Marc Leepson’s new book, The Unlikely War Hero, tells the amazing Vietnam War story of Doug Hegdahl, the youngest and lowest-ranking American taken prisoner in North Vietnam and held in the Hanoi Hilton. Hegdahl, a 20-year-old Navy Seaman Apprentice, fell off of his ship, the U.S.S. Canberra, in the Tonkin Gulf in April 1967, and was held until early August 1969.
When he came home (after being ordered to by his commanding officer behind bars), he stunned his debriefers when he recited the names, ranks, and services of 254 of his fellow prisoners, and the Pentagon subsequently reclassified 63 men from Missing in Action to POW. Here’s Bill McCloud’s review just posted on Books in Review II:
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Unlikely_War_Hero.html?id=qy-H0AEACAAJ
