How Blinking the Word T-O-R-T-U-R-E on TV Saved the Life of this PoW
Jeremiah Denton, an American prisoner of war in Vietnam blinked the word “torture” using morse code in a TV interview.
The Japanese interviewer sitting across from him was a mere facade of neutrality; it was a feeble ploy by the North Vietnamese to show the world that they adhered to the clauses laid out in the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of POWs. The reality, at least for Jeremiah Denton, was quite the opposite.
Parachuting Right In The Laps of The Enemy
The year was 1965, and the Cold War tensions between two of the world’s superpowers were brewing more intensely than ever. March of 1965 saw the start of Operation Rolling Thunder — a 3-year bombing campaign of North Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail by the US troops. During this time, Denton was on his 12th combat mission in Vietnam when a group of A6 intruders (one of them carrying Denton) who had been sent on an aircraft bombing mission in Hanoi were attacked by an enemy anti-aircraft fire. This caused the aircraft to plunge to the ground, but not before Denton parachuted to safety — or so he thought. Shortly afterward, Denton and his companions are dragged to prison by the communist Viet Cong and…
