A Short Tour from Hanoi to Hue


From an April, 2004 trip, Garry Adams provides us with a brief tour from Hanoi to Dong Ha and Hue.

We start off at the infamous "Hanoi Hilton."


The main entrance to the "Hanoi Hilton" where American POWs were held captive during the Vietnam War.


Cell No 18 was known to the US POW's as the "Meat Hook" room. The room got
its name from the steel hook embedded in the ceiling. The hook was used to
suspend roped prisoners tied in agonizing positions as they were
tortured in an effort to gain information or to confess their "crimes."


The walls of Cell No 18 were covered with knobs of plaster to deaden the
sounds of those being tortured.


This interior courtyard was in a part of the prison named "New Guy Village" by the POW's.


Cell with stocks for clamping the prisoner's wrists and ankles.


This photo shows a calendar scratched into the inside of a cell door - artist unknown.
Garry notes that the new paint job appears to be an attempt to cover over or at least de-emphasize this feature.


A Mig-21 sitting in the Army Museum in Hanoi which has a number of "kill stars"
painted on its fuselage. Garry notes:"An accurate count? Who knows. I was told that
aircraft like this were not flown by one pilot for the duration of the air war but each
plane was used by a number of pilots. It just seems on par with a diorama inside the
Air Force Museum that shows a couple of Mig-17s chasing the 7th Fleet out of the Tonkin Gulf.
Good propaganda for the masses perhaps, but bends reality to a great degree."


General Giap's house in Hanoi. The old soldier still lives here and is in his 90's.
His house is only a couple of blocks away from Ho Chi Minh's tomb and always has an armed military guard present.


Country side scenery taken from the train between Dong Ha and Hue. The line runs pretty
much along the eastern edge of Leatherneck Square so I thought it might be of interest
to show what the place is like today. In places, old bomb craters can still be seen,
mostly as circular ponds in the rice fields.


The country between Dong Ha and Hue is very sandy and there are a large number of
bomb craters and mine fields in the area. It is not unusual to see either the army
or the English-based Mine Action Group having a prod around somewhere in the area
looking for Unexploded Ordnances (UXOs)


A photo of the Dong Ha train station as it is today.


These photos from Hue show a movie theater on the north side of the river and to
the left of the bridge. The next is of the small street that is the next road past
the theatre that heads up towards the Thuong Tu Gate, one of the southern access gates
in through the Citadel walls. Heavy fighting occurred on this street during the Siege
of Hue after the lead elements of a platoon were hit by the NVA.


All Photography Copyright 2004, Garry Adams. All rights reserved.


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