From an April, 2004 trip, Garry Adams provides us with a brief tour from Hanoi to Dong Ha and Hue.
We start off at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton."
The main entrance to the "Hanoi Hilton" where American POWs were held captive during the Vietnam War.
Cell No 18 was known to the US POW's as the "Meat Hook" room. The room got
its name from the steel hook embedded in the ceiling. The hook was used to
suspend roped prisoners tied in agonizing positions as they were
tortured in an effort to gain information or to confess their "crimes."
The walls of Cell No 18 were covered with knobs of plaster to deaden the
sounds of those being tortured.
This interior courtyard was in a part of the prison named "New Guy Village" by the POW's.
Cell with stocks for clamping the prisoner's wrists and ankles.
This photo shows a calendar scratched into the inside of a cell door - artist unknown.
Garry notes that the new paint job appears to be an attempt to cover over or
at least de-emphasize this feature.
A Mig-21 sitting in the Army Museum in Hanoi which has a number of "kill stars"
painted on its fuselage. Garry notes:"An accurate count? Who knows. I was told that
aircraft like this were not flown by one pilot for the duration of the air war but each
plane was used by a number of pilots. It just seems on par with a diorama inside the
Air Force Museum that shows a couple of Mig-17s chasing the 7th Fleet out of the Tonkin Gulf.
Good propaganda for the masses perhaps, but bends reality to a great degree."
General Giap's house in Hanoi. The old soldier still lives here and is in his 90's.
His house is only a couple of blocks away from Ho Chi Minh's tomb and always has an
armed military guard present.
The country between Dong Ha and Hue is very sandy and there are a large number of
bomb craters and mine fields in the area. It is not unusual to see either the army
or the English-based Mine Action Group having a prod around somewhere in the area
looking for Unexploded Ordnances (UXOs)
A photo of the Dong Ha train station as it is today.
