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Former POW and U.S. Navy CMDR Raymond Arthur Vohden (Captured 3 Apr 65), on crutches, salutes MGEN John Gonge, 22nd Air Force Commander and MGEN Daniel "Chappie" James, upon his arrival on the C-141 Starlifter from Clark Air Base, Philippines. CMDR Vohden was in the first group of POWs released on 12 Feb 73 by the North Vietnamese government in Hanoi
Surrounded by Viet Cong medical personnel, injured American POW, CPT David Earle Baker, (Captured 27 June 72) sits in the hospital tent prior to being turned over the American authorities. CPT Baker was one of the 27 American POWs released during the exchange of POWs by the Four Power Joint Military Commission
Surrounded by Viet Cong medical personnel, injured American POW, CPT David Earle Baker, (Captured 27 June 72) sits in the hospital tent prior to being turned over the American authorities. CPT Baker was one of the 27 American POWs who were released during the exchange of POWs by the Four Power Joint Military Commission
Surrounded by Viet Cong medical personnel, injured American POW, CPT David Earle Baker, (Captured 27 June 72) sits in the hospital tent prior to being turned over the American authorities. CPT Baker was one of the 27 American POWs released during the exchange of POWs by the Four Power Joint Military Commission
Surrounded by Viet Cong medical personnel, injured American POW, CPT David Earle Baker, (Captured 27 June 72) sits in the hospital tent prior to being turned over the American authorities. CPT Baker was one of the 27 American POWs who were released during the exchange of POWs by the Four Power Joint Military Commission
Former POW and U.S. Air Force CPT Larry James Chesley is greeted by 22nd Air Force Vice Commander, BGEN William Deitrich and BGEN Ralph Saunders upon arriving on a flight from Clark Air Base. CPT Chesley was captured on 6 Nov 65 and released by the North Vietnamese in Hanoi 12 Feb 73
CPT David Earle Baker, U.S. Air Force, (Captured 27 Jun 72) shot down while flying his O-2 Forward Air Control aircraft and held captive by the Viet Cong until his release on February 12, 1973. He was one of twenty eight American POWs who were released during the prisoner exchange between the Viet Cong and the Americans and South Vietnamese
Former POW and U.S. Air Force CPT Darrel Edwin Pyle is greeted by MGEN John Gonge, Commander 22nd Air Force and BGEN Ralph Saunders after his arrival from Clark Air Base, Philippines. CPT Pyle was captured on 13 Jun 66 and released by the North Vietnamese in Hanoi on 12 Feb 73
Former POW and U.S. Army SSG Bobby Louis Johnson (Captured 25 Aug 68), is greeted by MGEN John Gonge, 22nd Air Force Commander and BGEN William Deitrich, Vice Commander, 22nd AF upon his arrival on the C-141 Starlifter from Clark Air Base, Philippines. SSG Johnson was in the group of POWs captured in South Vietnam and released on 12 Feb 73 by the Viet Cong at Loc Ninh, South Vietnam
Former POW and U.S. Air Force CPT David Earle Baker, on crutches, walks away from the greeting party, MGEN John Gonge, Commander 22nd Air Force and BGEN Ralph Saunders after his arrival from Clark Air Base, Philippines. CPT Baker was captured on 27 Jun 72 in Cambodia and released by the Viet Cong at Loc Ninh on 12 Feb 73
Summary
The original finding aid described this photograph as:
Subject Operation/Series: HOMECOMING
Base: Travis Air Force Base
State: California (CA)
Country: United States Of America (USA)
Scene Camera Operator: SGT Morawski
Release Status: Released to Public
Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files
Beginning in 1950, American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and again in 1962. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which a U.S. destroyer clashed with North Vietnamese fast attack craft, which was followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the U.S. president authorization to increase U.S. military presence. Regular U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations crossed international borders: bordering areas of Laos and Cambodia were heavily bombed by U.S. forces as American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, the same year that the communist side launched the Tet Offensive. The Tet Offensive failed in its goal of overthrowing the South Vietnamese government, but became the turning point in the war, as it persuaded a large segment of the U.S. population that its government's claims of progress toward winning the war were illusory despite many years of massive U.S. military aid to South Vietnam. Gradual withdrawal of U.S. ground forces began as part of "Vietnamization", which aimed to end American involvement in the war while transferring the task of fighting the Communists to the South Vietnamese themselves. Despite the Paris Peace Accord, which was signed by all parties in January 1973, the fighting continued. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture. The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, and altered North–South relations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975 marked the end of the war, and North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 800,000 to 3.1 million. Some 200,000–300,000 Cambodians, 20,000–200,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, with a further 1,626 missing in action.
On January 27, 1973, the United States agreed to a ceasefire with North Vietnam allowing withdrawal of American military forces from South Vietnam. The agreement also included the release of about 600 American prisoners of war. On Feb. 12, 1973, three C-141 flew to Hanoi, North Vietnam, and one C-9A aircraft was sent to Saigon, South Vietnam to pick up released prisoners of war. The first flight of 40 U.S. prisoners of war left Hanoi in a C-141A, later known as the "Hanoi Taxi". From February 12 to April 4, there were 54 C-141 missions flying out of Hanoi, bringing the former POWs home, the total number of returned was 591. The return of the nearly 600 POWs increased the polarization of the public and media. A majority of the POWs returned in Operation Homecoming were bomber pilots shot down while carrying out the campaign waged against civilian targets located in Vietnam and Laos. Many viewed the freed POWs as heroes, while others questioned if treating these men as heroes served to distort and obscure the truth about the war. Some felt these men deserved to be treated as war criminals or left in the North Vietnamese prison camps. Many worried that Homecoming hid the fact that people were still fighting and dying on the battlefields of Vietnam and caused the public to forget about the over 50,000 American lives the war had already cost. Veterans of the war had similar thoughts concerning Operation Homecoming with many stating that the ceasefire and returning of prisoners brought zero sense of an ending or closure. Operation Homecoming has been largely forgotten by the American public.
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