World: The Snakes & the Angel

Of the 87 Americans taken prisoner since the Viet Nam war began, only three have managed to escape.*The problem is not so much one of harsh prison security, as it was for flyers clowned by the Nazis during World War II. Rather, it is the harshness of the country itself. An escapee from a Southeast Asian prison camp must burrow through rotting rain forests, fight off swarms of bugs, swim mighty, mud-thick rivers that cut between the region's steep mountains, and find a way to signal the U.S. rescue planes that orbit high over the jungle. Last week the most recent escapee told a harrowing tale of his trudge back to freedom.

Ants & Water Buffalo. U.S. Navy Pilot Dieter Dengler, 28, was shot down over the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos last

Feb. 1. Stunned by a crash landing that sheared the wings and tail from his Skyraider, Dengler stepped bleary-eyed into a world of muck, vines and violence that stood in odd contrast to his tidy, air-conditioned stateroom on the carrier Ranger. Abandoning his radio, .38-cal. pistol and dehydrated rations, Dengler ducked into the bush—but was jumped by Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas.

Dengler was marched at the double along jungle trails and staked out among mosquitoes at night with arms and legs wide apart; when he refused to sign a statement condemning the U.S. in Viet Nam, his captors tied him upside down from a tree and let ants swarm over him. Then they dragged him into unconsciousness behind a water buffalo.

Laotian Roulette. When he came to, his guards amused themselves with Laotian roulette: "I was tied to a tree and used for target practice—the guards tried to see how close they could come to hitting me." Finally, three weeks after his crash, Dengler was led into a bamboo stockade somewhere near the trail and locked up in crude, wooden "footcuffs" with six other U.S. flyers. The prisoners were fed a handful of rice twice a week, supplemented their diet with snakes and anything else that crawled through their hut. "Once," Dengler recalled, "we caught a snake that had swallowed two rats. We cut it open and ate the rats. Then we ate the snake."

Escape was constantly on Dengler's mind, but the prisoners decided to wait until monsoons had swollen the streams and rivers down which they hoped to float. On June 29 they made their break. Dengler slipped his footcuffs, grabbed four rifles and a bag of rice while the guards were eating. The prisoners killed six of their captors in a flurried firefight, then split into pairs in hopes of making their escape route difficult to follow.

Loaded with Death. Dengler's teammate was Air Force Lieut. Duane Mar tin, 26, of Denver, whose rescue helicopter had been shot down in September 1965. Twice the pair slept in abandoned villages; then they built a raft and floated downstream until an unexpected waterfall smashed their craft. They came upon a third village that appeared abandoned: it was instead loaded with death. A man sprang from a hut and hit Martin on the leg with a machete; a second swipe hit the stumbling Air Force pilot between shoulders and neck, beheading him. Dengler fled back into the bush.