Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:58 | Ellis recalls the first impressions that American society had made on him when he finally got back to the states. He was shocked at how much culture around him had changed in the span of five years.
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Ellis shares more miscellaneous stories of his days as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. He covers what he and the other prisoners did from day to day, as well as the first laugh they all shared together. Since everyone was on edge all the time, it had been three whole months in captivity before they felt comfortable enough to laugh with each other.
Ellis talks about the type of propaganda he heard in Hanoi, Vietnam all the time. In fact, the Lieutenant Colonel who was cooperating too much with the enemy only made things worse for the other prisoners when he helped aid in the spreading of the propaganda. During this time, Senator John McCain was captured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam as well.
Ellis describes what two different types of typical ordnance missions consisted of, as well as the process for carrying all the different kinds of bombs on fighter planes before dropping them on enemy territory.
Lee Ellis grew up near Athens, Georgia, and was inspired to be a pilot at a young age after climbing up in an old fighter plane in a veterans park. When the Korean War was going on, he was only 9 years old. He joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at the University of Georgia the first chance he got and went to flight school in Valdosta. He was commissioned in Southeast Asia and endured survival training before arriving in Vietnam in July of 1967.
Ellis talks about carrying rocket pods on his planes, and the fact that accidents did happen while flying like minor engine trouble but he rarely saw any. While over there he did lose some friends he was close with during their pilot training, and he explains a bit of what it's like coping with the grief while still fighting in the war zone.
On some missions, Ellis would have to fly at night. He describes those times as way more quiet since there was a lot more activity during the day. One time there was a shortage of bombs, and several other times the North Vietnamese infiltrated their bases by launching rockets at them. Some of those rockets actually did managed to do a surmountable amount of damage.
While fighting in Vietnam, Lee Ellis had to deal with the loss of his best friend Tom. There were some soldiers whose loved ones had been notified that they had been killed in action, only for them to come home months later. He discusses the events leading up to the day he was shot down (Part 1 of 3).
Lee Ellis illustrates how he remembers getting shot down and ejecting himself out of his aircraft and straight into enemy territory. Fortunately his co-pilot, Ken Fischer, managed to also survive and the two of them surrendered to the North Vietnamese as soon as they reached the ground. (Part 2 of 3)
Despite what he originally thought, Lee Ellis was told many years later by an outside witness that his plane was in fact not shot down, and instead an electrical fuse blew up the bombs on the wing of his plane which made it seem like he was shot. He describes the details of how he got captured and sent to a POW Camp (Part 3 of 3).
After Ellis was captured, he was put in a barn-like building. During that time the North Vietnamese had a "political pep-rally" to celebrate the capture of these American pilots, and it was the duty of their guards to make sure that they got to Hanoi.
It wasn't long before Ellis was shipped up farther north, and along the way he caught up with his co-pilot Ken Fischer. They received a lot of negative interactions from the North Vietnamese civilians as one could imagine. As the truck Ellis was in drove through the town, he heard names being called and had things constantly thrown at him.
Ellis talks about the civilian interactions he had that were a little more pleasant, as well as the constant communist propaganda broadcasts he was constantly exposed to from the North Vietnamese Army. He had his first interrogation at a halfway house (Part 1 of 2).
Ellis describes exactly what it was like to be interrogated, and explains what the Hanoi Hilton was. He reveals the men he was imprisoned with, namely Lieutenant Colonel Edison Miller and 1st Lieutenant James Warner. The Lieutenant Colonel turned out to be way too cooperative with the enemy, and the rest of the men were left with no choice but to relieve him of command (Part 2 of 2).
After a few months, Ellis was split up from the group of other prisoners he shared a cell with, including the Lieutenant Colonel. The POW Camps had plenty of US prisoners locked away, and it was very difficult for them to communicate with one another because of how split up the different groups were. Ellis shares the living conditions of his prison cell and what it was like to stay there for so long. He would constantly have nightmares.
While locked away in a POW camp, Ellis says that the guards were armed around the clock with AK-47s, but were not allowed to hurt prisoners unless they tried to directly escape. He does remember one time, however, when a prisoner got in deep trouble for crafting a makeshift American flag inside his prison cell.
When the prisoners weren't cooperating with the NVA, the guards would use rope to torture them. Ellis describes in detail what it was like to feel that pain, as well as how frightening it was when American air raids flew right over the prison. There was a lot of potential to be bombed, but fortunately they never were.
Ellis talks about POWs who were in Son Tay, Vietnam for far longer than he was, which really put things into perspective for him. After the North Vietnamese demanded he make them a radio program and he refused to cooperate many times, Ellis' co-pilot Ken was subject to being forcefully kept awake for 21 whole days.
At the POW camp in Son Tay, Vietnam, Ellis had to do plenty of different jobs to essentially clean up after himself and the other prisoners, and would rotate jobs frequently. After two whole years of being there, he got to write a letter back home to let them know he was okay. He remembers a few unfortunate death stories from the POW camp, and a few where some men attempted to escape. He himself never attempted escape, though.
Although prisoners were kept on high lockdown and weren't allowed to communicate with any other prisoners outside their own cell, Ellis and his fellow POWs still found ways to do it occasionally. The North Vietnamese wanted to fool the world into thinking they were treating their prisoners kindly, so they created propaganda to hide how they were actually being treated.
After he moved back to the Hanoi Hilton, Ellis was actually elected by his fellow prisoners to be one of their French professors following one prisoner's demand to have a custom education program put in place. He mentions how he moved around a lot before his eventual release on March 14, 1973.
Lee Ellis talks about the few months leading up to his final release from the POW camps in Vietnam. He talks about how he felt when he was released, and how he was finally able to eat all the food he dreamed about while in prison.
The next day after the big release and the dining buffet, one of the men actually had a panic attack. Everyone including Ellis had a very drained mindset, meaning it was hard for them to feel emotions normally. He talks about how that affected him after he came home, his R&R experience and how, despite the massive protesting against the Vietnam War, he was never ridiculed because he was a prisoner of war.
Lee Ellis concludes his vast amount of stories from Vietnam to share all the things he learned from being held captive in a prisoner of war camp for so long. He describes what leadership is to him, and how you can still have influence on the people around you even if you aren't the one in charge.
