Final Mission of LT Ronald W. Dodge
POSTED ON 11/25/14 - BY WKILLIAN@SMJUHSD.ORG LT Ronald W. Dodge was the pilot of an F-8E assigned a combat mission over North Vietnam on May 17, 1967. When Dodge was about 20 miles northwest of the city of Vinh in Nghe An Province, North Vietnam, his aircraft was shot down. Safely on the ground, Dodge talked with his wingman on the radio and waved him off. He discussed moving up the hill. During this period, he made three radio transmissions, one of them reporting being surrounded by North Vietnamese forces and saying, "I'm breaking up my radio." One pilot saw Dodge being captured. For the next years, Dodge's wife, Jan, was tortured by photos which appeared on the cover of the September 9, 1967, Paris Match, and in a propaganda film made by East Germany called, "Pilots in Pajamas." In the Paris Match photo, Dodge's head was bandaged, but in the German film, he was walking on his own power between guards. Jan Dodge had little idea of the torture that Ron Dodge was enduring in the hands of the Vietnamese. It is the general feeling among returned POWs that Ron Dodge was tortured to the point of death. When 591 American prisoners were released in 1973, Ron Dodge was not among them. The Vietnamese denied any knowledge of him, in spite of the widely-published photographs of Ron Dodge in captivity. Then, in 1981, the Vietnamese "discovered" and returned the remains of Ron Dodge to U.S. control. [Taken from pownetwork.org]

Dodge, Ronald Wayne, CDR