Six Years
A PRISONER OF WAR’S JOURNEY FROM THE HANOI HILTON AND BACK
By Guy Fletcher
Photography by Turner Photography Studio
Feb. 4, 1967, offered clear skies above the green, mountainous region north of Hanoi, North Vietnam. It was perfect FLying weather for U.S. Air Force Capt. John Fer, who at age 29 had already successfully piloted 53 missions jamming enemy radar and ground equipment and conducting reconnaissance.
The 54th flight would be his last.
That day, an enemy missile shot down Fer’s aircraft and he was captured, held as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese for more than six years—2,220 days—until his release on March 4, 1973. During his confinement at the infamous POW prison known as the Hanoi Hilton, he endured torture and poor conditions, but resolved to survive and bonded with fellow inmates that included a Navy pilot named John McCain.
Fer’s story of imprisonment, release and recovery is told in his book Trampling the Serpent: Vietnam POW—Revealing True Character, published earlier this year. The nearly 600-page volume, a memoir of the Frederick resident’s POW experience, is the result of an undertaking that Fer unknowingly began shortly after being captured.
“The bottom line, I came to realize on that first night of captivity, was besides being a shock to the system—my mental and physical wellbeing—I was alone physically, I was alone materialistically, I was alone without any personal relationship with other people,” says Fer, now 86. “So, what I did was I fell back on those things I call my three faiths, which I think are pretty well captured in the book, and those are my faith in God, faith in family and faith in my country and the other POWs, whom I didn’t know even existed at that point.”
ATTACK FROM BELOW
In 1967 Hanoi was the most defended city in history against air attack, with an array of anti-aircraft weapons, surface-to-air missiles and radar shielding the North Vietnamese capital. Determined to break those defenses was the U.S. military, which not only brought the muscle of bombers, fighters and attack planes, but also highly sophisticated equipment aimed at detecting and disabling radar and weapons systems.
Fer piloted a Douglas EB-66C, a repurposed bomber packed with electronic equipment capable of jamming North Vietnamese radar and conducting reconnaissance of enemy sites. For that 54th mission, the aircraft featured a crew of six—Fer and a navigator in the cockpit and four electronic warfare officers, known as “Ravens,” manning the specialized jamming and surveillance equipment in the back of the aircraft.
Anti-aircraft artillery, with its limited range and altitude, did not concern Fer very much, but surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) were a real threat, even as he climbed the aircraft 30,000 feet above the North Vietnamese countryside. Still, he believed his plane was beyond the range of Hanoi’s SAMs as he flew a series of “racetrack” ovals while the Ravens went to work.
“I’m flying along there, and I’ve done this thing 53 times, with great confidence in the guys in the back,” Fer recalls. “I didn’t feel any apprehension whatsoever.”
What he didn’t know was that he had flown close enough to a mobile SAM launch site that had been moved into position very recently, possibly the night before, and it began firing at his aircraft.
Suddenly, Fer felt a “thump” on the plane—later determined to be the second of four SAMs fired at his aircraft. (It is believed the first missile was a miss.) He could not determine if there was any damage to the plane, but he responded as if under fire and took evasive maneuvers, sharply banking the aircraft into a tight turn.
It was too late.
A few seconds later, a third missile struck the nose of airplane, fracturing the Plexiglas cockpit window and delivering a concussive punch to Fer’s ribcage. That was followed by the fourth and fatal SAM, a direct hit that—unbeknown to Fer at the time—split the aircraft in two and killed three of the electronic warfare officers, with the fourth Raven ejecting.
Quickly assessing the aircraft’s perilous condition, Fer decided he and the navigator needed to eject. Unfortunately, he forgot to put on his visor, so the blast of air from ejection caused him to be temporarily blinded, making his descent and parachute deployment even more difficult.
HANOI HILTON
Somehow, he managed to land, and his sight restored. With visible wounds to his elbow and knee, Fer acted immediately to evade the North Vietnamese and hopefully be rescued by the “Jolly Greens,” helicopters that would fly into enemy territory to retrieve those shot down. The problem was the sound of the missiles striking his plane alerted local villagers who moved to capture those who parachuted to the ground.
“When they heard the bangs, they naturally probably looked and they saw, then, the airplane in flaming halves coming down and they knew where it hit just west of their village,” he says. “So, I hear them coming up. I hear the dogs barking. I said, ‘I got to get out of here.’”
Fer’s escape route, unfortunately, took him into a thicket of impenetrable brush. Unable to retreat his steps because it would take him toward the villagers closing in, he sought refuge in a tight space behind a banana palm. He was quickly discovered. “What they saw was my back. Then all hell broke loose [with the villagers] screaming, hollering. They all came down and surrounded me.”
The villagers stripped Fer of most of his clothes and belongings, including his Smith & Wesson .38. “One guy points it at me. And it was such an impossibly silly thing to do, but I slowly reached out and I pushed it away, and he didn’t even resist it,” he says. In fact, a medic was called, and Fer’s wounds were even bandaged.
But any feelings of goodwill were lost after the all-night ride to Hanoi and arrival at the notorious Hỏa Lò Prison. Soon after arriving at the facility that would become known as the Hanoi Hilton, Fer underwent his first rounds of interrogation and torture.
In accordance with Geneva Conventions, Fer offered his name, rank, serial number and date of birth. The North Vietnamese officer, speaking perfect English, wanted more. “He said, ‘What is your unit?’ I told him, ‘I can’t tell you that.’” Unsatisfied with the response, an enlisted man assisting the officer moved in on Fer. “He comes rushing over and he clubs me in the side of the face, like to knock me into next week. Really rocked me a good one.” Again, the officer asked him what unit Fer belonged to, again Fer refused. Another slap from the enlisted man.
After Fer’s third refusal, he was bound behind his back with a strap and pair of handcuffs, so tightly that he felt his circulation being cut off. Then the officer and enlisted man left the room. “The pain got so great that I shouted out to them after about 25, 30 minutes, “I said, ‘OK, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you,” Fer says. But he didn’t tell them and back to the strap and handcuffs he went.
The torture eventually led Fer to reveal the name of the unit, but the interrogators moved on to their real goal of getting Fer to disclose tactical information. Then they started asking about his family, famous people he knew, and questions laced with war propaganda. “I just made up all sorts of ridiculous answers to that sort of stuff,” he says.
LIFE INSIDE
Fer spent four months in solitary confinement, but during that time he discovered he was not alone. One evening, while pacing in his dank cell, he heard American voices coming through a window. “I said, “Who’s out there?’ And there was dead silence. I said, ‘Who’s out there?’ And they said, ‘Who are you?’ I said, ‘I am John Fer.’ The voice came back and said, ‘Were you shot down?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘When?’ I said, ‘The fourth of February.’ The voice came back and said, ‘This year?’ I thought to myself, ‘What the hell year is he talking about.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’
The man on the other side of the wall was Sam Johnson, an Air Force pilot shot down and captured in 1966. Johnson would spend seven years in captivity. He had another question for Fer.
“Do you know the code?”
A flash of recollection took Fer back to the interrogation room, where he saw a note about a code the POWs were using. He knew some of the basics but needed Johnson to teach him the finer points. That night, using a bar of soap and a rusty nail, he scribbled down the code as Johnson tapped on the wall.
Communication with the other POWs helped, as did his transfer out of solitary, but months began to roll by. Fer believed something might happen to end the war before the 1968 presidential election. “I expected something big to happen in 1968 … but it didn’t.” His unwavering belief in his eventual release was tested by the passage of time, the poor conditions, the hostile guards and feelings of isolation. Then months became years.
What kept him going?
“My big thing was prayer, faith in God and prayer,” he says. In addition to religion, Fer leaned on two other beliefs that strengthened his resolve—a belief in his fellow POWs and a belief in his family. “Those were the big three.”
One hot summer day, the guards caught Fer and his cellmates tapping on the wall. For punishment, Fer and the others were restricted to leg irons, wearing long sleeves and trousers in the scorching heat. “These people were really contradictory. On one hand they would be torturing you during the day but at night they insisted you hang a mosquito net over your bed, so you didn’t get malaria or some other disease,” he says.
Making captivity more difficult was his decision not to write letters home, as many other POWs did, including his navigator and the surviving Raven from his crew. “I made up my mind when I was captured, I was not going to ask these SOBs [guards] for anything. I did not want them to hold it over my head: ‘If we do this, you’ll give us that,’” Fer says.
Following a failed rescue attempt of POWs by American forces in 1970, the North Vietnamese decided to centralize many of the prisoners. It was then that Fer met future U.S. Sen. John McCain. They became fast friends, with Fer asking questions about McCain’s military family, the U.S. Naval Academy and many other topics.
“John, I found out, was a guy with incredible courage and strength. He was really broken up physically,” Fer says. “We used to walk and .. he always walked dragging that one leg and his elbows were misshapen because they didn’t properly heal.”
RELEASE AND RENEWAL
In late 1972, word began trickling into the prison that peace talks were taking place to end the war. In fact, negotiations in Paris between the United States and North Vietnam progressed but broke down by December, leading to the American bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong with more than 20,000 tons over ordnance over 11 days.
“I never saw a display of air power like that,” Fer says. “This went on around the clock, 24 hours a day.”
It was the final major military operation by the United State in the Vietnam War.
Within weeks an announcement was made in the camp that a peace agreement was to be signed Jan. 27 and POWs would then be released in order of their dates of capture. The first prisoners were released Feb. 12 and another group on Feb. 18. Fer was finally released March 4.
After a stop for medical examinations at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, Fer and other POWs flew home to March Air Force Base in his native California on March 8. As the plane taxied to the hangar, Fer noticed the building was full of family and friends to greet the servicemen. Each POWs name was announced as he descended the steps of the plane.
“I hadn’t put one foot on the ground yet and my mother was running like hell to me,” he says with a smile. The emotional reunion was captured by a wire service photographer. Fer remained at the base for three months of convalescence, “but I didn’t really need it.”
He did need treatment, at long last, for a small lump beneath his skin near his ribcage. Doctors removed a tiny piece of shrapnel, slightly larger than a BB, believed to be part of the missile that struck the nose of his plane and punched him in the side.
For his actions in Vietnam, Fer earned the Silver Star, the United States’ third-highest military decoration for valor in combat, and many other decorations.
But his career in the military was not over. Fer never doubted he would stay in the Air Force after his release. “I wanted to go back flying again … and I did,” he says. In fact, he stayed in the Air Force until 1990, retiring as a colonel. His posts included serving in the Pentagon as principal adviser for POW and MIA affairs to the secretary of defense. His post-military career included 14 years as the principal of a Catholic elementary school.
Fer married his wife, Nancy, in 1974. They moved to Frederick about a decade ago to be closer to their adult children and grandchildren.
Fer insists he carries no emotional scars or lingering trauma from his captivity and the years taken from his freedom, and the reasons why have perplexed him at times. “That’s why I believe in divine providence,” he says. “I think we are what we are created to be, and how we are raised and educated by our families.”
