Jon A. Reynolds, Vietnam POW, dies at 84

Gen. Reynolds — then a captain — was based mostly in Thailand and on his second tour of obligation in Southeast Asia when his F-105 Thunderchief was struck by North Vietnamese antiaircraft hearth on Nov. 28, 1965. After he ejected from the cockpit, his parachute grew to become entangled in a tree.

He was captured and brought to the notorious “Hanoi Hilton,” the primary of 9 jail camps by which he was held. His accidents, which included a fractured jaw and two damaged shoulders, have been so extreme that he couldn’t feed or clear himself.

The prisoners have been saved remoted from each other however may talk by whispers and by tapping on partitions. One requested Gen. Reynolds why guards entered his cell a number of instances a day. Solely then did he clarify the extent of his accidents and that the guards have been feeding him.

Not lengthy afterward, Gen. Reynolds’s captors tried to get him to jot down a letter denouncing the U.S. battle effort in Vietnam. When he refused, he was denied meals for eight days.

By way of wall-tapping, he was instructed to attend in his cell till the guard fell asleep after lunch. A fellow POW, Robert “Percy” Purcell, would organize to get him some meals.

“Because the afternoon grew quiet, I heard scratching on the ceiling and dirt and filth have been quickly falling from across the single lightbulb within the ceiling of my room,” Gen. Reynolds wrote in a 2013 remembrance of Purcell for the Air Power Affiliation. “Quickly the bulb and wire dropped down a few toes, which was then adopted by a collection of lengthy slender items of stale bread. My first meals in eight days! By way of the opening the place the lightbulb had been, I noticed the smiling face of Percy. He whispered a number of phrases of encouragement, waved, after which he was gone, off to get again to his cell earlier than his absence was found.”

After a U.S. bombing raid on the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi in 1966, Gen. Reynolds, Purcell and different prisoners have been shackled collectively and marched by way of the streets, as individuals cursed at them and threw rocks.

Gen. Reynolds’s mother and father, who lived close to Philadelphia, had no phrase from their son for 16 months. He recovered from his accidents and commenced to jot down letters dwelling, as he and the opposite POWs have been moved from one jail camp to a different. (Gen. Reynolds saved the tin cup he had as a prisoner and had a plaque connected to it, containing the nicknames of the 9 camps by which he was saved, together with Heartbreak Lodge, The Zoo, Soiled Chicken, Little Vegas and Dogpatch.)

The signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973 led to the discharge of virtually 600 U.S. prisoners of battle from North Vietnam. Gen. Reynolds was among the many first POWs launched, on Feb. 12, 1973.

When he spoke to his mother and father by phone, his mom stated, “Jon, the place on this planet have you ever been all this time?”

He got here again to an America completely totally different from the one he had final seen greater than seven years earlier. Whereas accompanying his household to a restaurant in Alexandria, Va., he couldn’t recover from the modifications in clothes and hair types.

“I’ve at all times maintained that the antiwar motion in the USA lengthened our keep,” Gen. Reynolds stated quickly after his return, in one in all his few interviews about his POW experiences. “I sincerely imagine it was a supply of power to the North Vietnamese.”

Gen. Reynolds remained within the Air Power and requalified as a pilot. He spent 4 years as a historical past professor on the Air Power Academy in Colorado Springs from 1975 to 1979, was on the school of the Nationwide Battle School, labored in planning, realized Chinese language and served as an air and protection attaché on the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 1984 to 1988. He later ran the coaching program for air attachés on the Pentagon earlier than retiring from the Air Power in 1990.

Jon Anzuena Reynolds was born Dec. 13, 1937, in Philadelphia and grew up within the suburb of Bala Cynwyd, Pa. His father was an insurance coverage dealer, and his mom was a nurse.

On a household trip in Canada as a teen, he flew in an airplane that might land on water and developed a lifelong curiosity in flying. He studied engineering at Trinity School in Hartford, Conn., the place he was within the Air Power ROTC. He joined the Air Power after commencement in 1959 and certified as a pilot.

Gen. Reynolds obtained a grasp’s diploma in 1975 and a PhD in 1980, each in historical past from Duke College. He was promoted to brigadier basic in 1986.

His navy decorations included the Distinguished Service Medal, two awards of the Silver Star, the Protection Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Benefit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, two awards of the Bronze Star Medal, and the Purple Coronary heart. In 1995, Gen. Reynolds returned to Vietnam and revisited among the camps the place he had been held.

After his navy service, Gen. Reynolds joined Raytheon, a protection contractor, and managed the corporate’s operations in China from 1993 to 1999. He additionally served for 20 years on the board of the Smithsonian Nationwide Air and House Museum.

Gen. Reynolds lived in Greenville, Del., for a few years earlier than settling in Bethesda.

When he was shot down in 1965, Gen. Reynolds was engaged to Emilee McCarthy, and their wedding ceremony was weeks away. Throughout his imprisonment, she went to graduate college, taught artwork and married one other man.

After Gen. Reynolds’s launch, she referred to as his household and spoke to her onetime fiance on the phone.

“He actually gave the impression of the identical Jon I had identified in 1965,” she stated in interview. “His voice hadn’t modified in any respect.”

She obtained a divorce and married Gen. Reynolds in 1974. Along with his spouse, survivors embody their two youngsters, Elizabeth Peltz of Jackson Gap, Wyo., and Andrew Reynolds of McLean, Va.; a brother; and a granddaughter.