MARSHALL, MARION ANTHONY
Name: Marion Anthony Marshall Rank/Branch: O3/US Air Force, NAV Unit: 13th TFS Date of Birth: Home City of Record: Upper Marlboro MD Date of Loss: 03 July 1972 Country of Loss: North Vietnam Loss Coordinates: 180720N 1054347E (WF778023) Status (In 1973): Missing In Action Category: Acft/Vehicle/Ground: F4E Missions: 51 North Vietnam 266 Total Other Personnel In Incident: Stephen H. Cuthbert, remains returned, pilot
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project 01 April 1991 from one or more of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. Updated by the P.O.W. NETWORK.
REMARKS: 730329 RELEASED BY DRV
SYNOPSIS: The Phantom, used by Air Force, Marine and Navy air wings, served a multitude of functions including fighter-bomber and interceptor, photo and electronic surveillance. The two man aircraft was extremely fast (Mach 2), and had a long range (900 - 2300 miles, depending on stores and mission type). The F4 was also extremely maneuverable and handled well at low and high altitudes. Most pilots considered it one of the "hottest" planes around.
The F4J fighter plane piloted by Stephen Cuthbert and navigated by Marion "Tony" Marshall was shot down on July 3, 1972, 70 miles northwest of Dong Hoi in North Vietnam. A September 1972 Radio Hanoi broadcast stated that the North Vietnamese had captured Capt. Marshall and mentioned the pilot, Cuthbert, by name.
Marshall was taken prisoner and subsequently released in the spring of 1973. He maintains that he never revealed the correct name of his pilot, although just one week before he was to be released, Marshall's Vietnamese captors returned his personal belongings to him, and included Cuthbert's custom-made wedding band.
The Vietnamese deny any knowledge of Cuthbert. They maintain that to "discover" additional information on Americans, they must have increased "cooperation" from the United States so that their people will perceive "good will." Cuthbert is one of nearly 2500 Americans lost in Southeast Asia, and only one of many about whom the Vietnamese have certain knowledge which they are withholding.
Stephen H. Cuthbert was promoted to the rank of Major during the period he was maintained Missing in Action.
SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977 Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602 Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and spelling errors). UPDATE - 09/95 by the P.O.W. NETWORK, Skidmore, MO
MARION A. MARSHALL Captain - United States Air Force Shot Down: July 3, 1972 Released: March 29, 1973
I was born in Washington, D. C. and lived in Maryland with my mother and sister until I entered the United States Air Force Academy in June 1964, after graduating from Douglass High School in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. I graduated from the Academy in 1968 and attended Navigator Training and Electronic Warfare Training at Mather Air Force Base, California. After survival training, I spent a year at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida in the F-4 I was then assigned to the 13th TFS at Udorn RTAB, Thailand. I remained with this Sierra Hotel Squadron from April 1971 until that fateful day-3 July 1972.
Upon completion of my normal tour at Udorn, RTAB, Thailand, I extended for six additional months. I was on a mission as an F-4 backseater on a Fast FAC (Foward Air Controller) mission in the southern part of North Vietnam on 3 July 1972. While we were in a dive to mark a target our external centerline fuel tank apparently collapsed, causing the aircraft to become uncontrollable. I was ejected by the aircraft commander. I must have been in shock following the ejection because I can only remember hitting the ground and standing there dazed for an unknown length of time. My next conscious recollection is of helping the Vietnamese remove my gun and G-suit after which I do not recall anything until I suddenly "awakened," to find myself stripped and tied in an underground bunker - here I first realized that I was in trouble and completely alone. It was an empty feeling I was moved to a village during the night and interrogated the following day.
The interrogation was surprisingly brief and shallow, and the treatment was outstanding - compared to what I had expected. I told them that I was on the mission as a photographer, hoping to escape before my story caught up with me. I reached Hanoi after traveling by jeep for five nights and hiding during the days, spent Eve days in a loose solitary confinement and was moved with four other men from the Hilton to the Zoo, where we moved in with four additional men who had been captured recently. I remained at the Zoo until I was repatriated on 29 March 1973, except for a brief return trip to the Hilton during the December campaign.
I was confident that it was simply a matter of time until I would be released - whenever the war ended, and since I knew early that my family knew that I was OK, I did not suffer any anxiety over my situation as my training had prepared me for the worst possible situation. Also, I of course, always realized that I faced this possibility whenever I went on a mission.
The most difficult part of my internment was living with the knowledge that I had caused my family and friends to suffer a period of anxiety and worry, for which they could never be properly prepared. They were among the lucky ones however. The families of the men who are still MIA have endured and continue to endure a pain far worse than any torture we could have suffered. My prayers are with these families.
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Marion Marshall is a Lt. Colonel in the United States Air Force. He is stationed in California with his wife Veta.
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http://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/story/669135p-711765c.html The search for Capt. Tony Marshall Saturday August 25, 2001, 09:25:03 PM
A television advertisement for the movie "Apocalypse Now Redux," a revision of the Vietnam war classic, droned in the background as I searched a "junk drawer" at home for something I had lost. It was one of those annoying searches. The type that makes you mutter: "It's gotta be here someplace."
I jammed my hand to the back and grabbed something that felt familiar. But when I pulled it out, I discovered I had not retrieved my lost treasure. Instead, I had found a lost memory.
I held a metal band with the name: Capt. Tony Marshall. Nearly two decades earlier, as the Vietnam War was winding down, I had worn the bracelet on my wrist -- a reminder of an Air Force pilot I had never met who crashed over North Vietnam on July 3, 1972.
Marshall was just one of the thousands of unlucky guys who had failed to return from combat in Vietnam. His was just one of the many names on bracelets worn by Americans to show their support and pressure the North Vietnamese to treat American prisoners humanely.
I was working for the Navy at Lemoore Naval Air Station when I began wearing Marshall's bracelet. Many Navy pilots missing in Vietnam had been flying with Lemoore-based squadrons when they were shot down. When I reached into the container of bracelets for one to wear, I had hoped to retrieve a name I knew. Instead, I picked a stranger.
When the war was over and the prisoners were released in March 1973, I slipped the bracelet from my wrist and tossed it into a drawer. I never gave it another thought until I accidentally stumbled upon it a few days ago.
What happened to Capt. Tony Marshall? Did he live? Did he come home? Was he like most soldiers whose names appeared on POW/MIA bracelets? Was there never any hope of him being found alive from the moment he disappeared?
I began my search for Tony Marshall by clicking onto the Internet site www.pownetwork.org. At first, I could not find him listed. However, further research revealed Marshall's true first name was Marion -- not Tony. I also discovered he survived the crash and captivity, and was freed by the Vietnamese on March 29, 1973. He resumed his career as an F4 Phantom pilot, retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel. For the past decade, he has flown for United Airlines, ferrying passengers from Los Angeles on international routes.
I caught up with Marshall between flights at his Apple Valley home. He seemed pleased I had called and said it had been a long time since someone who had worn his bracelet had contacted him. After his release, he received many calls and letters from bracelet wearers. He has maintained lasting friendships with some.
Now the only reminder he has of the campaign is the bracelet he still wears on his own arm. It bears the name of the man who was piloting his jet when it crashed in Vietnam.
"I wear it to remind me of my pilot. I wear it to remind me not to do anything stupid when I fly," said Marshall, explaining pilot error and equipment defects contributed to the crash. Marshall, who was riding in the airplane's back seat as the navigator, and his pilot "dropped in" on North Vietnam when their aircraft's fuel tank collapsed. Flying too low, they were unable to regain control and their F4 Phantom crashed. Marshall safely ejected. His pilot was first listed as missing. In recent years, his status has been changed to dead.
Dazed and slightly injured when he hit the ground, Marshall was taken to the Vietnamese prisons Americans called the Hilton and the Zoo.
"Conditions were relatively good by the time I was captured," he recalled. "They were not torturing. The old guys had gone through hell."
"I camefrom a strictly civilian family," said Marshall, explaining he grew up in Washington, D.C., where he lived with his mother and sister. After high school, he entered the U.S. Air Force Academy. It was just four years after graduating from the academy that he was taken prisoner in Vietnam.
"I warned my mother that crackpots might call and claim I was dead. I told her to say thank you and then hang up. When the staff car drove up to tell her I was missing, she said thank you, but showed no emotion. They came back about a month and a half later and told her I was captured. Again she showed no emotion. She just said thank you.
"I was so proud of her. She was very calm about the whole thing," he said, recalling his mother going to the military hospital where he was taken after his return to the U.S. She matter-of-factly announced that "she was there to take her kid home."
Before we hung up, I told him how happy I was to learn he had survived and I thanked him for risking his life in Vietnam. Whether or not you agreed with the war, the men and women who did their duty as they saw it -- and in Marshalls' case, paid a steep price -- deserve our thanks.
He thanked me and the others for wearing his bracelet. "The support really helped. World opinion forced them to stop torturing us."
Tomorrow I will go to work and slip a copy of this column and my bracelet in an envelope to be mailed to Marshall. The bracelet did its job. It helped bring at least one soldier home.