SPOHN's Story

NETWORK NOTE: The purpose of posting not only the the below email,  but the original stories in their entirety, is EDUCATION.

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        DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE
        HEADQUARTERS AIR FORCE PERSONNEL CENTER
        RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE TEXAS

        9 NOV 2000

HQ AFPC/MSIMDL
550 C Street West Ste 50
Randolph AFB TX 78150-4752

Ms. Mary Schantag
P.O.W. Network
Box 68
Skidmore MO 64487-0068

Dear Ms. Schantag

        This is an interim response to your Freedom of Information Act
request (FOIA#O 1 -0096) of 3 October 2000 pertaining to James Spohn, 
xxx-xx-xxxx.

        The Air Force Worldwide Locator is unable to establish a positive
identification for James Spohn based upon the information provided.  The
name and social security number provided does not match with the James
Spohn on Air Force file.  Information needed to establish a positive
identification would require you to verify the social security number
for Mr. Spohn, provide his middle initial, date of birth, and a military
unit and date assigned to that unit between 1971 and 1989.  The Locator
does not maintain records and can only establish a positive
identification for locator purpose only.  If no response within 30 days
from the date of this letter this case will be closed.

        Sincerely

        BETT -LEONE C. STEWART
        Management Assistant

==============================================================

Provided same SS# xxx-xx-xxxx

Added DOB of May 12 1946

Added quotes of units from all news articles.

Added E. as "believed to be middle initial."

returned to USAF today.

see articles below email

The story is the same as the  "Air Force News,  Eielson veteran remembers days as POW" article.

 [Air Force News]

 Eielson veteran remembers days as POW

They served when there was no clear military superpower. When promising to give their lives for their country meant the odds were pretty good that they would have to do just that. They didn't worry about how much per diem they would come home with in their pockets; they worried about coming home at all. Some of them didn't. Those who did come home changed forever.

It is important time is taken to recognize these people. As a nation, some of them are mourned on Memorial Day, some of them are cheered on Veterans' Day, and now, on Sept. 15, remember some of them on POW/MIA Day. Some of those people will remain a memory forever. Some of them remember with us.

Jim Spohn remembers.

"For the longest time," he explained, "I tried to keep it out of my mind, but I can't. It seems like yesterday. I mostly don't talk about it, but the doctors say it's good to. So I talk to (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and the (American) legion members. Veterans can relate."

Spohn is the superintendent of information management here, spending his days managing the Base Information Transfer Center, publications, forms and records office. Few of those who work side-by-side with him in the 354th Communications Squadron know the depth of his service. One of 26 American servicemen who escaped from the Viet Cong, Spohn has a unique appreciation of POW/MIA Day.

In June of 1965, Spohn was assigned to the Army's 833rd Ordnance Company near Heydoc, Korea. While there, he deployed to the 1st Cavalry along the demilitarized zone. A demolitions expert, he went along with this unit when they moved to South Vietnam to plant explosives. This two-week deployment turned into a three-month ordeal.

"We'd been in the country less than 72 hours when we entered an area that was just cleared by the infantry," Spohn said. "There were 12 of us with M-1s strapped to our backs, not one of us trained in guerrilla warfare. The Viet Cong had a tremendous network of tunnels through the countryside. They're fairly small people, so they could squeeze through the smallest holes. We never saw them until they were on top of us -- 50 to 60 of them all at once."

Though Spohn and his squad fought valiantly, they were hopelessly outnumbered, and 10 of the 12 perished in hand-to-hand combat. Bloodied and wounded, Spohn was taken captive with one other soldier. "He died after the first day from his wounds," Spohn said.

The only ally left to Spohn was his savvy, and he began using it right away. "I thought I was going to die, that they were going to try to get whatever they wanted to know from me, and then kill me. There was no way I was going to give them anything, and I wanted to have the last laugh. I grew up knowing how to speak some German. So that's what I spoke from the moment I was captured. That discouraged them. Here was this guy in a U.S. Army uniform who apparently didn't speak a word of English. They had a few who did speak English, and I could tell they didn't know what to do with me."

Spohn's captors took him to a camp where he was imprisoned with other Vietnamese captives, but no Americans. He doesn't like to describe the details of his treatment, except as "inhumane."

"They gave me a flimsy pajama-like top and straw shoes, which we were only allowed to wear when we were marched. The marching was a treat, because most of the time we were bound with our wrists behind our backs, staked to the ground, and tied at the ankles and staked there as well. At one point, I was left like that for eight days. They'd file and chisel on our teeth and shove things under our finger and toe nails to try to get us to talk, but I stuck to the German. Our rations were rotten, stinking rice, crawling with bugs. We got that about every three days, and after three days of nothing, you ate it. I weighed 160 pounds at the time of my capture, and 98 pounds when I came to in the hospital."

Spohn's captors beat him regularly, determined to get some information out of him. But as time passed, they became more careless with their prisoner. One night, approximately three months after his capture, Spohn got the opportunity of a lifetime, and he capitalized. "It was particularly dark that night, and the rope around my wrists was rotting to the point where I knew I could break it. I started making noises like I was sick and dying. One of the guards came over alone and started to beat me. He bent down close to me at one point, and in one movement, I broke my hands free and, though I was very weak, hit him so hard in the chest I thought my arm would go right through him. He collapsed and died right next to me without a sound."

Spohn grabbed his weapon and ran into the jungle. "The gun was useless, but I didn't know that until I inspected it later. It was inoperative and had no bullets. He only had it for intimidation and for beating us with."

Disoriented and fatigued, Spohn wandered north, thinking he was headed south, hoping against hope to come across friendly forces. "I didn't make much progress," he explained, "I laid low during the days and moved at night. It's amazing how little things you learn growing up can pay off when you need them to."

Spohn grew up on a farm in Minnesota, and slaughtered his own animals. "It translated well when I was able to catch a jungle rat or mouse. It may sound gross ... but when you're starving, a rat can taste like a steak if you know how to gut it properly using only your fingers and teeth."

Free for almost two weeks, Spohn ran into a Korean patrol. Knowing the Viet Cong feared them, he laid low fearing the Koreans would mistake him for an enemy soldier. A few hours later that decision paid off.

"I heard a patrol speaking English - I think they were Australian. When one walked close enough to me, I reached out and pulled him into my hiding place by the ankle. For the first time in what seemed like ages, I spoke English. I told him who I was and what had happened to me and I hoped to God he was on our side, and then I let him go. His patrol had noticed that he had disappeared and were searching for him. I let him go and they all came running with their hands on the triggers when he popped up out of the hole. They pulled me out of the hole and said they would take care of me. That's the last thing I remember before I passed out."

Spohn awoke days later in a hospital in Japan, where he received the Purple Heart. "That one really means something to me. It means I spilled my blood on the ground for our country."

The Purple Heart recipient left the Army in 1968 and enlisted in the Air Force in 1971. He retired as a senior master sergeant in 1989.

Spohn still carries a few scars from his POW experience. The beatings permanently damaged his nose, and breathing is sometimes labored. He contracted tuberculosis and hepatitis, "but they have medicine for that."

Perhaps the most significant change to Jim Spohn, though, is an appreciation for his country that few can comprehend.

"I will never forget the view when the fog parted and I could see Seattle from the airplane that brought us back from Korea. Funny, but the roofs are what struck me. All I'd seen for over a year were mud huts. Standing there, looking at America through the clouds ... it was so beautiful."

His return, however, like that of many returnees, would prove somewhat bittersweet.

"We arrived back in the states on July 6 of 1966 and what we had waiting for us when we left the plane and cleared customs was something I also would not forget. War protesters called us cruel names and threw things at us like rotten eggs, etc. We let the riot police take care of them."

Despite the enemy's brutality, and the misguided contempt from his own countrymen, the former Air Force personnel superintendent remains positive and humble about his experience.

"I was at the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. Fortunately, my time wasn't up yet. All I did was survive -- there are people who did a lot more for our country than I did."

Spohn asks the rest of us to remember those people with him on days like (POW/MIA day), especially those who never came home.

"Even if it's just for a few seconds, remember who made the ultimate sacrifice for us. There's so very, very many who did. Thanks to them, every day is a holiday."

(Courtesy of Pacific Air Forces News Service)

 RELATED SITES

* Eielson Air Force Base
* Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office

For more on this subject, try the Air Force Link Search Engine.

[Air Force News]

State honors POWs, MIAs

 September 16, 2000

 By BETH IPSEN
 Staff Writer

 Veteran and former prisoner of war Jim Spohn doesn't like dwelling on the bad things in life. Growing up on a farm in  Minnesota, he learned from his father to look at the bright side of everything.

 While spending three months as a captive in Vietnam, he realized how lucky Americans are to be living in a free  country.

 "It made me realize how well we have it in America," Spohn said after a Prisoner of War, Missing in Action  Ceremony at Eielson Air Force Base Friday. "We live like kings and queens. 

 "God has really blessed this country."

 This is something he believes many generations take for granted today.

 "If they could in any way realize what the past generation and the generations before that did to make sure this country was free ..." he said.

 It's something that he has experienced because he was one of only 26 American servicemen to escape from the Viet  Cong.

 He was also one of 766 POWs in the Vietnam War. There are still 1,817 listed as missing in action in Vietnam.

 "Some of the people did so much more than I did," Spohn said.

 During his speech, master of ceremonies Senior Master Sgt. Tommy Smith said in World War I 7,470 servicemen  were listed as POW or MIA. In World War II those numbers increased to 124,079 POWs and 30,314 MIAs. In the  post-World War II Cold War, the number of POWs is classified, but 343 are still listed as missing. In the Persian Gulf  War, 29 Americans were held in prisoner camps and 20 are still considered missing.

 Eielson honored Spohn and others who suffered while serving their country, complete with a flying missing-man  formation and a lone bugler playing taps at Heritage Park.

 Although it has been recognized nationally since 1979, the POW/MIA ceremony was celebrated for the first time by  the state on Friday. Gov. Tony Knowles issued a proclamation naming the third Friday of September as POW/MIA Day. A new state law was passed requiring the governor to issue this proclamation yearly.

 Knowles has also ordered the POW/MIA flag be flown at all major state facilities around Alaska in their honor.

 Spohn has a Purple Heart and some lingering ailments to help him remember his three months as a POW.

 "It's too bad that part of the memories you want to forget, you can't," he said.

 Back in 1965, Spohn said he was in the "wrong place at the wrong time" as part of the 833rd Ordnance Co. that was  setting up a minefield in Vietnam. An infantry company had swept the area and deemed it safe for the ordnance crew,  but it wasn't, as swarms of Viet Cong came out of tunnels and attacked the small group of soldiers.

 "They had a real good tunnel system," he remembered. "They came out like rats."

 The Americans were greatly outnumbered and only Spohn and another soldier were not killed, but were taken  prisoner. The other soldier died the next day from wounds suffered in the battle.

 What Spohn remembers most about those three months as a prisoner was how inhumanely he was treated.

 He remembers eating rats, mice and rice with worms crawling in it. Sometimes his captors would withhold water for  days, before giving him contaminated water.

 "I would have rather been living with the pigs and eating pig slop," he said.

 He was also tortured for information.

 After three months at the camp near Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, Spohn made his escape. The ropes that bound his  feet and hands had rotted enough to break. When one of his captors came close enough, he used his middle knuckle  and punched the soldier in the rib cage, a killing blow he was taught in Army boot camp.

 He spent the next couple of weeks hiding in foxholes during the day and moving about at night. In the jungle of  Vietnam, everybody was an enemy.

 "I knew if they caught me they'd torture and kill me," he said.

 One day he heard English-speaking troops walking through the jungles. He pulled one of the soldiers into his foxhole,  explained he was American and then blacked out. When he awoke, he was in the hospital where he started his  recovery that has yet to end.

 Spohn has undergone numerous medical treatments for ailments that have lingered from the contaminated water.

 He spent three more years in the Army, then in 1971 joined the Air Force. He retired as a senior master sergeant in  San Antonio in 1989 and three years later was back in Fairbanks where he was stationed for six years starting in  1972. He now works as a superintendent of information management for the 354th Communications Squadron at  Eielson and lives in North Pole with his wife of 28 years, Barbara.

 For Spohn, his story has a happy ending. But for those still missing, their stories await closure.

Distributed through the P.O.W. NETWORK in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.