Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973

Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973. By Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998. xx, 706 pp. $36.95, ISBN 1-55750-694-9.)

This is the most definitive book to date about the American prisoner-of-war (pow) experience in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War era. Basing their account mainly on government documents, memoirs, official debriefings, and oral interviews with 110 former rows, Stuart I. Rochester and Frederick Kiley present a detailed and balanced account of how the prisoners sought to cope with both physical and psychological torture under the most adverse conditions. Although the authors deal mainly with the captive airmen (almost all officers) held in North Vietnam, they also include chapters about American...