Lance Sijan's Incredible Journey Alone in Enemy Territory by NVA Gunners

VALOR Lance Sijan's Incredible Journey Alone in enemy territory by NVA gunners. At 1700 hours, a strength returned, Lance Sijan Jolly Green chopper made it in di- overpowered a guard and dragged with no food or water rectly over Sijan. In a desperate at- himself up a trail, only to be recap- and unable to walk, tempt to crawl through tangled tured and punished. Capt. Lance Sijan re- vines to the chopper's penetrator, Sijan was moved to a temporary fused to give up. Sijan lost contact with the rescue prison near Vinh, where he was force. As darkness fell, the SAR op- beaten severely, but refused to give eration was called off. any military information. The BY JOHN L. FRISBEE Early the next morning, the guards, who had never seen a CONTRIBUTING EDITOR search resumed, but Sijan's radio human in such ghastly condition, batteries were depleted. Failing to refused to touch him. Sijan was put make contact, the SAR team was in the care of Maj. Bob Craner and recalled. Sijan was on his own. If he Capt. Guy Gruters, an F-100 FAC N the night of November 9, were to survive, he must make his crew who had been shot down near O 1967, Lt. Col. John Armstrong, way down the steep karst to water Vinh. The latter had been in Sijan's Commander of the 366th Tactical and an open area where he could squadron at the Air Force Acade- Fighter Wing's 480th Squadron warm the radio batteries and call in my. In his lucid moments, Sijan based at Danang, rolled his F-4 into a chopper. With a crude splint on his gave them the details of his long, a bomb run. The target was Ban shattered leg and only the thumb painful journey. Loboy ford on the Ho Chi Minh and forefinger of his right hand func- Several days later, the three were Trail in Laos. In the backseat was tioning, Lance Sijan began the most loaded on an open truck for a three- twenty-five-year-old Capt. Lance incredible journey in the history of night trip to Hanoi in the chill mon- Sijan, flying his fifty-third combat Air Force survival efforts. soon rains. At Hoa Lo Prison, they mission. For several days, Sijan, lying on were put in a damp cell. Sijan, who Colonel Armstrong pickled his his back, pushed himself over the had contracted pneumonia and was six bombs at 2039 hours. Almost sharp rocks with his good right leg, near death, asked his cellmates to immediately, the aircraft was en- a few painful inches at a time. His prop him up on his pallet so that he gulfed in a ball of fire as the bombs only source of moisture was dew could exercise his arms in prepara- detonated a few feet below the F-4. licked from foliage in the mornings. tion for escape from that grim, im- Neither the FAC controlling the There were many falls down the pregnable bastion. mission nor Armstrong's wingman steep slope and periods of uncon- On January 22, 1968, Capt. Lance saw chutes. But there was one sciousness and delirium. First his Sijan died. When the POWs were chute. Captain Sijan ejected and clothing became shredded, then the freed in early 1973, Craner and Gru- was drifting toward a flat-topped, skin on the back of his body, until he ters recorded the details of his long heavily forested karst formation. was inching along on raw flesh. At fight for freedom and his resistance For Sijan, recollection stopped as last he found water and pressed on, to torture. Later, they were major the 195-pound Captain crashed into inch by agonizing inch. sources for Malcolm McConnell's the towering trees. Forty-five days after he para- book, Into the Mouth of the Cat. On Sometime the next day, Sijan re- chuted into the forest, Lance Sijan March 4, 1976, President Gerald gained consciousness in a haze of saw ahead the open area he had Ford presented the Medal of Honor pain. He had suffered a compound been looking for. He dragged him- posthumously to Lance Sijan's par- fracture of the left leg, a crushed self over a bank and fell uncon- ents, and on Memorial Day of that right hand, head injuries, and deep scious in the middle of the Ho Chi year, a new dormitory at the Air lacerations. Most of his survival Minh Trail, three miles from his Force Academy was dedicated in gear was gone. He tended the starting point. his memory. broken leg as best he could, then The young Captain regained con- Lance Sijan's will to survive with lapsed again into unconsciousness. sciousness in an NVA road camp, honor was an inspiration to other The following morning, a flight of his formerly athletic body little POWs during the dark days of the F-4s picked up the sound of Sijan's more than a skeleton partially cov- Vietnam War, as it should be to all of beeper, and a search-and-rescue op- ered by transparent skin. He was us. He demonstrated, as few have, eration got under way. Throughout given some food and water, but no the almost limitless capacity of the the day, Sijan maintained contact medical attention. In spite of his human spirit to triumph over the with the rescue force, but several pitiful condition, his mind focused depredations of fate and the malev- attempted pickups were thwarted constantly on escape. When some olence of lesser men. • 116 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 1986 .

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