James "Jim" Stockdale Date of birth: , Date of death: July 5, 2005
James Bond Stockdale was born and raised in Abingdon, Illinois on December 23rd, 1923. He lettered in football, basketball and track, won a regional piano competition, and graduated second in his high school class. He was appointed to the Naval Academy in the middle of World War II. Soon after graduating in 1946, Stockdale reported to Pensacola for flight training.
Stockdale flew almost every propeller-driven aircraft in the Navy's inventory, but he yearned for greater challenges. In 1954, Stockdale applied for Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. Along with 17 others -- including future astronaut John Glenn -- he made the cut.
At Patuxent, Stockdale was a standout. He amassed more than a thousand hours in the F-8U Crusader, then the Navy's hottest fighter. Promotions followed, and by the mid-1960s, Stockdale was at the very pinnacle of his career and profession, commanding a fighter squadron.
In August 1964, Stockdale's squadron played a role in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which involved North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels. The Johnson Administration invoked these occurrences to justify a massive American military response. Interestingly, Stockdale always maintained that during the Incident's key "engagement," he saw no enemy vessels. In his words, "I flew so low there was salt spray on the windshield, and I still didn't see a thing!" But the die was cast. The next morning, he was ordered to lead a raid on North Vietnamese oil refineries. America -- and Jim Stockdale -- were at war.
On September 9, 1965, Stockdale catapulted his A-4 Skyraider off the flight deck of the USS Oriskany on what turned out to be his final mission over North Vietnam. Approaching his target, his plane was riddled with anti-aircraft fire. Within seconds, his engine was aflame and all hydraulic control was gone. He "punched out," watching his plane slam into a rice paddy and explode in a fireball. Stockdale himself best describes what happened next:
"As I ejected from the plane I broke a bone in my back, but that was only the beginning. I landed in the streets of a small village. A thundering herd was coming down on me. They were going to defend the honor of their town. It was the quarterback sack of the century." They tore off his clothes and beat him mercilessly. Stockdale suffered a broken leg and paralyzed arm before a military policeman took him into custody. He was now a prisoner of war, the highest ranking naval officer to be held as a POW in Vietnam.
Stockdale wound up in Hoa Lo Prison - the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" -- where he spent the next seven years under unimaginably brutal conditions. He was physically tortured no fewer than 15 times. Techniques included beatings, whippings, and near-asphyxiation with ropes. Mental torture was incessant. He was kept in solitary confinement, in total darkness, for four years, chained in heavy, abrasive leg irons for two years, malnourished due to a starvation diet, denied medical care, and deprived of letters from home in violation of the Geneva Convention.
Through it all, Stockdale's captors held out the promise of better treatment if he would only admit that the United States was engaging in criminal behavior against the Vietnamese people, but Stockdale refused. Drawing strength from principles of stoic philosophy, Stockdale heroically resisted. His courage was an inspiration to his fellow POWs, with whom he communicated in an ingenious code, maintaining unit cohesion and morale. His jailers increased the level of torture, so Stockdale determined to fight back in the only way he could.
Told that he was to be taken "downtown" and paraded in front of foreign journalists, Stockdale slashed his scalp with a razor and beat himself in the face with a wooden stool. He reasoned that his captors would not dare display a prisoner who appeared to have been beaten. When he learned that his fellow prisoners were dying under torture, he slashed his wrists to show their captors that he preferred death to submission. Stockdale literally gambled with his life, and won.
Convinced of Stockdale's determination to die rather than cooperate, the Communists ceased trying to extract bogus "confessions" from him. The torture of American prisoners ended, and treatment of all American POWs improved. Upon his release in 1973, Stockdale's extraordinary heroism became widely known, and he received the Medal of Honor in the nation's bicentennial year. He was one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the Navy, with 26 personal combat decorations, including four Silver Star medals in addition to the Medal of Honor.
Throughout Stockdale's captivity, his wife Sybil campaigned for respectful treatment for the families of all POWs by founding the League of Families. Sybil Stockdale was presented with the U.S. Navy Department's Distinguished Public Service Award by the Chief of Naval Operations. She is the only wife of an active-duty officer ever to be so honored.
After serving as the President of the Naval War College, Stockdale retired from the Navy in 1978 and embarked on a distinguished academic career, including a term as President of the Citadel, and 15 years as a Senior Research Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In 1992 he graciously agreed to a request from his old friend H. Ross Perot to stand with Perot as the vice presidential candidate of the Reform Party. Stockdale disliked the glare of publicity and partisan politics, but throughout the campaign he comported himself with the same integrity and dignity that marked his entire career. Together, the Stockdales told their story in a joint memoir, In Love and War. Admiral Stockdale and his wife lived quietly on Coronado Island, off of San Diego, until his death at age 81. In 2009, the U.S. Navy honored him by naming a new missile destroyer in his honor, the U.S.S. Stockdale.
An Indomitable Spirit - "Stockdale...deliberately inflicted a near-mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate. He was subsequently discovered and revived by the North Vietnamese who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated in their employment of excessive harassment and torture toward all of the Prisoners of War."
So reads the Medal of Honor citation for James Bond Stockdale. Shot down over North Vietnam in 1965, he endured seven years of captivity as a Prisoner of War, one of the longest such ordeals in American history. Tortured 15 times, he was forced to wear vise-like heavy leg irons for two years, and spent four of the seven years in solitary confinement, in total darkness.
Though his captors held his body prisoner, their relentless attempts to break his spirit never succeeded. Throughout his captivity, Stockdale's steadfast refusal to cooperate with the enemy kept alive the spirit of resistance in his fellow POWs. When his story was told on his release in 1973, the story of his courage and endurance became an inspiration to Americans everywhere.
Whatever challenges we may face in the years to come, Americans and all freedom-loving peoples can fortify themselves with the example of Admiral James Bond Stockdale, an American hero for our time, and for all times.
Medal of Honor Citation
Rank and organization: Rear Admiral (then Captain), U.S. Navy. Place and date: Hoa Lo prison, Hanoi, North Vietnam, 4 September 1969. Entered service at: Abingdon, Ill. Born: 23 December 1923, Abingdon, Ill.. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while senior naval officer in the Prisoner of War camps of North Vietnam. Recognized by his captors as the leader in the Prisoners' of War resistance to interrogation and in their refusal to participate in propaganda exploitation, Rear Adm. Stockdale was singled out for interrogation and attendant torture after he was detected in a covert communications attempt. Sensing the start of another purge, and aware that his earlier efforts at self-disfiguration to dissuade his captors from exploiting him for propaganda purposes had resulted in cruel and agonizing punishment, Rear Adm. Stockdale resolved to make himself a symbol of resistance regardless of personal sacrifice. He deliberately inflicted a near-mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate. He was subsequently discovered and revived by the North Vietnamese who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated in their employment of excessive harassment and torture toward all of the Prisoners of War. By his heroic action, at great peril to himself, he earned the everlasting gratitude of his fellow prisoners and of his country. Rear Adm. Stockdale's valiant leadership and extraordinary courage in a hostile environment sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.
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