Did the pilot who endured torture at “Hanoi Hilton” die?”
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Retired Air Force Col. Jack Pitchford, a fighter pilot from Mississippi who survived seven years in the notorious Vietnamese prison camp known as the ”Hanoi Hilton,” has died. He was 82. The Natchez, Miss., native died Wednesday after battling a brain tumor, said his brother, 64-year-old Jim Pitchford of Baton Rouge, La. Pitchford was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965 and taken to Hoa Lo prison, a hellish place where many Americans, including U.S. Sen. John McCain and Medal of Honor recipient George ”Bud” Day, endured brutal torture. Pitchford was released in 1973, the same year as McCain, who was imprisoned there in 1967 after his own plane was shot down. The pilot never fully recovered from his injuries, but never regretted his service to his country, his brother said. ”His achievement in life was really sustaining himself through the ordeal in prison camp, and he considered himself a very fierce resister,” Jim Pitchford said, recalling a story another
