Land Ops, Marines, Vietnam

                                             6 MAY-22 JUNE 1966

                                         DODSON/ECKES ESCAPE

On the 6^th of May 1966, USMC SGT James Dodson was surveying for a road construction team in friendly territory just south of Da Nang, South Vietnam.  While investigating a peasant hut about 200 yards from his buddies, Dodson suddenly felt a sharp blow to the back of his head.  When he came to, he was being led on a six-foot rope down a jungle path by several Viet Cong soldiers.  Four days later LCPL Walter W. Eckes was hitch-hiking south of Da Nang close to the location from which Dodson had been taken.  Three jovial soldiers in South Vietnamese uniforms approached carrying American rifles.  But as they pulled abreast of Eckes they suddenly became sullen, leveled their rifles, and led him off on a similar tether.  On May 12^th the two Marines were united in a temporary POW encampment 20 miles south of Da Nang.

Dodson and Eckes remained at this camp nearly a month, under the constant watch of their VC guards.  They were fed a steady diet of rice with fish sauce and given liberty to bathe and wash their newly issued black “pajamas” in a nearby stream.  Each noon they were forced to read Communist propaganda, and around 1700 they would be subjected to a 30-minute English language broadcast of Radio Hanoi.  Their chief captor occasionally grilled them on the propaganda they endured, taking particular interest in Dodson, an African-American.  But though they were treated better than many American prisoners of the Communists, Dodson and Eckes never abandoned hopes of escape.

One day in June, as they were being marched for several days to a new camp, the constant vigil of their guards relaxed.  As the Marines and three guards sat in a semicircle eating their evening meal, Dodson suddenly jumped up and grabbed two carbines leaning against a tree.  He tossed one to Eckes, and in a flash their three VC guards beat a retreat into the jungle.

Eckes and Dodson rummaged through the packs abandoned by their captors and quickly shed their VC pajamas for green fatigues.  Taking only the rifles, canteens, and some hard candy, the two Marines struck off in the direction of Da Nang.  Their trek was not an easy one.  They stumbled down steep mountains, fell into the paths of wild boar and water buffalo, and survived a brush with quicksand.  They endured fatigue and received numerous cuts and bruises.  One night their sleep in the underbrush was disturbed as a VC search party passed a mere three feet away.  Finally on June 22^nd, the exhausted Marines stumbled into a South Vietnamese Army camp near Da Nang, where they were sheltered and fed.  The next day the two were taken to a nearby airfield and flown to the Marine Corps airbase at Da Nang.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  27 JUN 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“Guests of the VC.”  Newsweek, Vol 68 (2), 11 July 1966, pp. 36-37.

Rochester, Stuart I. and Frederick Kiley.  Honor Bound:  American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia 1961-1973.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, pp. 272-73.