Beyond Survival. Gerald Coffee

looked scary with my hair singed and my face blotched with Mercurochrome, he had shown no fear of me from the beginning. Even now, after some reassuring coos and whispers from his mother he seemed nonplussed about retiring next to this foreign “monster from the South China Sea.” The guard sat on the floor in the doorway so he could continue to chat with the others and observe me as well. Before dozing off, I was struck by the contrast with our previous stops, with the beatings and the hatred generated by the cadres trained for that purpose. That all seemed like another world, compared to the simple warmth and comfort I felt from the presence of my tiny bedmate. I slept soundly for two or three hours.

      Traveling on to the North each night, we encountered convoys of trucks almost constantly, long lines of heavily laden vehicles heading South to resupply the Viet Cong guerrilla fighters and what regular North Vietnamese troops were already there. The convoys had the right-of-way, so we would pull off to the side of the narrow track. There the guards would smoke or talk with the drivers of other northbound jeeps and trucks. I was usually kept out of sight but not necessarily covered up, so I could observe the activities and surroundings fairly easily. I was struck by the accuracy of our intelligence reports, which had indicated huge volumes of resupply traffic under the cover of darkness. Even when the highway was illuminated by parachute flares to catch a convoy by surprise, the preplanned pull-off and camouflaged parking areas were spaced so frequently that from an attack pilot’s viewpoint, dozens of trucks could seemingly disappear in only a few minutes.

      It didn’t take long to realize that most of these safe havens—used during the daylight hours as well as during threat periods at night—were in and around rural villages, and the suburbs of Vinh City and Than Hoa. Civilians, under the direction of military logistic supervisors, were always available to refuel both vehicles and drivers. In fact, I was fed fairly well during this time, with my cook or food bearer always rewarded with a glimpse of me and a description of my capture.

      Several times during daylight stops I saw the results of our previous raids on these parking areas once they became known or even suspect. The areas were littered with the torn and burned hulks of dozens of vehicles bulldozed, or more likely dragged, by peasant power into isolated piles to maintain parking space for the next convoy after the recamouflage job was completed. The collateral damage to the nearby houses and buildings was extensive. Churches and schoolyards weren’t exempt as truck parks, and I saw several such complexes damaged heavily by bomb blasts.

      Truck parks and supply storage areas would have been primary targets in any wartime situation, but especially here where the actual enemy, the combatant, was so elusive. During many of our stops I translated in my mind’s eye the topography, foliage, and buildings around me into the aerial image they would have imprinted on the film of my airborne cameras. I had spent hours with our squadron Air Intel officer poring over transparent negatives stretched across a light box, taking turns with the stereometric eyepiece that provided the 3–D image from two nearly identical negatives taken a second or so apart. A concentration of triple-A sites in a given area was a pretty good clue of a lucrative target. My daily observations enroute were confirming that.

      I would later see propaganda photographs of heavily damaged or destroyed churches and schools—as well as pathetic pictures of maimed or burned priests, nuns, and children—with commentaries to the effect that these had been the primary targets of the “cruel and barbaric” American pilots. Worse yet, after piles of truck debris and the guns had been removed from the area, such church and school ruins were prime display areas for antiwar protestors and “international investigators” as they eagerly devoured with their notebooks and cameras the “evidence” that confirmed their preconceived opinions. Indeed, without their antiwar/anti–U.S. disposition, they would not have been welcomed by the North Vietnamese Communist government in the first place.

      A few nights before arriving at our destination we became part of a long waiting line for a river crossing. A quarter of a mile ahead the overcast sky reflected the various lights of what appeared to be some major construction site. I could hear the harmonious growl of several pieces of heavy equipment, and the shouts and directions of construction supervisors and traffic monitors were constant. As we inched closer the angular hulk of the Than Hoa Bridge emerged, the hodgepodge of construction lights and flickering blue of welders’ arcs casting shifting shadows across its cantilever flanks. Dozens of people were clambering over it, repairing the damage from the latest raid. In the pulsating reflections from the heavy sky, the bridge appeared like a great iron Gulliver with Lilliputian workers scrambling all over it.

      The Than Hoa Bridge was famous. I recognized it immediately from the aerial photos I had seen, especially the ones I had used in planning my last flight. We had bombed the bridge frequently, and actually hit it several times, but it wouldn’t drop. It was like a tenacious bulldog straddling the deepest channel at the mouth of the Than Hoa River. It was heavily fortified with 37mm and 57mm triple-A guns, and by now we had lost at least two or three planes and crews trying to destroy it.

      We inched onto the span accompanied by much shouting and directing, and no wonder: I realized that we were actually driving on the railroad bed, tires straddling the rails and bouncing from tie to tie. Trains and trucks took turns using the same patched-up roadbed. It just took a little extra scheduling effort to make it work. The repair effort was probably increased to a near frantic pace on a night like this, as an illuminated attack through such a thick, low overcast would be improbable. As the driver felt his way along the narrow planks and steel plates that spanned the spaces where the ties had been blown and burned away, I could see the slabs of steel hurriedly welded across torn and twisted beams to maintain the load capacity of the battered trusses. Just as a broken bone heals even stronger than before because of the calcium concentration in the healing process, the Than Hoa Bridge seemed to grow stronger with the incredible mass of its repair. It was a discouraging revelation as I contemplated how many more planes and aircrew might be lost before the beast would finally be brought down.

      Although much of the trip these last several days had been fascinating, full of new and strange sights and experiences, much of the time had also dragged on slowly and painfully. My shoulder, arm, and hand were swollen to the point of immobility.

      Sometimes I spent hours during the day in a camouflaged vehicle haven, hidden from the sight of villagers and other drivers. I spent the time observing the scene around me—usually through a loose flap of canvas that was supposed to keep me from seeing anything. Or I would just sit quietly under my cover, thinking painfully about Bea and the children and the ordeal I must surely be putting her through.

      Although the experience of the firing squad had been traumatic at the time, it had somewhat reassured me for the long run. I did represent something of value to my captors, but even that was a dubious comfort. Would I at some point in the near future wish that the scruffy kid with the M-1 had been on target and spared me the ordeal I was about to face?

      During the trek, I thought back frequently to my survival training, more specifically SERE training (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape). So far I had been able to survive, but evading capture had been impossible for me. By the time I had regained consciousness out there in the water, my captors were upon me. Resistance and escape were my immediate concern. If the tetherball routine back in My Xa was any indication of things to come, I would somehow have to do better. I would have to be stronger and smarter, or something. Hell, that was just an improvisational little routine back there. What could I expect in a formal POW camp, where if I did in fact represent something of value to them that something of value might be extracted from me? My anxiety about resistance grew as we rolled on closer to our destination.

      Escape had been on my mind almost constantly. The Code of Conduct specified as well: “I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape.” It was axiomatic that the best escape opportunities presented themselves between capture and arrival at a formal prison compound. At every stop along the way, in hamlets, huts, truck parks, roadside stops to “make watah,” I had surveyed the circumstances quickly and calculated my chances.

      Before my capture, in the anxious fantasies of my stateroom solitude or in Ready Room bull sessions, escape was a foregone conclusion: The bastards won’t hold me, man; I’ll be outa there! However, all those preconceived scenarios had you at full strength. Just having no boots,