Operation Thunderhead (29 page)

Time continued to pass for the prisoners at the camps. Apathy and fear had taken hold in a number of the men, though there were periods of defiance of the North Vietnamese. Feeling that a symbol would help draw the prisoners together, Dramesi set out to create the most powerful one he could think of. With a needle formed from carefully sharpened copper wire and scrounged materials, he set to work. On a white handkerchief, he stitched. The blue field came from a sweater that had been supplied by the North Vietnamese, but not for the purpose that he employed it. White thread came from a towel, red stripes from a set of underwear sent in another prisoner's Care package. Yellow thread from a blanket provided a gold border. Working for nearly two weeks sewing quietly every night, Dramesi made an American flag. It was what he considered the ultimate symbol of freedom. It was early 1971 and he had been a prisoner for nearly four years. It was longer than any American POWs held during World War II, and there were many other prisoners about him who had been held by the North Vietnamese for much longer.

Through the movements of prisoners dictated by the North Vietnamese, the makeup of the escape committee changed. By the late spring of 1971, the committee was made up of Dramesi, Coker, McKNIGHT, and Kasler. As the ranking man, Kasler took over the command of the committee and he still wanted to see an escape go forward. The men planned for an attempt to be made in August 1971, six months away.

A planned escape would require supplies, which would have to be gathered and hidden from the guards. The discovery of some plastered-over drain holes gave Dramesi the possibility of a secure hiding place. With some excavation and working with scrounged and materials stolen from the North Vietnamese, Dramesi found that his drain holes were indeed very good hiding places. With that hurdle covered, the plan went forward to the next major obstacle, this one among the prisoners themselves. It was time to explain the plan in general and what the escape committee wanted to do to the senior ranking officer in the room.

With the removal of most of the senior officers from the room, there was a new SRO in command, and he was anything but agreeable to an escape attempt. During the discussion with the SRO, Dramesi pointed out many points of the escape plan in general and several parts in particular detail. He had found a pathway out of the room and the building again through the ceiling as during his last attempt. The rope that needed to be used for the escape could be manufactured from what was available; the committee had already made up a section and tested it for strength. Materials for the escape, food, disguises, and most important, information, were available in much greater quantity and quality than Dramesi and Atterberry had available to them during their attempted escape nearly two years earlier.

Again, the pathway to freedom was going to be the Red River. Instead of immediately stealing a boat and possibly alerting the North Vietnamese as to just where the escaped prisoners were heading, Dramesi had come up with an alternate plan. The escapees would use plastic bags, of which they already had a satisfactory supply, to make life preservers and waterproof their gear. The swimming approach had already been tried by Coker and McKnight; it would be even better with prior preparation. The plan was not foolproof and it never could be. But it was a good one and had a better chance of success that the previous attempts.

In the end, the planning fell on deaf ears. The new SRO wouldn't approve of an escape plan and he wouldn't allow anyone to make the attempt. That escape effort was ended and the date in August came and went without action. The end of the summer of 1971 was a very down time for Dramesi, but he still wasn't going to surrender. The Code of Conduct insisted that prisoners make every effort to escape, and he was going to continue following that directive to the best of his ability.

OPERATION DIAMOND

In the last months of 1971 the North Vietnamese again moved a number of prisoners about the compounds. In response to the prisoners' activities—some of which were no threat to the North Vietnamese or the security of the camp—the guards removed a number of the senior officers of room #7. Among the people taken from the room was the SRO who had refused the escape committee permission to continue with their plan.

A few days before the shakeup, the SRO had given Dramesi some very unwelcome information. The order was simple: There could be no escape without outside assistance. The SRO said that such was the policy and it was going to stand. The statement was also a complete reversal of what the SRO had told to Dramesi close to when the two had first met in the beginning of Camp Unity.

While he had been held in solitary confinement after his punitive torture session in room #18, Dramesi had been visited by a number of North Vietnamese. One of these individuals had been a high-ranking senior officer who told Dramesi in no uncertain terms to not escape again. If he escaped a third time, the officer had said, “That will not be good for you.” Dramesi had been the only prisoner to have already escaped the North Vietnamese twice before. The officer was assuring him that a third attempt would be the end of John Dramesi.

In spite of that threat, Dramesi had been going ahead with preparations for another escape. The North Vietnamese had threatened him with death, and the implication that it would be a particularly gruesome one. Now his own leadership was putting roadblocks in his way. But that did not stop Dramesi or the others who wanted to make their bid for freedom. A new escape committee formed and considered a possible plan of action. The rotation of men in and out of room #7 resulted in a new SRO. To maintain operational security, Dramesi and the newly formed committee did not bring the new SRO into their confidence. They were facing enough difficulties with the new escape orders from the senior SRO of the entire camp.

The first in a series of new orders issued by the camp SRO was that no one could escape unless he could show their plan had at least a 90 percent chance of success. All of the men knew that even a well-planned, fully supported mission over enemy territory didn't have those odds of success most of the time. The requirement was so ridiculous that the men laughed out loud after hearing it. It was obvious to everyone concerned that such an order was impossible to meet.

The 90 percent order showed that the camp SRO was simply trying to give lip service to the demands of the Code of Conduct. It was so obvious a dodge that he soon issued a new order to override the demands of his earlier one. Considerations for an escape could go forward, plans and preparations could be done, but only if the men planning the escape could show they had outside support.

There had been new developments in the preparations for an escape unknown to the camp SRO or even the SRO of room #7. Dramesi and other members of the escape committee had been working to establish that they did indeed have outside assistance. Very covert lines of communications had been opened to the prisoners, allowing the almost unthinkable to take place: The men could actually get a message to higher command back in the United States. Outside help was not necessarily available from among the local population of Hanoi, but there could be arrangements made for a pickup of the prisoners once they reached the ocean.

The camp SRO issued another order that appeared to end the question of escape while still remaining within the directives of the Code of Conduct: The SRO would not make the final decision as far as the go or no-go on an escape attempt was concerned. That decision was to be deferred to the highest available outside authority. Only if an escape committee could get permission from the United States could they carry out their plans. It was a requirement the camp SRO could not see being met on any practical basis. He hadn't considered Dramesi's determination to reach freedom, or die in the attempt.

The men of the escape committee had been making preparations and plans that would not have met the 90 percent rule put out earlier by the SRO, but it was the best plan developed to date. The greatest advantage they had over earlier attempts was the amount of intelligence that had been gathered on the surrounding area. A map had been supplied to the escape committee, one that showed Hanoi in finer detail than the men had seen before. Wrapped in plastic to keep the paper from being damaged, the precious map had been stuck inside a hollowed-out twig. The twig had been sent down the gutter in the camp, where Dramesi had been waiting. It wasn't long before the guard had been looking the other way and Dramesi was able to take the innocuous-looking object out of the water.

The map held the kind of information that could have changed the outcome of Dramesi and Atterberry's earlier escape attempt. One of the valuable points of information was the exact location of the prison where the men were in relation to the surrounding area. The Red River was off to the west, a relatively short distance considering how much ground Dramesi's previous attempt had covered. In addition to significant locations, the map also had notes detailing what kind of traffic could be expected on which roads, and what would be the easiest and fastest path to follow to the river.

Many of the plans and some of the preparations intended for the August 1971 escape plan were still available. Dramesi had confirmed the hiding places available in the plastered-over drains were still there. Supplies could be stashed away and the disguises put together. They had even stolen some mirrors, materials they would need to signal American forces. The men of the escape committee had everything they needed for an escape, as well as a very good idea of what would and would not work. Hard-won experience had shown that a Caucasian could move through the local Asian population and not be noticed. It would only take audacity, bravery, and leadership to make a plan work.

In spite of the lack of support from some of the other prisoners, Dramesi and the rest of the escape committee went ahead with their preparations. There was no sign from the North Vietnamese that there would be any change in prisoner status for the foreseeable future. They were pawns in the international game being played out between the North Vietnamese and the government of the United States. The only sure way Dramesi could see to change the situation would be to take an active role in determining at least his own fate. And that active role meant escape. But he was first and foremost a military officer. He respected the chain of command, no matter what he thought of those above him. He would obey orders and follow the requirements put forward by the SRO of the camp.

The covert communication system worked both ways. A message could be gotten out by the prisoners that would eventually make its way to U.S. authorities. In addition, the prisoners could receive information, and materials, though in Dramesi's opinion, the kinds of things that came in were not worth the risk or difficulty to receive them.

What was known as the three “S's” made it to the prisoners on a fairly regular basis: sympathy, snack packs, and sports. That meant that the incredibly valuable communications system managed to deliver messages of sympathy from home, as well as sports results. The information was a morale booster, as were the foodstuffs that came in. In some cases, the sports and sympathy information was contained within the snack packs.

Dramesi was not the only one to not really give a damn about who was winning the World Series. He considered such things to be a terrible waste of space, time, money, and effort. But the people who had established the communications link felt that such things were important, and to the prisoner population at large, they were a link to home—in spite of very few people at the camp even knowing that the link existed.

These were the kind of things that came in to the camp despite the scrutiny of the North Vietnamese. The delivery of the messages and materials could be spotty. Delays in the system were inevitable, and they couldn't be foretold or prevented. When the request for permission to escape went out, the return message would have to come in by the most timely and positive method available. It would be a very brief message, as required by the delivery system. There would be one signal for yes, and another for no. What the return message would be was suggested by the prisoners; the specific means of its delivery was left up to the outside authorities.

To help ensure that the incoming message was received it would be repeated. And it would come from a source that would prove authorization from the highest source. For security purposes, only the escape committee knew that the message would be coming in. But everyone in the camp would know it was delivered.

The men of the escape committee realized what the results of their planned escape could be. It could mean a great deal more than just the freedom of those who got to the far side of the wall. They knew that their request could be turned down. Because of the political implications of the resulting escape, the decision to go or not go could only be made by the highest authority, the commander in chief himself. The effort to support the escape would very likely be a tremendous one. When the message came to the prisoners, it was unmistakable by those who knew what it was.

The U.S. intelligence community received the message that Dramesi had sent out and immediately recognized its importance. While still maintaining the highest levels of security, the proper authorities were notified of the decisions that had to be made. The basic plan of the prisoners' escape was given a code name. It was to be called Operation Diamond.

BLACKBIRDS BOOMING THE HANOI HILTON

One of the most exotic aircraft of the Vietnam War was also one of the most rarely seen. Shot at a number of times, but never hit, the SR-71 Blackbird (named for its special black paint) was at its heart simply a reconnaissance plane, but an extremely sophisticated one. It carried no armament, but the cameras and sensors it had on board could do more damage to the enemy than anything short of a nuclear weapon.