On April 19, 1967, Air Force Colonel Leo Thorsness was on a mission over North V
ietnam when his wingman was shot down by an enemy MiG, which then lined up for a
gunnery pass on the two American pilots who had bailed out. Although his F 105
was not designed for aerial combat, Thorsness engaged the MiG and destroyed it.
Spotting four more MiGs, he fought his way through a barrage of North Vietnamese
SAMs to engage them too, shooting down one and driving off the others. For this
action, Thorsness was awarded the Medal of Honor. But he didn't learn about it
until years laterby a tap code" coming through prison wallsbecause on April 30,
Thorsness was shot down, captured, and transported to the Hanoi Hilton. Survivin
g Hell recounts a six-year captivity marked by hours of brutal torture and days
of agonizing boredom. With a novelist's eye for character and detail, Thorsness
describes how he and other American POWs strove to keep their humanity. Thrown i
nto solitary confinement for refusing to bow down to his captors, for instance,
he disciplined his mind by memorizing long passages of poetry that other prisone
rs sent him by tap code. Filled with hope and humor, Surviving Hell is an eloque
nt story of resistance and survival. No other book about American POWs has descr
ibed so well the strategies these remarkable men used in their daily effort to m
aintain their dignity. With resilience and resourcefulness, they waged war by ot
her means in the darkest days of a long captivity.
