SCHWINN MONICA

RIP

Name: Monica Schwinn
Branch/Rank: CIVILIAN MISSIONARY
Unit:
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: GERMANY
Date of Loss:  27-APR-69
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates:
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Jeep
Missions:
Other Personnel in Incident: Bernhard Diehl (returnee) and 3 other missionaries,
Mary Louise Kerner, Rica Kortmann and Georg  Bartch (killed in captivity)
Refno: 1433                 
sx10.jpg (18668 bytes)
1998, Dallas TX, NAMPOW reunion

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews and CACCF = Combined Action
Combat Casualty File. 2019 - updated with information from various sources.

REMARKS: KNIGHTS OF MALTA GERMAN CATHOLIC CHARITY MISSION AT AN HOA

HELD WITH COL TED GUY

Monica Schwinn currently resides in Germany. On May 20th, 1998 she
joined Dr. Diehl and 275 other returnees at the Silver Anniversary
Renion in Dallas, TX.

___________________

03/18/19

.... but I thought you might be interested in that Monika Schwinn the German
nurse from the Hanoi Hilton died last Monday, aged 76.      CA


https://www.saarbruecker-zeitung.de/saarland/heimat/die-saarlaendische-kinde
rkrankenschwester-war-vier-jahre-lang-in-vietnam-gefangen_aid-37440229?fbcli
d=IwAR1UueLudLj9ZFlkZ0sqnYJBPZ2QXMjdSUZrWEZQjPoAVhc-ORGd_x7Ylf0

... They are interrogated, tortured, hardly get anything to eat. Illness and humiliation are constant companions. 
Three of the five will not survive this. Marie-Louise Kerber dies in captivity in 1969. Only in 1997 is it possible
to transfer her bones to the Saarland, to bury her here. Monika Schwinn is often closer to death than to life. 
But she struggles, does not want to be humiliated.
...

...On Thursday, March 21, at 1 pm, a funeral service for Monika Schwinn will take place in the Lebach parish church....

_____________________
  1. In the Spring of 1969, the VC picked up five W. German nurses...two male, Bernhard Diehl, Georg Bartsch, and three female: Rika Kortmann, Marie Louise Kerber, and Monika Schwinn.  They worked for an organization called The Knights of Malta, which was established as an aid organization in the Middle Ages, under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Church. The modern Knights of Malta are much like our Red Cross, rendering aid without religious overtones. These five young, idealistic nurses were working near Danang. They were helping the Vietnamese people, regardless of ideology.  Monika worked on a children's ward in Danang. They went out in the countryside for a picnic and were picked up by the VC. [I always thought they were captured by mistake, because they were Caucasians and thought to be Americans. By the time the VC realized the mistake, one had died and they couldn't afford the bad PR, so they were held until the end of the war.]  The VC brought them to our camp west of Tam Ky in late spring of '69.  They had been walking about a month. Marie Louise Kerber died in route, and I never knew her. Bernhard told me she died of malaria. They stayed in our camp until the fall of '69, I think November and then held in NVN until the end of the war. I saw Monika and Bernhard in the Hanoi Hilton from January to March '73 when they were repatriated.  In the interim between June and November 1969, I had constant daily contact with them. They lived in a hooch next to ours with a fence intervening, and we had free access to each other.  They had slightly higher rations and more medicine than we did, indicating to me that the VC realized they had screwed up by taking them.

    But they were sicker and less able to cope with the environment. We tried to help them. We tried to teach them the ways of the camp, gathered wood for them, carried rice, helped them with water, washing, making fires, etc.  Georg Bartsch died of a sudden pulmonary embolus in  mid-summer. This was a strange death for a young man, even a captive, with Beri-Beri.  Bernhard told me that Georg had rheumatic heart disease, and had fudged his physical a little to be allowed to come over.  Rika (I think her real name was Henrika) Kortmann died of generalized weakness and inanition.  She had malaria, malnutrition, and was terribly sick. Monika lay at death's door with Bernhard for months. He got well before she did and began to nurse her, physically and psychologically. He did physical therapy on her and helped her a great deal (her dad had been in the German Army during WW II, had been captured by the Russians and never came home).  ...

    ~~~~~~~~
    Monika and Bernhard  (Mary Louise Kerner, Rica Kortmann and Georg  Bartch died there) were in our camp in SVN from
    capture to November, 1969 when they were taken North. 
    I didn't see Monika again until shortly before she was released.
     I gave her a letter to my family and she smuggled it out.
    RIP.
    Cheers,
    HK
     

  2. Monika was the only female, out of a number who were captured, who survived to
    come home in Homecoming.  RS
     

  3. There were no known U.S. military women POWs. MM
     

  4. SECOND PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT INCREMENT  

    (5 MARCH 1973)  

     

    One C-141, Tail Number 60161

    Released at Gia Lam Airport. Hanoi, North Vietnam at 1504 hours and arriving at Clark Air Base, Philippines at 1751 hours:  

    Name       Rank                SVC      

    Adkins, Clodeon    CIV    CIV
    Anderson, John T.    MSG    USA
    Astorga, Jose M.    SP5    USA
    Badua, Candido    CIV    PHIL NAT
    Baird, William A.    SSG    USA
    Balagot, Arturo M.    CIV    PHIL NAT
    Benge, Michael D.    CIV    CIV
    Budd, Leonard R. Jr.    SGT    USMC
    Burgess, Richard G.    SOT    USMC
    Cius, Frank E. Jr.    SSG    USMC
    Deering, John A.    SSG    USMC
    Dibernardo, James V.    CPT    USMC
    Diehl, Bernhard J.    CIV    WEST GERMAN
    Ettmueller, Harry L.    SSG    USN
    Flora, Carroll E. Jr.    SFC    USA
    Frank, Martin S.    MAJ    USA
    Gouin, Donat J.    MSG    USA
    Harker, David N.    SSG    USA
    Henry, Nathan B.    SSC    USA
    Kerns, Gail M.    SSG    USA
    Leopold, Stephen R.    CPT    USA
    Lewis, Robert III    SP6    USA
    McMurray, Cordine    SFC    USA
    Miller, Roger A.    WO2    USA
    Newell, Stanley A.    SSG    USA
    O’Connor, Michael F.    WO2    USA
    Perricone, Richard R.    SSG    USA
    Pfister, James F. Jr.    SSG    USA
    Rose, Joseph III    WO2    USA
    Schwinn, Monika    CIV    WEST GERMAN
    Sooter, David W.    W03    USA
    Stark, Laurence J.    CIV    CIV
    Thompson, Dennis L.    SFC    USA
    Ziegler, Roy E. II    WO2    USA
     
     

  5. Schwinn, Monika and Bernhard Diehl translated from German by Jan van Heurck, foreword by Benjamin H. Purcell,.  New York: 
                    Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Simpson, Howard R., Tiger in the Barbed Wire: an American in Vietnam, 1952-1991.
                    New York: We Came to Help Macmillan, 1992. Sherwood, John Darrell, Afterburner: Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War. 
                   
    New York: New York University Press, 2004.