30 years later, Lt. Gov. Kernan recalls harrowing Vietnam experiences
By AMANDA BISHOP — Staff writer
NEW CARLISLE — Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan spent nearly a year of his life held in a
North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp.
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Tuesday marked the 30th anniversary of the date he was shot
down over North Vietnam.
He spoke of the experience Friday morning in Sid Shroyer’s American Literature
of the Vietnam War class at New Prairie High School.
Kernan traveled to Vietnam aboard the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk in early 1972, about
three years after joining the Navy.
He took pictures of various enemy targets for photo intelligence men to study,
determining which targets to attack.
He also worked as a bomb damage assessor, photographing Vietnamese targets after
the U.S. attacked, so officials could decide whether a target needed to be
bombed a second time.
“The day that I remember was May 7, 1972,” Kernan told the students, who were
eagerly listening.
On May 7, he was sent to take pictures of the Thanh Hoa Bridge, in Thanh Hoa,
North Vietnam, approximately 80 miles south of Hanoi.
The area surrounding the bridge, located on Highway One, was an area where many
U.S. planes had been lost. Aviators had unsuccessfully attempted to knock the
bridge out at least seven or eight times before then, Kernan said.
Each time the U.S. made an attack, the bridge became more protected by enemy
troops.
“That was dangerous territory and we knew it,” Kernan said.
He and his pilot flew in over the Gulf of Tonkin with an F-4 escort.
The F-4 was the lookout, alerting Kernan and his pilot of any enemies locking
into them.
“The escort would say, “They got a lock on you, break left” or break right.”
As Kernan’s plane turned south to move over the target, the escort came out
ahead of them, when it needed to be above or behind his plane. The escort rolled
his wings, “and then he lost us.”
It was near dusk, the sun low on the horizon, and the planes were headed into
the glare.
The F-4 returned to the ship, assuming Kernan’s aircraft was all right.
Meanwhile, Kernan and his partner took the pictures and continued down Highway
One, getting shot at as they headed back to the ship.
They were traveling at 4,500 feet, a relatively low altitude, when they were
hit.
“It was almost like somebody took a bowling ball and hit the back of the
airplane,” Kernan said.
The fire warning light lit up on the control panel, but the two didn’t eject
from the plane.
“We’d been trained you never jump out of a airplane just because of a fire
warning light, you needed another signal,” Kernan said.
However, the plane began descending to lower and lower altitudes rapidly , so
Kernan ejected his seat.
The force of the ejection knocked him unconscious. His parachute opened and he
landed on the ground, but the landing was not entirely safe.
Still wearing his helmet and flight suit with the parachute trailing behind him,
he landed in a residential area of North Vietnam.
“I looked like somebody from Mars, landing in North Vietnam in someone’s yard,”
Kernan said.
Women, children and young men surrounded him. But soon the militia approached
and argued with the people over who would take him prisoner.
“I was pulling for the militia guys,” Kernan said, adding he thought he had a
better chance of survival with them.
They did win the argument, put him on a boat to Thahn Hoa, where he was
blindfolded and photographed, then was imprisoned.
“I was all alone,” he remembered. “I had begun to think that maybe I’d jumped
out of a good airplane.”
However, later that day, while sitting in a dark, damp place that at the end of
a long hallway, he heard the voice of his pilot, who was delirious from breaking
his arm while ejecting from the plane.
Kernan later learned the pilot stayed in the plane longer because the hydraulic
stick had come loose instead of locking and he was trying to fix it.
While imprisoned, he and other prisoners learned news of the war through
loudspeakers broadcasting a Vietnamese radiocast. Not knowing Vietnamese, the
men learned the war was going well through four key words: Kissinger, a
negotiator; Le Duc To, a man negotiating peace in Vietnam; Hoa Binh, meaning
peace; and Paris, because that was where the peace talks were.
With the peace agreement signed Jan. 27, Kernan and the other prisoners were
told they would be sent home within 60 days.
By late March, only 108 prisoners remained in North Vietnam.
Kernan and 67 other prisoners were to leave March 26, with the 40 remaining to
leave March 27.
“We were all ready to go and they came in and said all bets are off,” he
recalled.
A discrepancy over the release of 10 prisoners in Cambodia arose, but within 24
hours the issue was resolved and Kernan left for the United States March 27.
Participating in the Vietnam War left a lasting impression.
While the experience had many serious aspects, he said, but it also deterred him
from eating pumpkins.
“I think I got shot down on the first day of pumpkin season,” Kernan said.
He was fed pumpkin soup twice a day for nearly nine months. “Nothing pumpkin has
passed through these lips in 29 years.”