Name: Harold George
Bennett
Rank/Branch: E4/US Army
Unit:
Date of Birth: 16 October 1940 (Thornburg AR)
Home City of Record: Perryville AR
Date of Loss: 29 December 1964
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 103740N 1071950E (YS549755)
Status (in 1973): Killed In Captivity
Category: 1
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Other Personnel In Incident: Charles Crafts (released 1967)
SYNOPSIS: Harold Bennett and
Charles Crafts were MACV advisors to an ARVN unit operating in
Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam. A native of Maine, Crafts had
been in country about 1 month.
On the afternoon of December 29, 1964, Bennett, Crafts and their
ARVN unit made contact with Viet Cong guerrillas and the unit
engaged in a firefight. During the firefight, both were taken
prisoner.
By early 1965, Crafts and Bennett joined other prisoners held by
the Viet Cong. Those who returned supplied information on the
fates of those who did not. In late spring, 1965, Bennett began
to refuse food. This was not an uncommon occurrence among
prisoners suffering dysentery, malnutrition, malaise, injury and
other ills that were common among prisoners of war in the South.
Normally, the other prisoners worked hard to prevent further
illness by forcing food on the POW who refused food, provided the
sick man was not isolated. Returned POWs report the death of
several men from the cycle of illness-refusal to eat-
depression-starvation.
Bennett apparently did not die of starvaton, however. The
Vietnamese National Liberation Front (NLF) announced on Radio
Hanoi on June 24, 1965 that Bennett had been shot in retaliation
for Viet Cong terrorist Tran Van Dong's execution by South
Vietnam. He was the first POW to be executed in retaliation.
When the war ended in 1973, the Vietnamese listed Bennett as
having died in captivity. They did not return his remains. He is
one of nearly 2400 Americans still missing in Southeast Asia.
Many, like Bennett did not survive. But experts now say, based on
thousands of reports received, that hundreds are still alive.
We, as Americans had no say in the death of Harold Bennett. We
do, however, have the power to prevent the deaths of the hundreds
still alive. If we do nothing, we will be guilty of their deaths.
We must bring them home, while there is still time.
As long as even
one American remains alive, held against his will, we must do
everything possible to bring him home alive.
POW/MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W.
NETWORK Skidmore, MO.
USA
