parts. In fact, it was many years and through interviews that I found out that things were not quite so pleasant for him."
The Hanoi Taxi was the first of 18 C-141s that picked up nearly 600 POWs in "Operation Homecoming." The Hanoi Taxi landed at Gia Lamb Airport on Feb. 12, 1973, then carried 40 POWs to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines and later back to the US.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing