ODELL, DONALD EUGENE
Name: Donald Eugene Odell
Rank/Branch: O4/United States Air Force, Pilot
Unit: 34th TFS
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Mt. Clemens MI
Date of Loss: 17 October 1967
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 211100 North 1060500 East
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F105D
Missions: 17
Other Personnel in Incident: none
Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK from one or more of the following: raw
data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with POW/MIA
families, published sources, interviews.
REMARKS: 730314 RELEASED BY DRV
SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977
Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor
P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602
Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and
spelling errors).
UPDATE - 09/95 by the P.O.W. NETWORK, Skidmore, MO
DONALD E. ODELL
Lieutenant Colonel - United States Air Force
Shot Down: October 17, 1967
Released: March 14, 1973
I was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan but now call Mt. Clemens,
Michigan my home. On 6 September 1952 I enlisted in the Air Force and I
received my wings and commission via the Aviation Cadet Pilot Training
Program on 1 August 1955. I served a tour (3 years) as an AF Basic
Instructor Pilot. Then I served in Germany flying F-86's and F-102's for 3
years. I returned to the United States in June 1962 where I was assigned to
flying F-106's for almost 5 years. My SEA assignment came in December 1967
and I proceeded to McConnell AFB, Kansas for combat crew training in the
F-105D. I completed this training in July 1967 and after 30 days leave with
my family, I departed the U.S. I had been assigned to the 34th TFS, 388th
Tac. Ftr. Wing at Korat, Thailand and departed "The Good Ole USA" on the
17th of August 1967. I arrived at my new assignment on 31 August 1967, after
a short stop at Clark AFB for Jungle Survival School.
I was shot down on 17 October 1967 on my 17th mission. Our target that day
had been the railyards at Dep Cau, North Vietnam, which was located about 18
miles NE of Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, where I was a prisoner for
5 1/2 years. I was shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire up on roll in on
target.
I am married to the former Miss Shirley Danielski of Detroit, Michigan. We
have four children Carol, age 14, Barbara, age 13, Paul, age 10, and David,
age 7.
I have approximately 3 years of college and have attended Oklahoma State
University and the University of Maryland.
My future at this moment is still somewhat undecided as to whether or not
I'll stay in the military service or seek employment on the outside. I've
had several offers not only from the Air Force, but also from private
industry.
Message I realized almost immediately what it meant to be an American. I
looked back over my life and for the first time, it dawned on me how much
we, as Americans, take for granted in our every day way of life. Not only
our freedoms, our form of government, but even the little day-to-day
niceties such as running water and sanitation facilities that contribute to
our day-to-day happiness. Then I realized just how wonderful it was to be an
American. I looked back and saw that even I was guilty of taking things for
granted, and I saw how much more I could have done to ensure our process of
government and way of life, as well as becoming aware of the contributions I
could have made to my own community. You really become aware of what America
means in this world, especially when now, all of a sudden, you are deprived
of the freedoms and guarantees that come with being an American. I'll be the
first to admit that our form of government may not be perfect, but I defy
anyone to show me a better form of government or one which has built as
great a nation as America in less than 200 years! I would not wish to bring
harm to my fellow American or wish him discomfort, but I feel confident that
if he or she were subjected to that form of government, to the type of
existence that we have experienced, he or she would return as the most
patriotic American that ever walked upon this earth! I realize now just how
thankful and proud I am to be a citizen of this country. As we used to say
to one another while in captivity: "I sure feel sorry for them (our
Vietnamese guards and Officers), for someday we will leave this place and
they will have to stay."
I am very proud to have served with such dedicated, patriotic and proud
Americans in the camps of North Vietnam. I only hope that we as Americans
will not forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice ... that being those
who gave their lives; or those many who are now confined to VA hospitals.
Let us also pursue the plight of the MlA's who have not been accounted for
- many who had been among us there in one camp or another!
December 1996
Donald Odell retired from the United States Air Force as a Lt. Colonel. He
still lives in Michigan.
------------------------------------------------------
[mb0696.97 01/30/97]
06/20/96
Cuban War Crimes Against American POWs During Vietnam War
Micheal Benge
Ex-POW, 1968-1973
Pentagon officials confirmed that POWs released during "Operation
Homecoming" in 1973, were told not to talk about "third-country
interrogations".
"This thing is very sensitive with all kinds of diplomatic ramifications,"
according to one Pentagon official. (Washington Star, 4/3/73)
Not only was it not discussed, the torture and murder of over 20 Americans
by Cubans, was swept under the rug by the U.S. government. The Cubans were
attached to Hanoi's Enemy Proselytizing Bureau with jurisdiction over
American POWs.
Air Force Colonel Donald "Digger" Odell gave his Defense Department
debriefers an eyewitness account of two American POWs, who the Hanoi
communists hadn't released because "The Vietnamese didn't want the world to
see what they had done to them."
In spite of the Colonel's eyewitness account, and those of other returnees,
DOD (Department of Defense) continues to this date to vehemently deny that
any American POWs had been left behind.
For days in June 1968, Air Force Ace Major James Kasler was tortured by
Fidel. Fidel beat Kasler across the buttocks with a large truck fan belt
until "he tore my rear end to shreds".
For one three-day period, Kasler was beaten with the fan belt every hour
from 6:am to 10:pm, and kept awake at night. "My mouth was so bruised that I
could not open my teeth for five days."
After one beating, Kasler's buttocks, lower back and legs hung in shreds.
The skin had been entirely whipped away and the area was a bluish, purplish,
greenish mass of bloody raw meat.
According to Kasler, "at least 15 men were either killed during torture or
were not accounted for." (Time, 4/9/71)
Three POWs were beaten senseless, and of the three, two disappeared and the
other was reported to have died.
Fidel called one of the American POWs the "Faker". He was one of the three
who had been beaten senseless.
The first time Jack Bomar saw him, the man could barely walk; he shuffled
slowly, painfully. His clothes torn to shreds. He was bleeding everywhere,
terribly swollen, and a dirty, yellowish black and purple from head to toe.
The man's head was down; he made to attempt to look at anyone. He had been
through much more than the day's beatings.
His body was ripped and torn everywhere; hell cuffs appeared almost to have
severed his wrists, strap marks still wound around the arms all the way to
the shoulders, slivers of bamboo were embedded in the bloodied shins and
there were what appeared to be tread marks from the hose across the chest,
back and legs.
Fidel smashed a fist into the man's face, driving him against the wall.
Then he was brought to the center of the room and made to get down onto his
knees. Screaming in rage, Fidel took a length of black rubber hose from a
guard and lashed it as hard as he could into the man'a face. The prisoner
did not react; he did not cry out or even blink an eye. Again and again, a
dozen times, Fidel smashed the man's face with the hose.
He was never released. (Hubble, P.O.W.)
The Cuban torturers were given the names "Fidel" "Chico" and "Pancho" .
They were part of a Cuban diplomatic contingent assigned to Hanoi's Enemy
Proselytizing Bureau, and were directly responsible for the murder and
torture of a considerable number of American POWs.
According to one CIA dispatch, the Cuban Program" was conducted at the Cuu
Loc PW camp from August 1967 through July 1968.
According to a DIA report, "the objective of the interrogators was to obtain
the total submission of the prisoners...." However, this report may not have
been entirely accurate.
One intelligence source, who reportedly interviewed "Fidel" and other Cuban
interrogators in Hanoi, claims they said that their real job was to act as
gate-keepers for the Soviets, and helped select highly-skilled pilots and
electronic warfare backseaters, who became "Moscow Bound".
The Cuban involvement in the interrogation of POWs did not end in 1968, for
in 1969, I was interrogated by Fidel, and it wasn't in the Cuu Loc prison.
There were two other prison camps located near Cuban facilities in North
Vietnam where American POWs were held. One, located at "Work Site 5" (Cong
Truong 5), just north of the DMZ, was adjacent to a Cuban field hospital
that Fidel Castro visited in 1972.
No returned POW was ever held at that camp, where a mixture of legitimate
POWs and some stay-behinds, were incarcerated.
The other, according to a recently returned Vietnamese 34-A commando, was
the Thanh Tri Prison, where he saw 60 American POWs in 1969. Also in the
prison were approximately 100 French and Moroccan POWs captured in the early
1950s.
His report corroborates several other similar sightings.
Later they were transferred to Ba Vi Prison near another Cuban facility. No
American POW has ever returned from either of these prisons, thought to be
part of Hanoi's second-tier prison system.
In 1972, two French POWs escaped and made it to the French Embassy in
Peking. After the French government paid a ransom, the French and Moroccan
POWs were quietly repatriated.
There is no evidence that the CIA, DoD or DIA have ever interviewed these
people.
On one occasion, a former aide to Fidel Castro approached the American
Consulate in Nassau with an offer to ransom American POWs captured in North
Vietnam, through the Castro Government.
According to the Department of State cable, "We have listened without
comment or commitment. Presume Washington has files on these types.
Propose doing nothing further unless advised."
Evidently there was no follow up.
According to the Baltimore Sun (8/15/77), CIA analysts identified two Cuban
military attaches, Eduardo Morjon Esteves and Luis Perez Jaen, who had
backgrounds which seemed to correspond with information on Fidel and Chico,
supplied by returning POWs.
A Spanish Cuban psychiatrist, Barral Fernando, interrogated Senator John
McCain for an extensive period of time, part of which was published in the
Havana newspaper "Granma". Recently declassified documents show that the CIA
has photographs as well as composite drawings of the Cuban torturers.
After my return in 1973, I identified one of the Cubans in a photograph
shown to me by a Congressional Committee.
I was told that one of the man's jobs was coordinating the American
contingent of the Venceremos Brigade (cane cutters), and he was also
responsible for funneling Soviet money to the Americans to support anti-war
activities.
According to one news report, President Clinton's transition coordinator
appointee, Johnnetta Cole, in 1976, "was active in the communist-front
Venceremos Brigade".
Another report stated that U.S. prisoners-of-war captured in Vietnam were
reported transferred to communist prisons in Cuba during later 1965 and
throughout 1966.
One Cuban prisoner, who later escaped and fled to the U.S., was held in "Las
Maristas, a secret Cuban prison run by Castro's G-2 Intelligence service,
with American POWs captured in Vietnam".
The POWs referred to each other by rank, such as Lieutenant and Captain, and
a guard told them that these Americans were war prisoners, mostly pilots,
brought from North Vietnam.
Although he was interviewed by FBI agents upon his arrival in the U.S., they
did not seem very interested in the story of American POWs from Vietnam.
Nor was he ever debriefed by U.S. military intelligence or by the CIA.
Other Cuban witnesses have corroborated the fact that a substantial number
of American prisoners were held in several Cuban prisons.
However, only one Cuban claimed knowledge that the Americans were POWs from
Vietnam.
There is no evidence that the FBI, DoD, DIA or the CIA canvassed the Cuban
exile community in Miami to find out if they had knowledge of American POWs
taken from Vietnam to Cuba.
The behavior of "Fidel", "Chico" and "Pancho" is beyond the pale and is
clearly in violation of the standards set at Nuremberg after World War II.
Therefore, these Cuban war criminals should be tried before an international
tribunal similar to that supported by the U.S. governemnt for the
prosecution of perpetrators of war crimes in Bosnia.
The communist regime in Hanoi can easily identify these Cubans.
Therefore, a moratorium should be placed on the appointment of an American
Ambassador to Vietnam until the time that regime is "fully cooperating" in
resolving the POW/MIA issue.
Full cooperation by the communist government in Vietnam includes the full
disclosure of the true identities and roles of these Cuban "diplomats", who
were "advisors" to the Hanoi prison systems, and were directly responsible
for the murder, torture and severe disablement of over 20 American POWs.
Michael D. Benge spent 11 years in Vietnam, over five years as a
prisoner-of-war (1968-1973), and is a diligent follower of the affairs of
the regiion. While serving as a civilian Foreign Service Officer, he was
captured in South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese and held in numerous camps
in South Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam. He spent 27 months in
solitary confinement, one year in a "black box." For efforts in rescuing
several Americans before his capture, he received the State Department's
highest award for heroism and a second for valor.
[Distributed through the P.O.W. NETWORK]
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