Dieter Dengler
Dieter Dengler (born May 22, 1938 in Wildberg (Black Forest) ; † February 7, 2001 in Mill Valley (USA)) was an American fighter pilot of German descent. Dengler gained fame through his escape from a Laotian prisoner of war camp in 1966 during the Vietnam War , about which he wrote the book "Escape from Laos" ("Escape from Laos"). This escape also formed the basis for Werner Herzog's documentary Flucht aus Laos ( Little Dieter Needs to Fly ) from 1997 and his feature film Rescue Dawn from 2006. In the film, Dengler is played by actor Christian Bale .
Life
In 1945 Dieter Dengler experienced Allied air raids in his hometown , which made him want to become a pilot himself. His father died on the Eastern Front in World War II in 1943/44 and his grandfather Hermann Schnürle was a political opponent of the Nazi regime , whose steadfastness served as a model for him during his imprisonment in Laos. Dengler emigrated to the USA in 1957 and joined the US Air Force. He received his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio , Texas . He was employed as a mechanic and although he passed the pilot training entrance test, he was turned down as only college graduates were admitted. After his release, Dengler worked for his brother in a bakery near San Francisco and enrolled at the City College of San Francisco and later at the College of San Mateo with a focus on aviation. After completing two years of college, he applied for the US Navy aviation cadet program and was accepted. After completing his flight training, Dengler started training as a fighter pilot in a Douglas-AD Skyraider at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas . He belonged to Assault Squadron 145 (VA-145) and was stationed at Naval Air Station (NAS) Alameda in California. In 1965 the squadron belonged to the CVW-14 squadron of the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-61) and was off the coast of Vietnam in December 1965.
On February 1, 1966, the Yankee Station was deployed over North Vietnam against an enemy supply convoy. Due to bad weather conditions, however, the secondary objective, a secret reconnaissance mission on the Ho Chi Minh Trail west of the Mụ Giạ Pass in the Truong Son Mountains, was chosen instead. He was shot down in Laotian territory and was taken prisoner by the Pathet Lao . On February 14, 1966, he was sent to the detention center near Par Kung . There he refused to sign a document against the US presence in Southeast Asia and was tortured . His fellow prisoners were the Thai Phisit Intharathat, Prasit Promsuwan, Prasit Thanee, the Chinese YC Um and the Americans Duane W. Martin and Eugene DeBruin. Except for Dengler and Martin, the other prisoners were recruited from Air America , which was financed by the US secret service CIA . They were later taken to the Hoi Het Detention Center.
On June 30, 1966, he and his six fellow prisoners succeeded in breaking out. They were able to take the guards by surprise and shot them with captured weapons. After a 23-day escape through the jungle , he was rescued by helicopter on July 21, 1966. Of his fellow prisoners, only Phisit Intharathat survived, who was captured again a short time later.
Dengler has received several military honors and was later employed in civil aviation at TWA . He has been married three times and has two sons.
After a few years in which he suffered from the incurable nervous disease ALS , on February 7, 2001, 35 years and six days after he was shot down, he drove through Laos to the local fire service driveway below the Mountain Home Inn, which he managed and shot himself there. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery .
Awards
literature
- Bruce Henderson: Hero Found. The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War. HarperCollins, New York NY 2010, ISBN 978-0-06-157136-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dieter Dengler: "Escape from Laos"
- ↑ Article about Dieter Dengler in the San Francisco Chronicle of July 30, 2010
- ↑ Dieter Dengler, Lieutenant United States Navy, Arlington National Cemetery Information
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dengler, Dieter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American fighter pilot of German descent |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 22, 1938 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Wildberg (Black Forest) |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 7, 2001 |
| Place of death | Mill Valley , USA |