Dianne Hanks – Queen of Makeovers

I have received permission from Larry to send this to all who care to read his story of Christmases in a foreign land. I am attaching a copy of his bio for your reference. His story of his years as a prisoner of war can be found in his book entitled “Seven Years in Hanoi.” The book is now out of print, but if you would like a copy, email me and I will email one to you.

If you care to email Larry Chesley and share with him your thoughts, please feel free to do so. He would enjoy hearing from you. His email address is luckyc@cox.net.

May you find joy and comfort through the loving influence of our Father in Heaven. May you find peace by following the ever so gentle guidance of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and in whose birth we celebrate. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

With warm regards,
Joe Kwan

CHRISTMASES AS A VIETNAM PRISONER OF WAR
by Larry Chesley

On December 7, 1965 I bid goodbye to my wife and two children, Debbie and Don, who were 4 and 2 years old at the time and departed for the war in Vietnam. I assured them that I would be home next year for Christmas 1966. What I did not know was that I would miss the next eight Christmases away from my family.

My first Christmas in Thailand was just a few weeks after my arrival. It was just another day of flying bombing missions against North Vietnam. I was scheduled for a mid-morning flight. When I got to flight scheduling I was taken off the schedule for some reason. Because of the change, I was excited to be able to attend the Bob Hope Christmas Show taking place that morning at our base. While we were seated waiting for the program to begin, we watched the takeoff of several F4 flights, including the flight to which I had originally been assigned. An hour and a half later, that flight returned with only three of the four aircraft. One plane had been shot down, and I wondered if it might have been the plane I was supposed to have flown.

Although the thoughts of the lost plane gave me a moment of self reflection, I sincerely believed I would return home in safety if I did my best to live the teachings of Jesus Christ. My patriarchal blessing had promised that no matter what would come or what would go I would return home to my family and loved ones. I was dedicated to the gospel and knew that my life and safety were in the hands of a loving Heavenly Father. I prayed daily for my family as well as for my comrades who were fighting with me.

My war deployment was to Thailand at Ubon Thai Royal Air Force Base as an F-4 pilot. Most of the time my squadron was assigned to fly night missions to bomb bridges and caves where ammunition was stored. The danger of flying these missions was much more than the possibility of our planes being shot at. At night the high and ragged mountain ranges of North Vietnam were impossible to see until we dropped our flares. I was more afraid of flying into a mountain than of being shot down.

April 16, 1966 began as just another ordinary day in Thailand. I got up at about one o’clock in the afternoon, had breakfast, and then went down to our squadron building for a briefing. Our assignment was a night mission. Night missions ran from sundown until sun up the next morning. Ours was to be the first takeoff, just before dark. As I walked into the squad room, I heard the encouraging words from a fellow pilot: “Larry, I’ve picked an easy target for us tonight. There are no guns over there; it’s just going to be a milk run.”

Major Sam Johnson, the flight lead, and I went out to the aircraft for the pre-flight check. I should have known it was not going to be a good day. I had flown in this same plane the night before, and the gun did not work then. In today’s quick check it appeared to me that the gun had not been serviced, but the crew chief assured us it had been repaired and was in working order. We accepted his word, finished the pre-flight, and made a visual check before we got in the plane about 4:30 p.m.

For about 35 minutes we flew across Laos at a height of about 50 feet, arriving over our target around 5:05 p.m. We were flying a two-ship formation about one mile in trail—two F4C fighter-bomber aircraft with two men in each. The target was a cave on the east side of a large piece of karst (a kind of rock which looks like coral and is spread over the Vietnam countryside) in southern North Vietnam, about thirty miles north of the DMZ. As we passed over the target to get a visual, a barrage of anti aircraft guns opened up on us. The other plane was not in a position to help us out, so we made a sweeping turn, diving at the guns, but when we tried to fire our gun at the gun position it didn’t work. We took a hit somewhere in the control system, and our plane was on fire and started to buck like a wild horse. Fortunately it started to pitch upwards, or we would have quickly hit the ground.

With the plane out of control, Major Johnson yelled at me through the communication system, “Get out! Get out!” I grasped the handle between my knees and pulled on it to eject myself—but nothing happened. Despite several more attempts, the ejection handle would not work. Major Johnson ejected successfully still shouting “Get out!” The primary ejection method was pulling on a face curtain to protect the face from windblast on ejection, which Major Johnson had used. Down between the pilot’s knees was a ring hooked to the seat and known officially as the alternate ejection handle. It was this handle I had pulled on without success. Because the face curtain was now blowing out of reach over my head and the aircraft was in a negative G condition, I could not get hold of it. So I turned in my seat, grabbed the handle over my head and gave it a mighty tug, and this time it worked. I was ejected from the aircraft.

In the ejection process I was knocked unconscious. When I came to I was looking downward to see the ground rapidly coming up to meet me and the Vietnamese coming to capture me. It doesn’t take long to fall a couple of thousand feet. I hit the ground feet first, then fell on my tailbone and was momentarily knocked unconscious. When I came to, I was quickly surrounded by Vietnamese farm workers. The ejection from the plane had cracked a vertebra, and I was in severe pain. My captors made me run several hundred yards across the countryside and took me into a building that was used for grain storage. By this time I had been handed over to the military.

For the next two weeks, I was transported in the back of a military truck over bombed out roads, tortured, and beaten all with a broken back. Major Johnson and another captured Navy Lieutenant were my traveling companions. All of us were blindfolded and our arms were tied tightly behind our backs. We finally arrived at a twelve-foot cement wall covered with concertina wire which surrounded a huge prison compound in Hanoi. The truck pulled up outside the big iron gates, the guards kicked us off the truck, and we walked inside the notorious “Hanoi Hilton.” This along with several other prison camps was where I was destined to spend much of the next seven years.

There were no easy days as a prisoner of war, but holidays were especially hard. Each Christmas would remind me of the promise I had made to my family that I would only miss that one Christmas. Despite our hardships, however, we did not let Christmas be just another ordinary day. We were unique as a group of POWs. Our average age was about 28, most of us had university degrees, and almost all the men were either pilots or aircrew members. Each Christmas we would imagine that this would surely be the last one we would have to be separated from our families. What made it even harder for me was that my family did not find out for four years that I was even alive. Despite their not knowing absolutely, my parents and family never gave up hope.

Although I do not remember the details of every Christmas spent as a prisoner of war, there are some that hold significant memories for me. By Christmas of 1966 I had been moved from the Hanoi Hilton to a camp that we called Briar Patch. The entire camp had gone through some pretty serious torture sessions in late November and early December. On Christmas day our captors paraded a couple of turkeys through the yard, and later we got a tiny piece of turkey meat and soup that actually had some flavor. My roommate, Jim Ray, and I were taken from our cell to a torture room that had been set up with a small bush decorated with a few colored lights hooked to a car battery. The chief torturer made small talk while Christmas music played in the background. Some of the men got to write home that day, but I did not. I was experiencing severe pain in my feet at this time. I thought it was just a recurrence of the pain I suffered during the last torture session when they ran me barefoot through the rocky terrain of our mountain camp. Unfortunately that was not the problem. I did not know it at Christmas, but I soon found out that I had a very bad case of beri beri—a Vitamin B deficiency which attacked the nerves in my hands and feet. It would get worse over the next three months. I lost 40-50 pounds before it leveled off. These were dark days for me.

Christmas 1969 found me living in a camp at Son Tay where some men received small packages from home. But by Christmas of 1970 we had been moved back to a camp within the Hanoi Hilton that we called Camp Unity. This was the first time the Vietnamese had allowed groups of POWs to live together in bigger rooms. There were 48 men in my room, which allowed about 17 inches of sleeping space at night. Although conditions were cramped, we enjoyed being able to associate with each other. On Christmas Eve of 1970 nearly everyone got a package from home, including me. Because not all the men in my group received packages, we put all the goodies in a pile and divided them up. It was traditional in my family not to open gifts on Christmas Eve, so I chose to keep all of my treats for Christmas Day. This turned out to be a bad decision. During the night the Vietnamese came in and took everything back. I ended up with nothing while those who had eaten most of their goodies the night before at least had something pleasant to remember. Following another family tradition, I hung a sock up each year I was a POW and, of course, found it empty each Christmas Day. For some reason the guards ignored my sock during the raid. When I got up on Christmas day there was an orange in my sock. I still do not know which of my roommates put it there or how it survived the raid, but I shall never forget the love and compassion that one of my cellmates had for me.

Every day as a POW would have been considered Christmas if one were to define it as a special time for serving others. All prisoners helped each other, sometimes at great risk. Most of the injuries from our shoot downs were never medically treated. One POW had both of his arms broken so badly that they grew back crooked. His roommate had to help him get dressed each day and had to perform other simple tasks that were required. Another prisoner had grand mall seizures from being hit over the head with a gun barrel during torture sessions. Because these sudden attacks were life threatening, we would take turns staying up with him throughout the night in case he had a seizure. Everyone helped another inmate with physical therapy which resulted from faulty surgery to his arm after his arrival at the camp. Not all our service to each other was prompted by physical or health needs. A comrade made a mouth guard for another prisoner who ground his teeth at night. When a captured Navy pilot was sick and threw up in the toilet bucket, his false tooth came out. His roommate was willing to put his arm into the bucket and explore until he found the tooth. When I was in extreme pain in my hands and feet from beri beri, my cellmate, Jim Ray, yelled at the guards for help. When they came, the first thing they did was try to beat me. Out of love and concern for me, Jim threw the guards out of the cell knowing that he was breaking a prison rule and putting his own life in jeopardy by doing it. All the POWs believed that no sacrifice on our part was too great for our fellow comrades.

Yes, I missed Christmas for eight years, but in those dark prison cells I still found the true spirit of Christmas. It was manifest in the love, sacrifice, charity, and humanity that one man could show to another under the most adverse of circumstances. By this definition, the spirit of Christmas permeated each of the 2,495 days I was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Most of us relied on prayer and our faith in Jesus Christ to see us through the hard times. All of us were dedicated to each other and to the United States of America. It was a privilege to have shared Christmas for eight years with my POW comrades in order to protect our precious freedom, especially freedom of worship. I will always feel a deeper significance for Christmas because of what I learned during my imprisonment. My feelings can be expressed in the extra verse one of the POWs wrote to the hymn, “How Great Thou Art.” They are:
In foreign lands you’re even there to guide me,
Your holy Spirit in my heart yet dwells.
When nights are cold, I feel your light inside me,
Imparting warmth to these cold hostile cells.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee,
How great thou art! How great thou art!

My family put up the Christmas tree for me upon my return home to Burley, Idaho in March, 1973, and we had our own joyous celebration. It was impossible to make up for the eight Christmas seasons we had been apart, but we tried.

And so my message to my family and friends, for whom I write this story, is that every day can be Christmas if we give gifts of love and service to someone each day with no thought of receiving a gift in return. The birth of Christ is why we celebrate Christmas, and Christ is the greatest gift God has ever given to mankind. I know this with all my heart.