Obit of the Day: - —- .-. - ..- .-. .
Commander Jeremiah Denton was leading a squad of A-26 fighter jets in a combat mission over Vietnam on July 18, 1965. His twelfth mission, Cmdr. Denton was shot down near Thanh Hoa and captured.
As an naval officer, the Vietcong moved him to the infamous “Hanoi HIlton” POW camp where he underwent beatings and torture for eight years. His strength and courage never waned and the American public saw this first hand on May 16, 1966.
In a live interview broadcast by the Vietcong with Cmdr. Denton, the pilot turned the tables on his captors by refusing to denounce the U.S. military or the intervention in Vietnam. Even more boldly, during the filming Cmdr. Denton blinked out the word “torture” in Morse code with his eyelids. Army intelligence picked up the irregular pattern and understood the message*.
Following the invterview debacle, the Vietcong gave the commander his worst beating and he was never again allowed on camera.
As the war drew to a close in 1973, Commander Denton was released by the Vietcong. He returned home and was promoted to Rear Admiral by the U.S. Navy. In 1974 he was awarded the Navy Cross, the military branch’s second highest honor, for bravery during his intervew.
Admiral Denton retired from the Navy in 1976, the same year his memoir When Hell Was in Session was published. Three years later it was made into a television movie.
Drawn to politics after retirement from the Army, Adm. Denton ran for the U.S. Senate in his home state of Alabama. He won election in 1980 as a loyal follower of newly elected president Ronald Reagan. He became the state’s first Republican senator since 1879^.
He lost his re-election bid in 1986 to then-Democrat Richard Shelby, who is still the incumbent having switched to the GOP in 1994. Mr. Denton continued in public service founding the Christian-based Coalition for Decency, which he established in response to a “decline in morals” in the United States, and also the National Forum Foundation, which shipped donated goods to countries in need.
Jeremiah Denton died on March 28, 2014 at the age of 89.
Sources: NY Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Wikipedia
(The video is a portion of the May 17, 1966 interview between then-Commander Jeremiah Denton and a member of the Vietcong. You can clearly see Mr. Denton blink in a distinct pattern that was Morse code. Courtesy of luck3148 on YouTube.com)
* The title of this post is the Morse code for “torture.”
^ Alabama’s first Republican senators were Willard Warner and George E. Spencer, who were both elected to the Senate in 1868 when the state was re-admitted to the Union following the Civil War. Mr. Warner lost re-election in 1871, while Spencer won his race in 1872 and left office in 1879.
Other POWs featured on Obit of the Day:
Jack Garrett - WWII POW who made a guitar plane wreckage
Lionel Greenberg - Captured by the Germans, he remained proud of his Jewish heritage
Kenneth Porwoll - Survivor of the Bataan Death March
Robbie Reisner - USAF pilot and POW leader inside the Hanoi Hilton
Louis Sachwald - WWII POW who weighed only 90 pounds when released
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