[Phillip Beall]

All,

Last night Kathy and I were watching a Greg Kelly program on Newsmax, Greg Kelly This Week which uses parts of his Monday-Friday nightly shows from the preceding week, Greg Kelly Reports (link) and saw a fascinating piece.  Kelly spent nine years as a fighter jet pilot in the United States Marine Corps (bio), his father is Ray Kelly (bio), storied American police officer who was the longest-serving Commissioner in the history of the New York City Police Department, and he has the previously mentioned nightly TV show on Newsmax.  The segment we watched was reference Jeremiah A. Denton, Jr., where he was a US Navy Commander (O-5), and the commanding officer of Attack Squadron Seventy-Five (VA-75).  He was piloting an A-6A Intruder from the USS Independence leading a 28-aircraft bombing mission over North Vietnam when he was shot down on July 18, 1965.

Why is this one US Navy pilot, O-5 and Prisoner of War (POW) so special out of a group of very special people?  From his obituary “While a prisoner, he was a leader of other POW’s, and defied his captors’ efforts to use him for propaganda purposes.  In one such propaganda attempt, when asked what he thought of the Vietnam War, he replied, “Whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. … I am a member of that government.  It is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live.”  While making this statement he was also blinking the word “TORTURE” in Morse code over and over (emphasis added), confirming for the first time to the American government that the POW’s were in-fact being tortured.”  Morse code, I have heard bits and pieces of this story all my life, but never knew who he was and the specific details of his POW experience.

While still a prisoner, Denton was promoted to the rank of Captain and following his release in 1973, he was promoted to Rear Admiral in April 1973.  He officially retired from the Navy with this rank on November 1, 1977 and then went on to become the first post-reconstruction Republican elected to the US Senate from the state of Alabama.  What an accomplished class act.

Morse code, it is still used to identify navigation aids on my charts. POWs used it to tap out messages to each other.  Denton historically used it to blow the lid off of prisoner abuse in Vietnam.  If you want to learn more on the topic of this fascinating man and legendary American hero, here is a link to his Wikipedia page (link), here is a link to his obituary (link) and here is a link to a video of him blinking out the Morse code message (link).  What a hero for the ages.

73

Phillip Beall (W5EBC)

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