Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War

In February 1966, U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler was shot down over "neutral Laos." He crashed deep in territory controlled by North Vietnamese army regulars and the communist Pathet Lao, who would eventually capture him and hold him prisoner in a fortified jungle prisoner-of-war camp.



But German-born Dengler was no ordinary prisoner. Already a legend in the Navy for his escape and evasion skills-amply demonstrated during training in the California desert-he would initiate, plan, and lead an...