Operation Thunderhead (22 page)

There was the problem of the local environment escapees would have to go through if they managed to get out of the city. At best, it would be a difficult trek for the malnourished men. Plus the nature of North Vietnam would be working against them. An example of the savage nature of the land was shown very well when one of the prisoners killed a poisonous snake that had slipped into the cell with them. The next day, the snake's carcass was tossed onto a fence when the men went out to empty their toilet buckets. In three hours, the body of the snake was gone; it had been devoured by the insects that swarmed over the feast.

A number of the prisoners had physical disabilities from either their shoot-down ejections, or the treatment they had received at the hands of the North Vietnamese. These were pointed out as being reasons that some individuals wouldn't be able to escape with Dramesi. It was an excuse, but one that he had to accept. Tired of the discouraging attitude of his fellow prisoners, Dramesi asked for a straightforward answer from the men he shared a cell with—Who would be willing to escape with him? One man agreed to go.

PLANNING AND PREPARATION

Air Force captain Edwin Lee Atterberry had been on board an RF-4C photo reconnaissance aircraft during the first air attack on the Paul Doumer Bridge in Hanoi on August 11, 1967. Both Atterberry's plane and an F-105D were brought down by enemy fire during the attack. Ed Atterberry and Captain Thomas V. Parrott ejected from their stricken RF-4C. Captain Thomas Norris also successfully ejected from his F-105D. All three men landed safely but were quickly taken captive by the North Vietnamese. These actions took place only four months after John Dramesi was shot down.

It was several months later that Ed Atterberry became one of the prisoners being held in cell #6 at the Zoo Annex. Out of all of the prisoners held in that cell, he was the only one to stand up and agree to escape with John Dramesi. During many of the arguments for and against an escape attempt, Ed Atterberry had remained relatively quiet. But when it finally came down to a decision to act one way or another, he spoke up.

When it came to making preparations for the escape, it was only Atterberry who was active in helping Dramesi. Considerations about their physical situation caused Dramesi to make major changes in the plan for getting out of the prison camp. Though the men knew they could get out through the iron doors to the cell, it was the outer wooden doors that were giving them trouble. Dramesi had made cuts along the doors to weaken them, but the work was slower going than it had been originally, even with Atterberry helping. There were other factors that made him reevaluate their possible exit strategy. There was a wall around the courtyard of their building that they would have to get over during the escape, and it wouldn't be their only obstacle. There was a second, higher wall around the entire prison complex. On top of that wall were additional problems for the passage of the escapees: five strands of barbed wire strung on metal poles extended the length of the wall. Besides the barbed wire, there were two bare electrical wires held up one above the other on insulated posts.

The best chance would be if the men escaped through the roof of their building. That way, they would be able to look down into the Annex compound and watch for the two guards who were known to patrol the area at night. Additionally, the elevated position of being on the roof would allow the men to remain well concealed from any observation by people on the ground as they waited for their best opportunity to escape the area.

There were four ventilation holes in the cell's ceiling. The holes were large enough for a man to pass through so the North Vietnamese had blocked them with metal grids. The grids were made up of interlacing strands of barbed wire, five strands in one direction with five or six strands running in the other direction and interwoven with the first. It would normally be a formidable obstacle for men to get through with their bare hands. But Dramesi had more than his bare hands to work with. He had two iron bars and a railroad spike available to him among the materials he had been scrounging throughout the Zoo Annex. It was the risk of picking up some of these materials that had started some of the prisoners actively moving away from Dramesi and his escape plans. Now that he had them, the ceiling looked to be the way to go. The door panels were abandoned as the avenue of escape.

With the decision made to go out through the ceiling, another problem had to be addressed. The ceiling in the Zoo Annex cell where Dramesi was being held was slightly more than twelve feet high. Even standing on someone's shoulders wouldn't put Dramesi up high enough to get the leverage he needed to attack the barbed wire grid. The problem was a challenge and even the men who had thought the ceiling should not be touched now wrestled with how to do it. One of the prisoners came up with a workable solution.

To get Dramesi up high enough to move the grid away from the opening, four men would hold a pallet over their heads. They couldn't do it for very long, but Dramesi only worked on the escape route about ten minutes each day. The idea worked and he was able to fold the wire grid back and climb up into the ceiling. The tiles that made up the roof of the building could be removed from the inside of the ceiling. Once outside, Dramesi and Atterberry could replace the tiles, covering over their avenue of escape. Anything that would help hide their escape would give the men that much longer to move away from the camp.

The two men continued to work hard to move the odds of a successful escape in their favor. In spite of the poor diet, they started working out in order to build up their strength and endurance. Though their exercise area in the cell was very restricted they both jogged in very small circles until they had run a mile and a half each day.

Though the rest of the prisoners had strong reservations about the possibility of a successful escape, they still assisted Dramesi and Atterberry in their preparations. Cooperation varied with the circumstances. One day several bags of unshelled raw peanuts were delivered to the cell by one of the guards. The peanuts were in addition to the normal ration issued to the prisoners and were a welcome source of protein. As the prisoners in cell #6 were shelling the nuts, one of them pointed out that they would be a good escape food since they didn't take up much room and wouldn't spoil as quickly as other foods would. Two food bags had already been made by Dramesi and Atterberry for the escape. Long and slender with a double lining, the cloth bags could be drawn closed with a string. Within a short time, both Dramesi and Atterberry had filled the bags with raw nuts. The other prisoners grumbled a bit about having to give up a food source but accepted the escape preparations.

When small amounts of roasted nuts arrived with the meals several times during the week, Dramesi decided the cooked items might last longer than the raw ones they had already bagged. This was when some of the cooperation from the other prisoners drew to a close. Asked to trade their ration of roasted nuts for raw ones, the rest of the prisoners refused. Their excuses varied, but the results were the same.

The supply cache for the escape grew and Dramesi had found an excellent hiding place. The walls between the two cells in the building only went up to the ceiling. Above the ceiling, the entire building “attic” was open when Dramesi went up through the ventilation opening. By tying a line to an empty peanut bag, Dramesi would lower the materials into the space between the two cell walls. Attaching the line to a brace made as sure a hiding place as could be expected. Dramesi felt sure the supplies were hidden well enough that they wouldn't be discovered even if someone had to work on the roof of the building.

Though there were lapses in cooperation by the other prisoners, they still helped Dramesi and Atterberry in a number of ways. They continued hoisting Dramesi up so that he could climb through the ceiling opening. On one of his trips, Dramesi checked the roof exit possibilities by lifting up some of the tiles. He could see out across the surrounding area; looking past the wall that surrounded the prison compound, Dramesi could see local children playing in the nearby community. The possibility of escape and freedom beckoned to him.

Gathering intelligence about the camp was a constant job. Dramesi and Atterberry worked diligently to create a map of the compound. Every characteristic of the Zoo Annex was gathered by the two men. They made notes of each guard shift; the location of every bush, depression, and feature was collected and marked down. Shadows were plotted out as were the location of the guard towers, foxholes, and any other fortifications. Decisions were made as to exactly where they would climb down from the roof, where they would crawl to, and where they could take cover along the way to the outer wall. The problems of the electrified fence on top of the outer wall was addressed by Atterberry, who had prior electrical experience.

Prior to joining the Air Force, Atterberry had been a telephone lineman in Texas. His experience there in handling hot lines and what could happen to them was of great importance to the Party, as Dramesi had code-named the escape attempt. To take out the electrical wires across the top of the outer wall, Atterberry reinforced Dramesi's plan to escape during a rainstorm. It was common for the camp's electrical system to short out during a storm, plunging the camp into darkness. The shorting problem was common enough that the guards would usually ignore them until the morning, when they could work in the daylight.

Rather than try to depend on nature shorting out the electric fence, Atterberry suggested they come up with a pole-and-wire arrangement. By hanging a hooked wire over the top electrical line and letting it hang down, the wire would short out the entire system as soon as it contacted the lower wire. It was a way for the prisoners to “turn off” the electric fence at will. Dramesi even convinced one of the other cells to break the lightbulb out in their courtyard to help keep the area in darkness. When he heard that bulb pop, Dramesi knew they were one small step closer to escape.

Though he had wanted the Party to begin in the fall of 1968, Dramesi was overruled by Trautman, who refused to give his permission for the escape at that time. The SRO also attached some conditions to the escape attempt regarding the time of the attempt and the consensus among the other prisoners in cell #6. Dramesi remained enthusiastic about making the attempt, and he constantly pushed for permission to go. It was when winter came on that he finally relented in holding off on the Party until the spring of 1969.

Though he had reservations about Dramesi and Atterberry even making the escape attempt at all, Trautman had several things to consider as the senior officer of the camp. It was stated plainly in the Code of Conduct that a prisoner would “make every effort to escape and aid others to escape.” Dramesi had the right—in his view, the duty—to make the escape attempt. Trautman agreed with this but also had to consider another part of the Code of Conduct.

In the fourth paragraph of the Code, it stated in part that no prisoners would “take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades.” There was no real question that anyone who escaped, whether successful or not, would bring the wrath of the North Vietnamese down on the prisoners who remained. The only way to avoid this was to have all of the prisoners escape, but that was impossible to do in any practical way. Additionally, only Dramesi and Atterberry wanted to make the attempt; no one else wanted to go with them. Enthusiastic as he might be, Dramesi was also a disciplined military man. Trautman had to issue orders, and Dramesi had to follow them.

There was no question that the planned escape was a carefully considered one. Trying to cover all aspects of getting out of the camp, crossing through population centers, and getting down to where the U.S. Fleet could be reached, had been something Dramesi had done meticulously. From gathering intelligence on the camp to preparing their bodies through running and calisthenics, Dramesi and Atterberry were leaving as little as possible to chance. Trautman was particularly impressed with Dramesi's plan and preparations for passing though the local areas.

Having stolen materials to manufacture props, Dramesi and Atterberry intended passing themselves off as simple peasants when going through the streets of Hanoi. The disguises the two men planned to use were ingenious both in terms of their effects and the very simple materials they had to work with.

The North Vietnamese issued very little in terms of medical materials to the prisoners. One of the things they did give out was brown iodine pills to help combat the rampant diarrhea brought on by the poor food and bad water. Having obtained some of the pills, Dramesi found that by grinding them up and mixing them with brick dust and water, they made a reasonable dye to darken the skin of the hands, neck, and face. Several of the pills were held back to also be used to purify water the men would need to locate along their escape route.

To cover up their non-Asian features, both Dramesi and Atterberry had made up face masks: simple squares of cloth that were attached to lines that looped around the ears of the wearer. Such surgical masks were very common among the Asian communities where people used them as a protection against dust and disease. Using strips of bamboo taken from their sleeping mats, the men had woven conical hats also resembling those commonly worn throughout the local community.

The common “black pajama” clothing worn by the North Vietnamese peasantry was made from spare pieces of prison uniforms. They had sandals available to them as well as a few pieces of stage props. Having stolen a few baskets and a longer bamboo pole, the men now had a chogi stick, the very common carrying poles used to transport personal items all over Asia. They even had some simple knives made up from metal strips bound to bamboo handles and carefully shaped and sharpened on chunks of bricks and stone. To help them hide along the way, the men had made up camouflage nets from a number of stolen blankets. Bits of straw from old brooms made up the grass clumps on the nets.