Veterans Against McCain and Billary
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UPDATED: Tuesday, March 10, 2026 01:38
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My six years of hell: John McCain recalls life a prisoner of war in Vietnam
—By JOHN McCAIN
Early in the morning I prepared for my 23rd bombing run over North Vietnam - and my first attack on the enemy capital, Hanoi.
Our target was the thermal power plant located near a small lake almost at the centre of the city.
At about 9,000 ft, as we turned inbound on the target, our warning lights flashed and the tone for enemy radar started sounding so loudly that I had to turn down the volume.
I could see huge clouds of smoke and dust erupt on the ground as SAM missiles were fired at us.
The closer we came to the target, the fiercer were the defences. I recognised the target sitting next to the small lake and dived in on it, just as the tone went off signalling that a SAM was flying towards me.
I knew I should roll out and fly evasive manoeuvres - "jinking" in flyers' parlance - but I was just about to release my bombs and, had I started jinking, I would never have had the time, nor probably the nerve, to go back in once I had lost the SAM.
So at about 3,500 ft I released my bombs, then pulled back the stick to begin a steep climb to a safer altitude. In the instant before the plane reacted, a SAM blew my right wing off.
I knew I was hit. My A-4 aircraft, travelling at about 550 miles an hour, was violently spiralling to Earth. I reacted automatically the moment I took the hit, reached up and pulled the ejection seat handle.
I struck part of the airplane, breaking my left arm, my right arm in three places and my right knee, and was briefly knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection. Witnesses said that my chute had barely opened before I plunged into the shallow water of Truc Bach Lake.
I landed in the middle of the lake, in the middle of the city, in the middle of the day, and came to when I hit the water.
Wearing about 50lb of gear, I touched the bottom of the lake and kicked off with my good leg. I did not feel any pain as I broke the surface, and I did not understand why I couldn't move my arms to pull the toggle on my life vest. I sank to the bottom again.
When I broke the surface the second time, I managed to inflate my life vest by pulling the toggle with my teeth. Then I blacked out again.
When I came to the second time, I was being hauled ashore on two bamboo poles. A crowd of several hundred Vietnamese gathered around me, stripping my clothes off, spitting on me and kicking and striking me. When they had finished removing my gear and clothes, I felt a sharp pain in my right knee.
I looked down and saw that my right foot was resting next to my left knee at a 90 degree angle. I cried out: "My God, my leg!"
Someone smashed a rifle butt into my shoulder, breaking it. Someone else stuck a bayonet in my ankle and groin.
A woman, who may have been a nurse, managed to dissuade the crowd from further harming me. She then applied bamboo splints to my leg and right arm.
It was with some relief that I noticed an army truck arrive on the scene. The soldiers placed me on a stretcher, loaded me into the truck and drove a few blocks to the French-built prison, Hoa Lo, which the PoWs had named the Hanoi Hilton.
As the massive steel doors clanked shut behind me, I felt a deeper dread than I have ever felt since.
The date was October 26, 1967. I was 31 and a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy when I was shot down. For two centuries, the men of my family were raised to go to war as officers in America's armed services.
I was the son and grandson of Navy officers, and my father trusted that when I met with adversity, I would use the example he had set for me.
The soldiers took me into an empty cell, set me down on the floor still on the stretcher, and placed a blanket over me. For the next few days, I drifted in and out of consciousness.
My interrogators accused me of being a war criminal and demanded military information. They knocked me around a little and I began to feel sharp pains in my fractured limbs. I blacked out after the first
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