Operation Thunderhead (7 page)

With millions of dollars' worth of aircraft and weapons at his command, and the training to use them, John Dramesi was captured by two North Vietnamese men armed with rifles, an officer of some kind, and a young boy in shorts armed with a machete. They came on him while he thrashed about in the brush, frantically trying to get to cover. The bullet had knocked him down but not out of the fight. If he could evade his captors, there was still a chance that the search-and-rescue birds could come in and get him. But the North Vietnamese were on him, stripping him of all of his equipment—especially his precious radio. The Sandys overhead could not do much now, as the man they had come to rescue was shoved along the trail by his captors. Their last option was to do a screaming run at low altitude, just over the heads of the men on the ground. The distraction might be enough for Dramesi to make a break for it.

The North Vietnamese jumped into the brush, but Dramesi couldn't run from the injuries to both his legs. His captors got up and rushed him along as the Sandy pulled away. Limping and trying to move as slowly as he could, Dramesi was prodded along by the gun barrels of the men around him. His hands were tied behind his back, the untreated wound in his leg streaming blood, and his left knee starting to stiffen up and ache as he was forced along.

Other pilots who had been shot down were stunned by their experience. Just surviving the act of ejection could be overwhelming to a man used to being in control while at the controls of a multimillion-dollar aircraft. For Dramesi, he had already been in combat on the ground. He knew what it took to move and survive in the jungle. He also wasn't the kind of person to give up, ever. Even as he was trying to slow his captors down, delay them as best he could, he was constantly staying aware of his surroundings, looking for that chance to escape. He was caught, but he was alive. And there would be search-and-rescue aircraft looking for him.

The North Vietnamese had been fighting wars for a long time. Even the local militias, such as the men who had caught Dramesi, knew not to stay in one place very long. That lesson had been driven home hard when the American they were moving had directed the rockets and cannon fire of the enemy down among them. If they had known that it was Dramesi personally who had been directing those air strikes, they may not have worked so hard to capture him alive.

Just because they wanted him alive didn't mean the North Vietnamese who were holding him would treat him with any consideration at all. Dramesi was tethered to one of the guards for the journey. As they moved downhill, the guards, boy, and their American captive crossed a stream and then followed it downhill before turning off in another direction. The boy was apparently a local, as he was directing the way the group went. A village was coming up in the distance, surrounded by rice paddies filled with water for the new growing season. Perhaps this was where the boy had come from, since it was the only real population center they had come up on. As the group got closer to the village, Dramesi slipped in the mud. Unable to hold his balance with his hands tied, he crashed facefirst into the stinking filth and knee-deep water.

Every time Dramesi tried to climb up out of the muddy water, the guard he was tethered to yanked on the rope. Whether from anger, stupidity, or simple hatred, the yank repeatedly toppled the struggling man. Over and over again, the pilot was tripped up and dumped back into the water. Realizing that he would drown if he didn't do something, Dramesi grabbed at the rope with his tied hands and gave it a yank himself.

The unexpected pull from his prisoner surprised the guard, pulling him off the paddy dike and dumping him into the water. As Dramesi finally got back up, the young boy accompanying them laughed at the guard's dilemma. Angrier with the American than he had been before, the guard crawled out of the paddy, ready to do real harm to his defiant prisoner. Before the other guard had to stop any further attack, the ground started to shudder at the sound of violent explosions.

Off in the distance, American planes were attacking ground targets with heavy bombs. It might have been the Sandys, which were trying to provide Dramesi some cover and distraction for an escape attempt. If it was them, the rules of engagement prevented Dramesi's allies from attacking the village directly. The locals would have had no way to know that, though, and were taking cover as best they could.

The thunder of the explosions frightened the guards as well as the occupants of the village. Following the villagers, the guards quickly shoved Dramesi into a tunnel underneath one of the huts. The twists of the tunnel ended as Dramesi crawled into a low-ceiling bomb shelter, where other villagers were also hiding.

The village shelter quickly filled with people waiting out the air raid. Shoved together in tight quarters, Dramesi could do little more than just look about his surroundings. A mother cradled an infant in her arms, suckling the child for comfort. Others simply watched and waited. The thunder of the bombs finally stopped, and the North Vietnamese now took the time to see the damage to their prisoner.

Slitting up the legs to his flight suit, the guards could see the bullet wound in his leg. The left knee was swelling, but nothing could be done about that. The bullet wound in his right leg was something that could be treated, though only slightly. A dirty rag was tied around the wound, the closest thing to a bandage that Dramesi was likely to get.

A North Vietnamese officer came down into the crowded bomb shelter to get Dramesi up and away from the villagers. Indicating his injured legs, Dramesi shook his head at the officer's gesturing. The inability of his prisoner to cooperate angered the officer. As he shouted at the injured pilot, Dramesi just kept shaking his head and refusing to get up.

The North Vietnamese officer had been with the ground force of men who had been trying to capture Dramesi when the Sandys came in. He indicated that he had lost twenty men to the well-directed air strikes that had been Dramesi's doing. Finally, he pulled an automatic pistol from a holster, cocked it, and pointed it at the prisoner.

The rest of the villagers in the still-crowded bomb shelter started to panic. A gunshot fired in the close quarters of the shelter would probably injure a number of them even if Dramesi was hit with the first shot. A miss could likely kill a number of them. They had just survived a bombing attack; they did not want to die at the hands of one of their own countrymen.

The look of Dramesi's blood-stained leg was bad, though his other leg bothered him even more. Finally the officer holstered his weapon and left the shelter. But he returned shortly and again ordered Dramesi to leave the shelter, crawling if he had to.

Once outside, the injured pilot acted as if his wounds were much worse than they seemed, forcing him to collapse, even when enemy soldiers tried to pick him up. More threats from the officer, including him once more waving his gun about, did nothing to change the situation.

Finally leaving to bring in some additional soldiers, the officer had Dramesi slung in a net hammock underneath a pole. Shouldering the pole, two of the North Vietnamese soldiers carried the American between them. A third carried their weapons. Acting as if every move caused him pain, Dramesi groaned and grunted at every jolt and jiggle. His transport crew entertained themselves for a while trying to make their passenger as uncomfortable as possible. Then they finally settled down to simply carry their prisoner on to the next village.

MOVING

Back during his survival training, the instructors had said that the best time for a prisoner to escape was as soon as possible after capture. Not only would the prisoner then have the best idea of just where he was, as in Dramesi's case, but the situation would be at its most confusing. Once the POW reached a camp or traditional prisoner facility, escape was that much harder.

The North Vietnamese who were moving Dramesi had a very good idea how to avoid American aircraft; they just traveled at night. There was enough starlight shining down that the trail in front of the party was a light gray line through the jungle. Following that line in the darkness led the way to a small house instead of another village. People were in the house, nervous folk who had been enduring the American bombs for some time.

In the main room of the house, a small candle was burning on a table. Even that dim light was more than the people would risk when they heard an aircraft passing by overhead. The light was extinguished until the danger had passed.

While Dramesi lay on the ground, one of the soldiers pulled the dirty cloth away from the bullet wound in his leg. The wound had stopped bleeding, but the possibility of infection from the rough bandage was a real one. The enemy soldier must have been worried enough about losing his prize catch that he took the time to treat the wound a little better. Or maybe he just wanted the leg to get better enough that Dramesi could walk instead of being carried. Either way, the soldier placed a standard military-style bandage on the wound, strapping it down reasonably well.

While he was receiving this very limited medical care, one of the house's occupants became incensed at seeing the American. It may have been that Dramesi receiving any kind of care at the hands of his captors was more than the old man watching could take. Or perhaps he was near the edge of his endurance from the stress of the possible bombing attacks. Rushing up to where the American lay helpless, the old man started beating Dramesi about the head and shoulders.

After watching the show for a bit, the guards finally pulled the man away and stopped him from continuing the beating. In mild voices, the guards lectured the man. Dramesi couldn't understand the words, but the tone indicated that the guards weren't all that upset, just that he shouldn't beat the man they had already carried so far.

As the guards spoke to the old man who had been beating Dramesi, a second elderly man entered the room. This man radiated a greater aura of command than anyone else in the room and was clearly in charge of the group, if not also the soldiers. He asked Dramesi in French if he understood that language. When communications didn't open up, he handed the prisoner a piece of paper and indicated that he wanted the pilot to write something down. Dramesi knew that the elderly man wanted his identification, probably what aircraft he had been flying as well. But Dramesi wasn't willing to give up that information and pretended he didn't understand the request.

Finally, the old man left the room. From another room came the sound of an antique telephone, the kind that had to be hand-cranked to make a call. Whatever the conversation was over the phone, it took some time. Finally, the elderly man came back into the room, again with a piece of paper in his hand. He handed the paper and a pencil to Dramesi. In the dim light of the candle, Dramesi could make out writing on the paper, writing that was in English.

The instructions on the paper were that Dramesi was to put down his name, rank, serial number, and type of aircraft that he had been piloting. There were spaces under the questions where Dramesi was to write his answers. Hr wrote, “John Dramesi, Captain, FR 60532,” and that was all. The old man who had attacked Dramesi was lurking close by, but still the American refused to write anything further on the paper. Finally, the elderly man took the paper and went back into the room where the telephone was. That signaled the end of the prisoner's first interrogation session.

Ringing someone on the old phone, the elderly man read off Dramesi's answers to whoever was on the other end of the line. This conversation was much shorter than the earlier one had been and the elderly man rang off and returned to where his prisoner was secured. Issuing some instructions to Dramesi's guards, the elderly man had a flat pallet of bamboo brought in, and the injured pilot laid down on it. Loops at the corners of the pallet were long enough to allow a pole to be slipped through them and the prisoner lifted up from the ground.

As Dramesi and his carriers moved back out into the darkness, one of the men who had been carrying him earlier disappeared into the black, moving back the way they originally came. He was carrying the netting hammock that Dramesi had been transported in.

As he watched the stars go by above him, Dramesi lay on his pallet wondering just what might be in store for him ahead. The propaganda that had been coming out from the North Vietnamese said that American POWs were treated well. As a possible future guest of the North Vietnamese, Dramesi considered the possibility that the food in the Hanoi prisons might even be as good as the propaganda said it was. It didn't really make any difference, though; Dramesi had no intentions of staying a POW long enough to try any more of the local cuisine than he had to.

As the sun started to come up the next morning, Dramesi and his captors were approaching another village. In the light, the prisoner started to think seriously about escape. Despite his injuries, he was in relatively good shape. While he was being moved about, the available manpower to search for him was limited.

Sleep was something he needed. In spite of being placed in the bottom of a trench rather than under any real cover, Dramesi found he had little trouble nodding off. Waking up to the pressure of needing to relieve himself, Dramesi realized he was alone in the trench. After attending to his immediate needs, he explored his surroundings; there still were no apparent guards about. The lessons of his prison camp experiences back in training remained him not to accept the obvious way out. That was what his classmates had done at that prison camp in Nevada, and they had been “shot down” for their efforts. In his present situation, Dramesi seriously doubted there would be little hesitation on the part of his guards to shoot him, and they would not be using blanks.

After spending the day in the trench, Dramesi's guard and transport detachment once again showed up just as darkness was falling. Back on his bamboo pallet, he was once more carried off but at a slower pace than the day before. The group traveled through the night. Before the sun came up the next morning, they arrived at another village.