NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — On June 29, 1966, Colonel Murphy Neal Jones participated in the first bombing raid on the heavily defended North Vietnam capital of Hanoi.
He was flying an F-150 Thunderchief, and he was preparing to drop eight, 700-pound bombs.
“The sky was lit up. There were 24 of us going in. This was personally approved by Lyndon Johnson. Our target was a big petroleum oil lubrication facility,” Jones remembers.
He was worried, but flying for the military was a lifelong dream. The son of a prison guard at Angola (Louisiana State Penitentiary) – born in Baton Rouge. For college, Jones played football on a scholarship at Tulane University.
Thirty days after graduating college, Jones was training to be a pilot.
On that day in 1966, he was on his third tour of duty — on an especially dangerous mission — when he was targeted by rockets, then anti-aircraft cannons.
“I was looking at the site. It was six guns. They fire all six guns at once, radar controlled. And a projectile that weighs 20 and a half pounds without explosives,” Jones recalls.
His plane was hit and on fire.
“I ejected at about 620-miles-per-hour at 300-feet on the outskirts of Hanoi,” he remembers. “[I] Hit the ground, bounced 10 or 15 feet in the air.”
Jones dislocated his left shoulder and completely broke his left arm. He also fractured six vertebrae and tore both his ACLs.
His capture
Incredibly, Jones has film of his capture. He says the North Vietnamese used the footage as part of a PR campaign.
It shows Jones being paraded through the streets and given a personal tour of Hanoi for about an hour. Jones says people threw bricks and everything they had at him.
He was also forced to face reporters. Despite the pain, Jones wanted them all to see him salute.
“And people said, ‘Who are you saluting?’ I said, ‘My country,” Jones says.
What the footage doesn’t show you is the torture. The days Jones spent with his broken arm tied tightly to his other.
The beatings — the mock execution with a gun barrel to his head and the click of a hammer falling on an empty rifle chamber.
“What do you think about when you’re going to die? I really didn’t care at that time. I was hurting so bad. I would have welcomed a bullet,” Jones says.
He spent the time chained to a cement bed — remembering his Spanish classes from college.
Decades later, Jones would make a return trip to Vietnam. On that trip, he found his name still etched in the wall of his cell.
But he says — he didn’t mark the days on the wall — he counted all 2,421 in his head.
That’s six years and seven months.
As a peace deal was brokered Jones and his fellow POWs were released.
As the American military planes left, Jones and all the others who endured so much for their country awaited the announcement from the captain.
“’Gentlemen, welcome aboard. We’ve just passed the coast of Vietnam’. I thought the airplane was going to explode with all the noise,” Jones remembers.
Life after
After 21-years, Jones retired from the Air Force as a colonel.
He eventually returned to Tulane as Director of Development for Athletics.
He has a wife, kids, and grandkids.
But one thing will never change –the bond he shares with other POWs.
“We don’t say goodbye on the telephone. We say I love you. We always say in text messages GBY, God bless you and GBA, God bless America.”
Colonel Jones says he sometimes asks to meet with POWs from other wars or even Medal of Honor recipients.
He says they always end up helping each other develop an even greater appreciation for their country and for the people who fight to protect it.
