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>> 139 5 Behind Enemy Lines In April 1951, Bob Ward’s luck nearly ran out. A United States Air Force P-80 captain, Ward found himself downed somewhere in enemy territory with broken legs and little hope of survival. Thinking he would die, Ward made a cross and waited. But, Ward’s captor, indicating that he too was a Christian, did the unthinkable. He grabbed a flashlight and directed American planes to Ward’s position so that he could be rescued. After falling “from one kind of war to another,” Ward had been redeemed after only a brief and tolerable interlude behind enemy lines.1 Ward’s tale is not the only one of its kind. Other American prisoners of war (POWs) in Korea also managed to escape captivity after only a few hours, days, or weeks and with a minimum of hardship.2 But, for most of the 7,190 Americans taken prisoner by the North Koreans and Chinese during the Korean War, release took months or even years, if it came at all.3 No prisoner exchanges took place until April 1953, when the UN Command and the communists traded “sick and wounded” prisoners in the operation known as “Little Switch.” At that time, 149 Americans began their long-anticipated trek 140 > 141 had resulted in the “haggard faces and emaciated bodies” of the men passing through Freedom Village.11 But, almost immediately after Little Switch, a bigger scoop worked its way into the headlines and into the public imagination. Rumors began to circulate that through indoctrination or “brainwashing” the Chinese had successfully “turned” many Americans in their care, if not favorably disposing them toward communism, at least leading them to commit various acts of treason or collaboration such as signing false confessions or denouncing America and its leaders. In fact, Army psychiatrist William Mayer, present at Little Switch, when many so-called progressives who had openly collaborated with the enemy were repatriated, claimed that one-third of American POWs had “yielded to brainwashing” in North Korea.12 Operating on this premise, the Army began investigating and interrogating former prisoners of war nearly as quickly as they were released.13 Ultimately, the Army concluded that most American POWs had collaborated at least nominally with the enemy. Determined to hold former prisoners of war accountable for their actions, the Army initiated fourteen courts-martial in the mid-1950s, charging thirteen men with collaboration.14 Though only a few faced formal charges, suspicion fell on all, particularly after twenty-one Americans declined repatriation and chose to stay with the Chinese. This prompted a number of POWs to proclaim their innocence. Sick and wounded returnees at Valley Forge Hospital in Pennsylvania noted publicly that they were “burned up” over the idea that they “might have succumbed to Communist propaganda in Korean prison camps.”15 Similarly, Major David MacGhee wrote a piece for Collier’s entitled “In Korea’s Hell Camps: Some of Us Didn’t Crack,” in which he asserted that he had held out against communist pressure.16 But, while many Americans stood ready to forgive former prisoners of war for their crimes and any lapses in judgment given the ordeal they had just endured, the public overwhelmingly found the chilling novelty of brainwashing and tales of collaboration infinitely more interesting than POW denials that Chinese indoctrination had succeeded. Filmmakers, journalists, and psychiatrists in the 1950s proved all too happy to feed the fascination with “brainwashed” prisoners of war, producing a number of motion pictures and articles devoted to the topic. Movies like The Rack (1956), Manchurian Candidate (1959), and Time Limit (1957) all dramatically depicted Americans giving in to communist coercion.17 Meanwhile, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Betty Friedan, Eugene Kinkead, and a host of others offered up theories as to why so many Americans presumably collaborated with the enemy.18 Some charged that this latest generation of American POWs, unlike the men captured in World War I or World War II, simply lacked the “right stuff.” They argued that coddling mothers, a broken educational system, weak characters, 142 > 143 by other standards, for the most part had complied with the terms set forth in Geneva, at least with regard to American and British prisoners.24 Weeks passed before the outside world discovered Pak Hen Yen’s lie, but to United Nations soldiers captured by North Korean troops it quickly and painfully became clear that this enemy had no intention of treating prisoners of war humanely. North Koreans routinely shot...

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