Vietnam POW Returns Home to Montrose – Part 1

The Vietnam Memorial is a special place in the Montrose Shopping Park. It was dedicated in 1968 when the valley had already lost six local men in the war. It was the first Vietnam Memorial erected in the nation. Over the next few years the names on the memorial swelled to 24 men lost, some confirmed dead, some missing in action.

But one man who was missing in action did return home. Montrose resident Lt. George McSwain spent 6½ years as a POW in North Vietnam, much of that time classified simply as missing in action, his existence unknown to his family. His name never went up on the memorial, perhaps because his mother never believed he was really dead. Here’s his story.

The McSwain family moved to Montrose in 1952 with their young son George. George attended Clark Junior High and then went on to Glendale High (Crescenta Valley High hadn’t opened yet). He joined the Army at 17 immediately upon graduation, and was deployed to Korea. After his honorable discharge, he pursued his true passion to become a military pilot. He took the required classes at Glendale College and was accepted in the Naval Aviation Cadet program in 1964. He trained as a fighter pilot in Florida and California, and was commissioned a naval aviator the next year. He was assigned to the USS Oriskany, a WWII-era aircraft carrier stationed off the coast of Vietnam.

McSwain started flying combat missions off the carrier in June 1966, piloting the A4E Skyhawk, a single seat light attack jet. They were hitting anti-aircraft positions in North Vietnam. 1966 had been a tragic year for the Oriskany with a loss of eight planes. This was to be another loss.

Lt. McSwain took off on July 28, 1966, only a month into his deployment. His mission was to attack surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites on the Song Ca River in North Vietnam, along with several other Skyhawks. They came in low, and McSwain launched a missile. He immediately climbed to 12,000 feet and slowed, just as a North Vietnamese missile exploded nearby. His jet went out control from the blast and McSwain ejected. He broke his arm but floated safely to the ground – and into the hands of the enemy soldiers waiting there for him. Lt. McSwain would spend the next 6½ years in captivity.

I didn’t find any accounts of McSwain’s ordeals in captivity but one of his cellmates wrote about the man’s bravery. In 1967 another downed pilot, Ted Ballard, shared a 12-square-foot cell with George McSwain and had no contact with any other POWs. Ballard had been tortured and beaten in an effort to make him condemn the United States, but he had refused. The guards saw that the two men were close, so they turned their attention to McSwain. They made him stand holding his arms straight up for 14 hours at a stretch, all in an effort to make Ballard confess to war crimes and condemn his country. With McSwain’s broken arm, the pain must have been excruciating. If he dropped his arms he was beaten.

This went on for seven weeks until the guards finally gave up. The two POWs had won a small victory. McSwain was awarded two Silver Stars, one for resisting this torture and one for resisting another round of torture in 1969.

In early 1973, a release of American POWs was negotiated and nearly 600 men were returned home. One early morning in March’73, Mrs. Eudine McSwain, George McSwain’s mother, received a phone call from the Navy informing her that her son was to be released in just a few days. He was to be flown with several other POWs to the Philippines and then to San Diego. In a letter home, George said he was looking forward to “bright lights, women and an hour in a jet fighter.” When word got out, the Crescenta Valley started making plans to make McSwain’s homecoming a memorable one.

Next week, George McSwain returns to Montrose.