- A daring pilot in the Vietnam War.
- There was this huge explosion.
Boom, boom, boom!
- When you're going down, you don't know
whether you're gonna live or die.
- Trapped behind enemy lines...
- Potentially hostile civilian population.
- Things have not gone according to plan.
- In a hellish jungle prison camp.
- They're being tortured.
It's just absolutely living hell on a daily basis.
- He decided pretty early on that he's not gonna survive
if he doesn't escape soon, while he's got the strength.
- Will this master of survival
free himself and his fellow POWs?
- He says, "I'm out of here. I'm leaving.
Who's with me?"
- Or will the jungle eat them alive?
- Maybe they'll die in the jungle.
Maybe they'll die in the camp.
The time is now to escape.
[suspenseful music]
♪
[dramatic music]
♪
- Some of the greatest stories ever told
start behind bars.
♪
Locked up in the most notorious prisons
in the world,
spied on by guards and fellow prisoners,
it takes a devious mind to find a way out.
♪
It could lead you to freedom,
or it could cost you your life.
♪
But wouldn't you try
when you have nothing left to lose?
♪
[tense music]
♪
In 1966, the United States fights
through the 11th year of its official involvement
in the Vietnam War.
The U.S. is also conducting covert raids
in neighboring Laos, which is where
U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler and six other men cling to life
in one of Laos's most notorious POW camps.
[rock music]
In the mid-1960s, the American public
witnesses on a daily basis
the horrors of the escalating conflict in Vietnam.
But they have no clue of the secret war and violence
where the U.S. military drops
thousands of tons of bombs every day,
trying to crush Laotian communist rebels
and cut off support for North Vietnam.
Some of the attacking American pilots
are shot down and sent to prison camps
like Ban Hoeui Het POW camp,
part of a network of small jungle prisons
used to hold enemies
of the Vietnamese communist regime.
♪
Though the camps are small,
often fewer than a dozen prisoners,
each is a nightmarish prison.
[tense music]
- POW camps were hellish and inhumane,
employing all manner of torture.
Malnutrition, solitary confinement,
beatings.
You name it.
- This combination of sadistic guards
in a treacherous jungle landscape
makes camps like Ban Hoeui Het the end of the line
for many captured soldiers.
- They died of starvation.
They died of wounds.
They died of jungle diseases like malaria.
And they died because they didn't want to live anymore.
- The hellish conditions of the camp
are enough to destroy the will of any man.
But Dieter Dengler is no ordinary person.
He learned to survive on nothing
from the day he was born.
♪
- Dengler was born in Germany in 1938,
so he was a small child during World War II.
- When five-year-old Dengler sees
an Allied fighter plane fly over his house,
he becomes obsessed with flying.
In 1956, at the age of 18,
Dengler moves to the U.S.,
a brave choice for a German not long after World War II.
He enlists in the U.S. Navy,
where he becomes a pilot
and masters survival and escape tactics.
In 1965, he exchanges engagement rings
with his fiancée, Marina, bids her goodbye,
and ships out to Vietnam on the USS "Ranger."
- We'd go out and practice dogfighting,
and he was one of the better ones.
His flying skills were great.
- February 1, 1966.
Dengler's piloting and survival skills
are put to the ultimate test
when he's assigned a risky secret mission
deep in enemy territory.
♪
- Dieter's mission was to attack
a road intersection in Laos.
What he was trying to do was actually
disrupt the flow of supplies coming into South Vietnam.
- Dengler flies in the back of a four-man squadron,
the most vulnerable position in the formation.
About two hours into the mission,
the squadron encounters heavy anti-aircraft fire,
and Dengler takes a direct hit through his wing.
- He says, "There was this huge explosion
"on my right-hand side.
It was like lightning striking."
The right wing was gone.
The airplane seemed to cartwheel through the sky
in slow motion.
There were more explosions.
Boom, boom, boom!
- I've been in a couple of crashes,
and when you're going down,
you don't know whether you're gonna live or die.
- Remarkably, Dengler was able
to steer his failing plane into an open field.
[dramatic music]
♪
[twangy rock music]
[high-pitched ringing]
♪
He survives the crash landing, dazed but fully intact.
The problem is that he's alone behind enemy lines.
Local soldiers will have seen the crash
and could arrive at any minute.
He knows his mission has changed from attack to escape.
[tense percussive music]
♪
Dengler grabs his radio, maps, and personal documents.
He destroys them so they don't fall into enemy hands,
then flees the site.
Unfortunately for Dengler, the communist insurgents
known as the Pathet Lao are hot on his trail.
- The jungle was extremely thick,
and so he was forced to stick to trails
that would obviously be traveled by the enemy.
Those trails kept leading him to villages.
There was little place for him to go,
and so they caught up to him within about a day.
♪
- For the next week, they forced Dengler
on a torturous march through the Laotian jungle.
[somber music]
At one point, he's offered his freedom
in exchange for a written confession
of his country's crimes.
- He refused to sign it.
In fact, he said that he threw the pen
at the communist leader.
The communists then brought him
to a Pathet Lao prison camp.
♪
[dramatic music]
♪
- When he reaches the Ban Hoeui Het prison camp,
he's already endured more than most men could handle.
And it's about to get worse.
♪
The one bright spot--
he's no longer alone.
Two Americans, three Thais, and one Chinese national
are also held captive.
They suffer together in a hellish nightmare.
♪
There is no hope of escape.
When a prisoner arrives, the guards strip their boots
and hang them by the guard hut.
If Dengler or anyone manages to get out,
their feet will be chewed up by the jungle.
Even if they have boots,
the prisoners barely have the energy to walk.
The men spend most of their day and nights
shackled together with their arms interlocked.
Wooden foot blocks hold their feet in place.
For food, they're given only putrid and maggoty rice.
Every day, they're given only a few minutes
in the yard to stretch and relieve themselves.
It's a momentary respite
before they're thrown back into the hut.
- They're dealing with physical deprivations,
emotional stress.
They're being tortured.
It's just absolutely living hell on a daily basis.
- Because America is not officially at war,
the guards treat the men as criminals,
kept alive as bargaining chips that they're free to torture.
[tense music]
Dengler witnesses up close how these camp conditions
can turn a healthy soldier into a husk of a man.
- One of the first people that Dengler sees,
he recalls that they had knocked their teeth out
just to let some of the pus come out of their gums.
After he saw that,
it immediately came to his mind
that he had to start thinking about escape.
- Dengler decided pretty early on
that he's not gonna survive
if he doesn't escape soon, while he's got the strength.
So he says, "I'm out of here. Who's with me?"
- There aren't many takers, and for good reason.
Two prisoner huts lie in the center of the camp,
surrounded by an unclimbable bamboo fence.
The only exit is a single gate,
watched 24/7 by armed guards in the 30-foot-high tower.
A second guard tower and several guard huts
monitor the rest of the camp.
Even if you sneak out, you're engulfed
by miles of jungle in every direction.
When Dengler is thrown into the camp,
he's relatively healthy,
but none of his fellow prisoners
are fit for a jungle trek, let alone breaking out.
Duane Martin has been a prisoner for six months,
with the scars to prove it.
Eugene DeBruin has suffered even longer,
a staggering 2 1/2 years.
On the plus side,
both men have military training,
a quality Dengler knows will make them capable partners.
- Duane Martin was an Air Force helicopter pilot
who had been shot down and captured
in September of 1965.
He becomes Dengler's accomplice,
his closest friend and ally.
Gene DeBruin was an Air America pilot
who had bailed out of a burning cargo plane.
He was the reasonable person
who was able to propose compromises
when arguments would arise among the men in the POW camp.
- These men will form the backbone
of Dengler's escape team.
The non-American prisoners who worked with DeBruin
for Air America are separated,
not just by spending most of their time
in another hut, but also by a language barrier.
Fortunately, the Chinese prisoner, called YC,
speaks both Thai and English
and can help the groups communicate.
- Dengler, he wants to get out of there right away,
but the other men in the camp convince him to wait.
- They tell him, "Look, there's no water.
"You'll die of thirst out there.
"Wait until the monsoon season,
"which is several months away,
but at least you'll have a chance then."
- Dengler agrees to wait several months
until monsoon season begins.
That's plenty of time for a master of escape
to develop a plan.
To Dengler, it's either die in the camp
or die trying to escape
and at least have a chance at making it back home.
[tense music]
He notices that the skies above the camp
are still patrolled by American jets.
Interesting.
♪
The plan Dengler comes up with will surprise everyone.
He's not going to just escape.
He's going to take over the whole camp.
♪
[tense music]
- In 1966, American POWs Dieter Dengler,
Duane Martin, and Eugene DeBruin
are captives in this Laotian prison camp
along with one Chinese and three Thai prisoners.
Dengler has agreed to wait several months
to try and escape, but he's worried
he will be too weak for a jungle adventure
by that time.
So what does he do?
The clever survivalist makes a plan
that turns the situation on its head.
♪
They might not have to escape the camp at all.
♪
Dengler notices that almost every night,
U.S. C-130 aircraft fly directly over the camp
on their supply runs.
Since the camp is dark at night,
there's no chance the planes would spot it.
But if they create a signal fire,
it might alert the plane, securing their rescue.
To do that, Dengler's plan calls for
taking over the camp.
First, all the prisoners will need to get out
of their restraints, then sneak out of the huts
and past the fence.
Second, they'll have to steal weapons from the guard huts.
Third, they'll split up and round up the guards.
It's a crazy plan, and one that requires
every prisoner to play their part.
Martin and DeBruin, who know Dengler's training,
get on board.
The Americans choose a fitting deadline for the escape:
July 4th.
By then, they'll either be free or dead.
- Naturally, the Americans kind of
gravitate towards each other and work together.
- The Asian prisoners reject the plan,
because they tried to escape before,
following an American, and nearly died for it.
♪
So the three Americans get to work.
The first step is to figure out
the best time to round up the guards.
♪
The men start by observing everything
going on in the camp for weeks.
To keep the guards straight, they give them nicknames.
- So each of the guards had nicknames
that was given to them based on some of their actions.
One of the most sadistic guards was named Little Hitler,
because he took great delight in beating the prisoners
and humiliating the prisoners.
And there was one who was nicknamed Moron,
because he was deemed to be not too bright.
And one of them's a pretty hefty fellow,
so they called him Jumbo.
♪
- Dengler also tracks the guards' movements,
looking for openings to exploit.
♪
- One of the patterns that they detected was,
every time the guards come down for dinner,
about 4:00 p.m.,
they would leave their weapons in their huts.
And so the guards were essentially unarmed
throughout this period.
- It's a window of only 2 1/2 minutes,
but Dengler thinks it's enough time
if they have it precisely mapped out.
To keep everything straight,
the prisoners make a crude map.
- They would use sticks and stones
to outline the prison camp
so that everybody got a good visual
on what the plan was and where everybody was supposed to go.
And then if the guards came into their hut,
they could simply scatter the leaves, twigs, and rocks.
♪
- The trio determines the days
when there is a minimal number of seven guards in the camp.
The three frail Americans aren't enough to take them on.
Dengler needs the other prisoners to get on board.
Ironically, he gets some help from the guards themselves.
♪
- The guards started getting really mean,
and they knew it had to do with the lack of food.
- It's overheard
that the captors are contemplating
faking prison break,
where they would shoot all of the POWs
in the back and make it look as though
they had been caught escaping.
This would mean more food for them.
The concern is that this could happen any day now.
The time is now to escape.
- This means there's no waiting until July 4th.
They'll have to enact the plan as soon as possible.
Out of self-preservation and fear,
the Thai and Chinese prisoners agree to mobilize.
- There were rumors that the guards themselves
were going to execute the prisoners.
They were fearful of getting shot,
so I think that lit a fire to try an escape attempt.
- They'll work together to take over the camp
from the guards, but once they're out,
the groups will go their separate ways.
- Maybe they'll die in the jungle.
Maybe they'll die in the camp.
They're gonna die one way or the other.
- With all the prisoners on the same page,
at least in principle,
Dengler turns his attention to their food supply.
The plan calls for them to stay put in the camp
and await rescue after they signal the planes.
Since they won't be able to get deliveries
with the guards tied up,
they will need to ration and stockpile their rice
in case it takes time to rescue them.
They started by drying out small portions
of rice in the sun.
Next, they have to hide it from the ravenous guards.
- They knew that it would be hard to find food
throughout their ordeal.
Even as rice was so scarce and they were already starving,
they made a hole into this bamboo support beam,
and they would stuff rice in there.
Every day, they put a little bit of rice away.
[tense music]
♪
- Their stashing operation works perfectly.
But eventually, hunger gets the best of Dengler
and puts the entire plan in danger.
- So there was a pig that the guards were keeping
to fatten up for a meal one of these days,
and Dengler was so hungry that he crawled into the pigsty
and took the corncob away from the pig
and started eating it.
And one of the guards got incensed.
- The guard drags Dengler away and begins beating him.
♪
As they witness Dengler's savage beating,
the other prisoners realize that if he dies,
so do their hopes for escape.
♪
[dramatic music]
- June 15, 1966,
seven prisoners are days away from attempting a takeover
of Ban Hoeui Het POW camp.
The linchpin of the plan, Dieter Dengler,
has been beaten severely for stealing food scraps.
But Dengler survives once again.
- Dengler was beaten, and the lesson that he learned
was prisoners are worth less than pigs.
- Dengler only uses it as a motivation.
He's as determined as ever to overcome his captors.
They've secured a hidden food supply,
but there remains the crucial problem
of how they will get out of the hut.
First, they need to come up with a way
to get out of their restraints during the guards' mealtime.
- Back in those days, toothpaste tubes
were made out of metal, and so they were able
to melt down this toothpaste tube
and make a key.
- By pouring the molten metal
into an improvised mold in the dirt,
they're able to fashion a makeshift key
they can use to spring the handcuff locks
and get free.
They also experiment and figure out
how to release themselves from the foot blocks.
- These Laotian foot blocks,
the prisoners' feet are put together,
and then they're kind of locked in like this,
and then there's a pin that's driven in between,
so you can't move your feet.
Dieter and his prisoners find a way to unlock them.
- By using a long stick, they're able to get
enough leverage on the block to loosen the pin,
allowing them to wiggle free.
[dramatic music]
♪
Another necessary piece of the puzzle
is a way out of the hut and stockade.
They figure out a rather unique way
of creating a secret hole in the back of the hut.
They loosen a support beam from the rear wall
by saving their urine
and pouring it over the base of the beam.
The acidity wears away the crude glue
that keeps the pole in place.
This allows them to remove several floorboards,
creating a secret way out of the hut.
Then, behind the hut,
they dig a hole under the stockade fence,
hiding the hole with leaves and bamboo.
With everything in place,
it's almost time to go.
♪
On the eve of their attempt,
Dengler has refined everyone's role.
He does a final walkthrough of the plan.
Just before 4:00 p.m., the guards' dinnertime,
the men will slip out of their shackles.
They will then have 2 1/2 minutes
while the guards get their food.
Dengler will exit first
and gather weapons from the guard hut,
followed by the three Thais.
DeBruin will go to the rear guard hut
to get a machine gun.
The Thai men will storm the kitchen from the front
while Dengler approaches from the rear,
overwhelming the guards.
♪
Duane Martin and YC will gather
any missing weapons from the hunts.
Dengler stresses that there's to be
no killing and no shooting.
- Firing weapons at these guards
would bring not only villagers into the area,
but also other Laotian guards
who would start searching for them immediately.
- It's a good plan, but Dengler knows
it's one small mistake from disaster.
With nothing left to do but wait,
he dreams of his home in the U.S.
♪
Now on June 29,
148 days since Dengler was shot down,
he puts the plan in motion.
At 4:00 p.m., the Thai men in their hut
count the number of guards in the kitchen,
and YC signals to the Americans
in the other hut.
Six of the guards are accounted for,
but the seventh guard is nowhere in sight.
If this missing guard shows up in the middle of the escape,
it could foil the plan.
So do they go?
Do they wait?
Dengler knows that if they turn back now,
they might not have another chance.
[dramatic music]
Should they risk it?
♪
He makes the call:
go.
Martin and Debruine agree
So Dengler slips out of the hut.
- The original part of the plan started out well.
They're able to get out.
They're able to get to munitions.
As they suspected, the guards had left
their rifles leaning against the doorway.
- Dengler arms himself with an M1 carbine
and gives two rifles to the Thai prisoners.
As they head towards the front,
Dengler slowly circles back around the fence.
- I think what you see here is it's like planning
a full-fledged military operation,
and so they all have to be in sync with one another.
- But being in sync has been
their Achilles' heel from the beginning.
As Dengler approaches the kitchen hut,
he sees a problem.
The Thai prisoners are gone.
No one is collapsing from the front of the compound.
The guards spot the approaching American.
Unexpectedly, one of them is still armed.
He opens fire.
Dengler has no choice but to return fire.
♪
- Bullets start flying.
He feels one go right past his face.
And as he begins to shoot,
he wonders, "Where is everybody?"
Because he's completely alone.
- He shoots,
hitting the guard in the chest.
One of the guards flees into the jungle.
Another charges with a machete.
Dieter continues to shoot as all hell breaks loose.
♪
So much for a silent takeover.
- Dieter Dengler's escape plan has gone off the rails.
The three Thai accomplices
that were supposed to be his backup
have fled the camp, leaving him locked
in heated gunfire with the guards.
[rock music]
- The goal was to do this silently,
because any gunfire would alert a nearby village.
Reinforcements could be there within hours.
Things have not gone according to plan.
- When the smoke clears, all the guards are dead,
except one who escaped.
The plan has failed.
It's time for plan B:
fleeing the camp.
But there's a problem.
The Chinese prisoner named YC
has become violently ill.
He's in no condition to move,
much less flee into the jungle.
- This Chinese prisoner, if he's left in camp,
he'll simply be executed,
and nobody can really bring themselves
to say that YC could come with them
until Eugene DeBruin says,
"No, no, no, I'm not going with the Americans.
I'm going to stay with YC."
- And so rather than go with Dengler,
he elects to help YC escape the camp,
where they'll hide, a nearby ridge,
and hope for help to come.
- I think this says quite a bit about Gene himself,
and it's a different definition of courage,
that Gene is willing to potentially
sacrifice himself by staying with his crew member.
- With enemy reinforcements on the way,
there's no time for Dengler and Martin to delay.
- Dieter and Duane shake hands and say goodbye,
for the last time, to YC and DeBruin,
both of whom are never seen again.
- It is presumed that DeBruin was recaptured
and likely killed by the Pathet Lao.
Or he may have succumbed to the jungle itself.
The last thing Dengler and Martin do
before leaving the camp is reclaim their boots,
or at least, that's what the plan was supposed to be.
- One critical aspect of the escape plan
was that their boots are tied on a pole
not too far away from the huts.
And Dengler knows that he'll be much more effective
if he's got boots on his feet,
as opposed to walking through a jungle barefoot.
Unfortunately, one of the Thai prisoners stole his boots,
and so he's barefoot as he begins his escape.
- An escape that will prove even more harrowing
than the imprisonment.
But Dengler and Martin have no other choice.
It's out of the frying pan and into the fire.
- It's, in many ways,
trading in one hell for another.
And so shoeless, debilitated,
Dengler and Duane set off into the jungle,
with a vague idea of making it,
possibly, to Thailand.
- Thailand would be friendly territory,
but getting that far seems almost impossible.
And right on cue, the sky opens up.
[thunder rumbling]
Monsoons have arrived.
That's a blessing and a curse,
because as much as the rains bring cover
and much-needed fresh water,
they also spell trouble if you're trying
to move quickly through the jungle.
- During the four-month rainy season, it just pours.
Things get real moldy and humid,
and you have to walk in mud,
and the terrain is very difficult to traverse.
- The two men grit their teeth and push forward.
Martin,
in much worse condition than Dengler,
begs to stop.
But Dengler pushes him on.
- Just look forward.
I mean, I get emotional sometimes
when I think about people who suffered so.
- They become too weak to be even carrying a weapon.
Finally, the two men collapse on the jungle floor,
exhausted.
They spend a cold night in the rain,
huddling for warmth.
♪
[dramatic music]
♪
After a hellish night, the next morning,
the two men are greeted by the sun.
This gives Dengler a chance to get his bearings.
- He'd put a pole in the ground,
and then wherever the end of the shadow is formed
will show you East and West.
- But just because they know which direction to go
doesn't make it any easier.
- So as Dengler and Martin are working their way through,
and their feet are just getting
more torn up and more torn up,
they find the sole of an old tennis shoe,
and they decide that they're going
to share it among each other.
So they'll go for a little while,
and Dengler will use it on his right foot,
and then he'll share it with Martin,
and he'll use it on his right foot.
♪
- The men trudge along for several days.
At points, they are so weak, they resort to crawling
just to keep moving forward.
Though both men are toiling, Martin is failing fast.
Dengler is forced to carry him for long stretches.
- Duane was very weak, very malnutritioned,
really couldn't help find food or water.
And that was something that Dieter did for him.
The bond was just really hard to describe
for those of us that have not been
in that type of situation.
- Dengler hits his own low point
when they come to a mountain too high to summit
and too wide to walk around.
Their only choice is to backtrack for miles,
which will erase days of progress.
This is the one time Dengler allows himself to cry.
Unbeknownst to him, it's also July 4th.
While Americans back home are barbecuing
and setting off fireworks,
Dengler and Martin are trapped,
close to death in a foreign land.
[dramatic music]
And while the men wander the jungle for a hellish week
searching for refuge,
the American bombing raids are still going strong.
Finally, their luck seems to turn
when they find an abandoned village.
There's no one to help them,
but there is finally shelter,
and what's more, dry scrap wood
and an open space makes it possible
to start a fire and signal for rescue.
- They've seen a number of C-130s flying overhead,
and so the plan becomes, we'll build a signal fire
and try and signal SOS,
the universal signal for distress.
And actually, an airplane drops flares.
- Dengler and Martin get their own firework display.
The flares mean that the plane has seen the fire.
- They think that it's coming back
to figure out who these aviators are
that obviously need rescue.
Unfortunately, the plane never comes back,
and so no rescue helicopter ever shows up.
- It's a tragic blow to their hopes of survival.
If making visual contact with the plane
didn't get them rescued, perhaps nothing will.
♪
They still have shelter,
but they can't afford to stay put.
The village has no food,
and starvation starts to overtake them.
- After a couple of days without anything to eat,
Dengler decides that they have got to go find food.
- The men go in search of another village
where they might steal something to eat.
As they enter the thick jungle,
they run into trouble.
- They stumble upon a man with a machete.
Both Dengler and Martin know
that they can't outrun this villager.
They decide to show that they are no threat,
so they both fall onto their knees
and put their hands up
to demonstrate that they are no threat.
- The villager doesn't care.
Americans are not welcome.
He charges the two men.
As the villager raises the machete above his head,
Dengler closes his eyes, and the machete comes down.
♪
- Dieter Dengler and Duane Martin have endured
weeks in the thick jungles of Laos.
But when they finally stumble upon civilization,
their relief turns to horror.
♪
With Dengler and Martin on their knees,
a villager prepares to deal a killing blow.
But not to Dengler.
In one swing, he chops Martin's head clean off.
[dramatic music]
♪
Dengler flees for his life.
- Dengler runs off into the jungle quickly,
and he's not gone into the jungle for very long.
Then he sees a number of villagers spreading out,
trying to surround him.
♪
- As he desperately tries to get away,
Dengler's physical pain has now doubled
from the anguish of losing his friend.
But there's no time to mourn.
- The villagers are not playing games.
They will kill you if they catch you.
He has got to find a way out of this jungle
and a way back to friendly lines.
♪
- At this point,
Dengler is nearly ready to give up.
But then he remembers
how many times Martin wanted to quit
and how Dengler gave him the strength to keep moving.
- Life is about suffering.
And the trick is to make your suffering worthwhile,
to be worthy of your suffering.
- Now Dengler finds the strength
to ignore his suffering,
and in the memories of his friend, to keep moving.
- As Dengler takes off
from the site where Martin is murdered,
he realizes that he's leaving tracks.
So he backs up, placing his feet in the tracks
he's already created.
And then he jumps up on a big boulder.
- He jumps from rock to rock,
knowing that they won't be able
to track him over the rocks.
- Incredibly, Dengler is able
to make it back to the abandoned village
he and Martin came from.
Dengler prays that there's still an ember burning
from their old fire, and there is.
Dengler knows that the C-130s would still
be flying overhead at night and resolves to make
"the biggest damn bonfire that you've ever seen."
He rips all the dry material from the huts
and throws it onto a massive bonfire pile.
When night comes, he sets it ablaze,
risks be damned.
Soon, a C-130 flies over and again drops his flares.
♪
They've seen the fire,
but did they know it was Dengler?
Dengler can only spend the night in hope.
♪
When he awakes, he listens
for the thump-thump of helicopter blades.
[dramatic music]
♪
But all he hears are the screeches
and squeals of the jungle.
Dejected, he resolves to move on.
But first, he gathers up the parachutes
from the flares.
- The flares themselves had parachutes.
It was light linen material,
and he kind of collected them up,
the ones that were dropped in the area.
- Somehow, Dengler is clearheaded enough
to think they might come in handy.
But that's where his lucidity ends.
[tense music]
As Dengler continues to bash his way through the jungle,
he becomes more and more delirious.
He's had no food or water for days,
and he's starting to hallucinate.
At one point, he has a vision of his father
standing at a fork in the road.
The man points to the left, and Dengler follows.
♪
Eventually, Dengler comes to a river
where he's able to grab an unusual meal.
- He sees a snake simply sunning itself on a rock.
He's starving by this point.
He's been starving, so he simply
takes a bite of the snake as it's still alive.
- While chewing on the half-eaten snake,
Dengler thinks he sees a bear on the opposite bank.
He has no idea if it's real or not.
But he watches as it sniffs the air,
waiting for him to die.
He's about to lose consciousness.
♪
But then he hears what sounds like a plane.
♪
The smell of fuel makes him realize
this isn't a hallucination.
With his last gasp of life, he takes the parachutes
and tries to lay them out in an SOS formation.
As the plane flies overhead,
he waves frantically like a madman.
Surely, the plane must see him in the light of day.
♪
The plane keeps going.
♪
[soft music]
- On July 20, 1966,
over three weeks after Dengler's escape,
he's ready to meet his maker.
Either he will be rescued and return a hero
or die alone, probably forgotten.
Whatever his fate,
he prays it comes quickly.
♪
[rock music]
♪
That day, pilot Eugene Deatrick
is on a routine scouting mission up the river
when he sees a strange man below him.
Thinking it's a local fisherman,
he continues on.
Then he gets a tingle down his spine.
He would later recall,
"I'll never know what made me turn around."
But he does.
- Something made him turn around, fly back over,
and he recognized that someone was signaling for help.
They really didn't know who he was.
They had been looking for Dengler six months earlier
and really thought that he was lost.
[dramatic music]
- The pilot sees Dengler waving his arms
and radios to see if any pilots have been downed today.
Dispatch replies, negative.
Luckily for Dengler, the pilot trusts his hunch
and requests they send a rescue team.
♪
A few hours later,
an angel from heaven appears.
♪
- They said, "Okay, let's take a chance,"
and they brought in a helicopter and picked him up.
♪
And then Dieter would say
that was the greatest day in his life.
He hung on for dear life.
♪
- The rescue helicopter arrives
and brings Dengler on board.
♪
The pilot of the helicopter, Skip Cowell,
is the same pilot that tried to find Dengler
when he was first shot down.
♪
But Dengler's condition is so bad,
he's unrecognizable.
[somber music]
- He's in awful condition.
He's got malaria and intestinal worms
and fungus and jaundice
and infection throughout his body.
He's somewhere between 85 and 95 pounds.
His body, quite literally, has been just eaten away
by the captivity
and living in the jungle for so long.
- A doctor would later say
that had Dengler not been rescued,
he would have died within 24 hours.
♪
Cowell requests permission
to fly to Da Nang Air Force Base,
which has a full hospital,
but his request is denied.
♪
Then a note gets passed up to Cowell that reads,
"Lieutenant Dengler, Dieter, USS Ranger, Spad pilot."
Cowell hollers on the radio,
"This is our guy shot down in February,
been a POW since."
The helicopter is immediately cleared through to Da Nang.
Once he's more stable, Dengler is sent out of Vietnam
and reunited with his friends on the "Ranger,"
with a hero's welcome.
- When he came back to the aircraft carrier,
it was good morale for the ship.
He was excited about that.
Everybody thought that if anybody's
gonna get out of there and be alive,
it's gonna be Dieter.
That's the kind of guy he was.
He had survived all his life.
- The first thing Dengler does when he lands
is send a message to his fiancée, saying,
"I escaped from prison.
"Alive in hospital.
"Will be home soon.
Love, Dieter."
♪
He recovers
and works as a pilot for many years,
and even survives four more crashes.
In 2001,
Dieter Dengler passes away
and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
His legacy of courage
will not soon be forgotten.