How many Americans were POWs?
794 Americans are known to have been prisoners of the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese, or their allied forces in Southeast Asia. Of that number, 687 were released at one time or another, most of them in Operation Homecoming in the spring of 1973. Another 36 escaped, and 71 died in captivity, the majority in South Vietnam. However, many thousands of Americans are listed as “missing in action” in Vietnam (the same is true of earlier conflicts). Most were killed under circumstances that made it impossible to recover their bodies or otherwise confirm their identity. Probably some were prisoners who died in captivity. Perhaps a few were held against their will after Operation Homecoming and the 1975 fall of the South Vietnamese government. It is also possible, though in my judgment extremely unlikely, that a few American servicemen are still alive in Southeast Asia or even in the former Soviet Union.
