THE WALL OF FACES

Great has many meanings in this case. He was the first POW of Vietnam. In 1993 my mother was on a plane & the man sitting next to her handed her Harold's service wrist band and dog tags.

Never forget.

HOOAH

(Continued from Part 1, below entry)

The officially ordered "reprisal executions" of Versace, Roraback, and Bennett, which were declared by the Johnson State Department an "act of wanton murder" in violation of the Geneva convention and reported in the attached October 11, 1965 issue of Newsweek, involved present senior members of the Vietnamese government. These members are:

Vo Van Kiet, the current prime minister of Vietnam and former deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front;

Col. Gen. Tran Van Tra, currently the vice chairman of the Vietnam's Veterans Association and the former chairman of the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front;

Nguyen Huu Tho, currently the chairman of Vietnam's Fatherland Front and former member of the Central Committee for the National Liberation Front;

Ma Chi Tho, currently a senior member of the Vietnam government and former member of the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front.

These ranking officials ordered the "reprisal executions" and they know exactly where the remains of Versace, Roraback, and Bennett are buried. They also know exactly where Tadios and ALL other Americans who died in captivity are buried. Despite pledges of cooperation from both the U.S. government and Vietnam, the remains of these prisoners have not been returned by Hanoi.

Various U.S. officials have met with Kiet who has pledged Vietnam's full cooperation in solving the POW/MIA issue in exchange for President Bush lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam. Kiet has not ordered that the remains of the U.S. prisoners the Central Committee ordered executed be turned over and we fear that unless demands are made prior to lifting the trade embargo, the remains of Versace, Roraback, Bennett, and Tadios may never be returned home to their families.

We are asking the Senate Select Committee to ask prime minister Kiet to turn over to the Select Committee the records of the executions and the remains of these three prisoners of war.

Will you urge President Bush to suspend the current plans for lifting the trade embargo and normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam until the remains Versace, Roraback, Bennett, and all American prisoners of war who died in captivity are recovered?

Sincerely,

Larry Stark (Army Vet / Dept of the Navy Civilian)
Dan Pitzer (SGM (ret.) USASF)
Jose J. Anzaldua (Maj (ret.) USMC)

Former Vietnam War POWs Larry Stark, Dan Pitzer and Jose Anzaldua sent this letter to Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Bob Smith (R-NH) in 1992:

X X X

Senator John F. Kerry
Senator Bob Smith
Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510-6500

May 10, 1992

Dear Senators Kerry and Smith,

We the undersigned former prisoners of war, captured in South Vietnam by communist forces, are concerned about two particular incidents which resulted in the 1964-65 "reprisal executions" of three American prisoners of war by the communist Central Committee for the National Liberation Front.

On June 24, 1964, the National Liberation Front announced on Radio Hanoi that Army SGT Harold Bennett, 24, of Perryville, Arkansas was executed by his communist captors in reprisal after Viet Cong terrorist Tran Van Dong died before a South Vietnamese firing squad in Saigon.

On Sunday, September 26, 1965, the Viet Cong guards of American prisoners of war, Lt. Nick Rowe, SFC Dan Pitzer, SFC Edward Johnson, and SGT Leonard Tadios gathered their four prisoners and insisted that the Americans listen that day to the National Liberation Front's "Liberation Radio." It was an English broadcast which announced the ten o'clock in the morning executions of their fellow prisoners of war Capt. Humbert Roque Versace, 28, of Norfork, Virginia, and SFC Kenneth M. Roraback, 33, of Baldwin, New York.

The two American prisoners had earlier been ordered taken from their bamboo cages by their prison camp commandant, Nguyen Chi Cong, paraded through villages, forced to kneel and apologize publicly for their "crimes" before being shot in the back of their heads. "Liberation Radio" reported the executions were by "order of the High Command of the Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam"

Tadios, who at that time was sick and had stopped eating, was later removed from the camp. He has never been seen or heard from again. Pitzer, a signer of this letter, and Johnson were released and Rowe escaped.

The officially ordered "reprisal executions" of Versace, Roraback, and Bennett, which were declared by the Johnson State Department an "act of wanton murder" in violation of the Geneva convention and reported in the attached October 11, 1965 issue of Newsweek, involved present senior members of the Vietnamese government. These members are:

(end of Part 1)

MIA Staff Sergeant Harold George Bennett, U.S. Army, has his name chiseled into one of the "Courts of the Missing" (Vietnam War Section/Court "B" (Army)) at the Honolulu Memorial in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on the island of Oahu in the state of Hawaii. See the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) website at this link/URL:

https://www.abmc.gov/decedent-search/bennett%3Dharold