Operation Thunderhead (4 page)

Only a very small percentage of all American POWs captured during the Korean War were U.S. Marines, and out of that number, only one officer cooperated with the enemy. In spite of the relatively few Marine POWs, the Marine Corps was the first U.S. military branch to address captives' behavior while in enemy hands.

During the early summer months of 1955, Marine Colonel F. Brooke Nihart set down on paper a series of principles to guide Marine POWs. The articles were intended to formalize a code of honor that each captive Marine could follow. Colonel Nihart had seen combat during World War II, had taken part in the Battle of Okinawa, and fought hard against the North Koreans during the Korean War. He well knew what the American fighting man was capable of, and what could be expected of him. The final Code of Conduct written by Colonel Nihart consisted of six articles and less than three hundred words. But those words held a particular significance to any member of the American military.

On August 17, 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10631, which made the Code of Conduct the official credo for all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces and everyone serving in them.

 

With the establishment of the order, President Eisenhower had directed that “each member of the Armed Forces liable to capture shall be provided with specific training and instruction designed to better equip him to counter and withstand all enemy efforts against him, and shall be fully instructed as to the behavior and obligations expected of him during combat and captivity.”

Now, instead of simply receiving survival training, pilots, air crews, and special operations soldiers who went behind enemy lines would also receive training in how to escape and evade the enemy, as well as what they could expect in terms on interrogation and psychological manipulation. Some of the instructors at military survival schools established following the adoption of the Code of Conduct had been POWs under the Japanese in World War II and the Communists during the Korean War. They well knew what could be done to manipulate a soldier, especially one who would already be experiencing the shock of having been taken prisoner.

The first article of the code was intended in part to fight the shock of being captured. No matter what the soldier's situation, he would be, above all else, a fighting man and remain such. It would be the discipline of the soldier that would help sustain him through the difficulties of his ordeal. It did not mean that he had to die to uphold the ideals of the code, but he had to be prepared to do so from the very beginning in order to fulfill his role as a fighting man. This part of the code was considered so significant that it was repeated in spirit in the last article to remind the soldier of what he was. The soldier was to support the interests of the United States and to oppose its enemies, whether in combat or captivity.

The second article meant that the soldier may never voluntarily surrender while still able to resist the enemy. He did not have to be able to fight, or even defend himself. But he had to exhaust all possible means of escape short of dying without inflicting any damage or losses on the enemy. As long as the leader of a unit had the power to evade the enemy, break out of encirclement, or resist the enemy's approach, he was bound to do so. A leader could not order his men to lay down their arms even if the unit was surrounded, isolated from friendly forces, unless his men no longer had the means to resist—meaning they were out of ammunition, unarmed, or wounded and unable to continue the fight.

It is in article three of the code where a soldier is directed to continue the fight even while a prisoner of war. The fight is not an active one of armed combat but the harder battle of resistance. It is in this arena that the soldier tries hardest to not be exploited by the enemy. Resistance includes fighting against the very real problems of physical and mental stress and manipulation, mistreatment, neglect—particularly when denied medical treatment for wounds received when captured, or political indoctrination and torture.

Part of the means of a soldier's resistance to the trials of being a POW is his duty to try and escape. If he is not able to escape for reasons of illness, wounds, or other physical limitations, he should extend every effort to help his fellow prisoners escape. In the Geneva Convention of 1949, it was stipulated that a prisoner had the right to escape and could not be punished for the attempt outside of disciplinary action and additional surveillance of the individual. Nor could a POW be punished for minor infractions of the law done to support his escape attempt, such as simple theft, forgery (falsifying papers), and being out of uniform (wearing civilian clothing) unless he had committed an act of violence against or caused the loss of life of enemy personnel or the local population.

In the last part of article three, the POW is instructed that he may not accept any special treatment offered by the enemy in return for favors or cooperation. Privileges and better treatment have been offered to POWs in exchange for their promise (parole) not to escape. The promise from a prisoner usually involved his signing a document of some kind that signified an agreement with the enemy. This also meant that the prisoners were not to accept an early release from captivity by the enemy, particularly in exchange for information or statements that could be used against fellow POWs.

Furthering this principle, article four stated that POWs will not work against each other while in captivity or do anything that would bring harm to other prisoners. If there was knowledge of an upcoming escape attempt or that a particular POW may have specific information, a prisoner had to keep that to himself. No matter how great the temptation to give that information over to the enemy, particularly if it would damage the well-being of another prisoner, a POW was not to give it over.

To help reinforce that the POWs were still considered members of the military, their command structure while imprisoned was specified in article four. Leadership would be of great importance in resisting the enemy, or even of simple survival. So would be the discipline necessary to carry out the articles of the code of conduct. Since the population of a POW camp could be comprised of men from various services branches, the senior leader would be the highest-ranking officer no matter what his organization. The mantle of leadership would move to the next highest rank, or precedence, if the commander of a group was incapacitated or unable to act for any reason.

In article five of the code, the basic information that a prisoner is allowed to give the enemy is spelled out. The term
name, rank, and serial number
has been embodied in article five, including the date of birth of the prisoner to complete the identification. This is all that a prisoner can be expected to give and still be considered to have not cooperated with the enemy. According to the Geneva Convention, a prisoner cannot be tortured, physically or mentally, in order to gain more than this basic information.

Oral or written statements, confessions, and appeals to other prisoners or audiences are not allowed. This would mean that a POW cannot take part in propaganda recordings or broadcasts. If they are forced to take part in such actions, they are to resist, limiting their cooperation to the least practical amount.

If a prisoner is tortured, he is to resist to the best of his ability. Such resistance is an individual thing; no two people hold the same tolerance to pain or psychological tortures. Injuries, malnutrition, and lack of sleep lower the ability of someone to hold out against additional tortures. But a soldier is to hold out for as long as he can; if he does break, cooperation should be kept to a minimum.

As in article one, article six reminds the individual that he is part of something greater. He is a soldier and is expected to act like one, whether on the battlefield or in the prison camp. He is responsible for his own actions; each must assist the others in surviving the ordeal of being a prisoner of war.

A START

Born in the early 1930s, John Dramesi grew up in a time that saw the United States gear up for war unlike any other period in history. As so many young boys during World War II, the adventures of flying were never far from his mind. Airplanes filled his night sky. Balsa wood models he had built hung from the ceiling in his room. There were so many models, his mother said that you needed a traffic cop just to go into the room.

As the model planes moved with the air currents, John could imagine himself piloting the real craft through the sky. But the reality of just what the aircraft he would fly someday would be like was beyond the reach of even a young boy's dreams. He can't say where he developed his interest in flying, only that it was there and the desire to be a pilot was strong. That love of flying stayed with him throughout his life.

A boy of twelve can recognize what is going on while the country around him celebrates the end of World War II—that war was a time when the entire country moved together to defeat an enemy on both sides of the world. Scrap drives, rationing, war bonds, newsreels, and the radio all served to remind everyone just what was going on elsewhere on the planet. Footage of bombers and fighters moving through the skies of Europe and the Pacific showed young Dramesi just what a flier had to do if he wanted to serve his country. No one had to teach the young man what patriotism meant; he could see it in the actions of others.

Patriotism aside, there are other things to learn growing up in a South Philadelphia row house. Toughness and the ability to depend on oneself to get through a situation counted a lot in Dramesi's neighborhood. Early on, he learned that it took skill and determination to win, not just attitude. His father had been a boxer, and part of that pugnacious attitude seemed part of the boy's genes.

Dramesi continued his education at Haddonfield High School in New Jersey, just across the river from Philadelphia. Sports were something that John enjoyed, and he chose some of the hard ones: football and wrestling. A star wrestler in high school, John knew that it also took brains to get through life. All of his friends on the football and wrestling teams were practically scheduled to go to college. So between the friends who were going to college, and a mother who knew the value of doing so, the motivation was there to work hard, do well, and get the grades that it would take to qualify for a higher education. His efforts paid off when John was accepted to go to Rutgers University.

While at Rutgers, the means to fly opened up for Dramesi when he joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC); it was both a way into the sky and a means to help pay for college. Once more, being average wasn't good enough for the young college man; he excelled in his sport as a wrestler, and as a young officer-to-be. The Scarlet Rifles was a close-order drill team that had been a national competitor since its establishment in 1933. Before graduation, John Dramesi was the commander of that drill team and showed that he could work closely and with precision alongside his teammates. That discipline helped John both as an Air Force pilot and in the greater trials that were to come.

Graduating from Rutgers with a degree in education in 1956, John Dramesi immediately went into active duty with the Air Force. Dramesi had received a letter from the service that he was to report to active duty in the fall of the year following his graduation. In his letter back to the Air Force, the impatience of the young man showed as he plainly told his superiors that the fall of the next year was too late. He wanted to go active duty immediately. The wishes of the new lieutenant were granted, as he received orders to report for duty early in 1956. He was anxious to get going and looking forward to becoming a pilot.

One memory that stood out in training was when Lieutenant Dramesi had an opportunity to do his first solo ride in a Lockheed T33 trainer. The T33 was an old aircraft; the design was developed from the first U.S. jet fighter, the F-80 (P-80), which first flew in 1944. It wasn't a high-performance aircraft—not when compared to the fighters that were in service during the late 1950s. The F-80 had been generally phased out of front-line service with the Air Force shortly after the Korean War, a few years before Dramesi entered active duty. But it was a jet, the kind of bird that wasn't even in the imagination of that young boy watching those balsa-wood planes “fly” across the ceiling of his room.