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Baillergeon reviews The Unlikely War Hero A Vietnam War POW's Story of Courage and Resilience in the Hanoi Hilton by Marc Leepson.
The Unlikely War Hero: A Vietnam War POW's Story of Courage and Resilience in the Hanoi Hilton Marc sis Stackpole Books, 2024, 240 pages
Some military history authors simply possess the aptitude to select quality book subjects. These could be topics that are interesting to the public, center on a completely overlooked event or person in history, or key on an event or person deserving of far more attention from the public. One author who clearly owns this ability is Marc Leepson. During his illustrious career, he has crafted many books that embody the above characteristics. His latest book, The Unlikely War Hero, focuses on a subject that is incredibly interesting, has been clearly overlooked in the past, and demands to be known by the public for his extraordinary contributions to our Nation and the Armed Forces.
Leepson's journey from selecting a subject to completed book was a long one. Over twenty-five years ago, he read an article regarding the Vietnam prisoner-of-war (POW) story of Doug Hegdahl. The author not only believed it would make an excellent book but also a movie in the future. Leepson and a screenwriter/ director went to visit Hegdahl to set the conditions for both. It appears the trio had a good talk, but Hegdahl soon told them he was no longer interested in any further dialogue.1
Decades passed, and after Leepson had crafted six highly successful books, he wanted to once again pursue a book on Hegdahl. The author attempted to get in contact with him, but there were no return emails or phone calls. Leepson did not let this deter him. With the assistance of many past interviews of Hegdahl and augmented by the assistance of Hegdahl's former POWs; a book, The Unlikely War Hero was created.
Within its pages, Leepson tells Hegdahl's incredible story. For most, the name and his story will be totally unfamiliar. Consequently, it is necessary to address the series of events that Leepson superbly details in the book.
On 6 April 1967, Hegdahl, a U.S. Navy seamen apprentice, fell from the USS Canberra in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea. No one, including Hegdahl himself, truly knows how he wound up in the water.2 However it occurred, he was not discovered missing by the ship's crew for many hours. Hegdahl would be in the water for nearly four hours until he was picked up by a North Vietnamese fishing boat. The crew would soon turn him over to the North Vietnamese Army. His next stop would be the Hoa Lo Prison Camp (better known as the Hanoi Hilton), where he would become the young est and lowest ranking man in camp.
Hegdahl quickly concluded that his best hope of literally surviving was to play stupid. As he stated in an early interview in 1997, "I had probably the most embarrassing capture in the entire Vietnam War. I found that my defense posture was just to play dumb. Let's face it, when you fall offyour boat, you have a lot to work with."3 Hegdahl's strategy worked so well that the prison guards dubbed him, "The Incredibly Stupid One."4 The moniker enabled him to escape the intense scrutiny and attention that his fellow POWs received. Hegdahl certainly capitalized on the time in which he was not a focus of the guards. This time proved to ultimately have a tremendous impact on his fellow POWs and their families and proved to be a huge detriment to the North Vietnamese. It enabled him to accomplish some unbelievable and powerful actions:
1. Hegdahl sabotaged five vehicles at the prison camp by putting sand and gravel in their gas tanks to make them inoperable.5
2. He determined the exact location of the "Hanoi Hilton." Hegdahl did this by convincing prison leadership he needed new glasses. He was then transported to Hanoi City, where he was then able to memorize the route that he later provided to U.S. officials so they knew the prison camp's location.6
3. In his most astonishing and impactful action, Hegdahl memorized the names and substantial personal information of 254 of his fellow prisoners. The significance of this will be addressed shortly.
In August 1969, Hegdahl was selected to be released from captivity by the North Vietnamese as part of a propaganda campaign. In normal situations, it would be incredibly frowned upon by his fellow POWs for a POW to accept an early release. Consequently, Hegdahl immediately declined the offer. However, because of the amount and importance of the information Hegdahl had memorized, he was ordered by senior officers to accept the release. In doing so, he is the only POW to accept early release under honorable conditions-by order of his superiors due to the importance of the information he had memorized.7
Upon release, Hegdahl immediately began to make a huge impact. As soon as he was able, he met U.S. government officials and provided them with the plethora of information he had collected. Leepson details these meetings in the following passage: "Doug sat down for at least ten sessions [during] which he gave them the 254 names he had memorized and provided reams of details about day-to-day life in the Zoo and the Plantation, including the nicknames POWs used for the guards and the exact location of the Plantation-at the intersection of Le Van Binh and Le Van Linh streets in downtown Hanoi."8
The significance of Hegdahl's information cannot be overstated. First, his reflections on the mistreatment of POWs were particularly impactful and had a significant impact on improving the conditions for POWs. Second, the sharing of the names of those who were confined at the Hanoi Hilton had dramatic ramifications. This resulted in the Department of Defense changing the classifications of sixty-three officers from missing in action to POW. With that change, the Department of Defense contacted their families and informed them that these officers were no longer missing and that they were alive. The increase in hope and optimism must have been monumental for these families.
Taking the above into consideration, it is probably an excellent assumption that if the North Vietnamese had to do it all over again, they wouldn't have released Hegdahl early. Samuel J. Cox, the director of the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command, emphasized this in an article he wrote in 2020. The North Vietnamese, he stated, "made a bad mistake when they released Seamen Doug Hegdahl."9
As this summary highlights, Leepson had much to work with in detailing Hegdahl's experience. Readers of The Unlikely War Hero will quickly find that Leepson does not disappoint. This is a book that certainly focuses on the above but is essentially a biography of Hegdahl. This is critical because Hegdahl's life before and after Vietnam is extremely valuable for readers to understand.
Leepson's discussion of Hegdahl's childhood years is extremely concise, but readers get a good idea of the type of person he was prior to joining the Navy. Leepson summarizes this in the following passage when he states, "The god fearing, prank-loving, likeable, underachieving, intelligent, nice kid was nearly two years older than his Clark High School classmates. A big guy, at just over six feet tall, and weighing in at a hefty 225 pounds or so, he wore black-rimmed 1960s glasses and bore a sharp resemblance to the actor Rainn Wilson's character Dwight Schrute on the long-running TV sitcom The Office."10
With the conditions set, Leepson quickly transitions to the focus of the biography. Leepson superbly tells the story of Hegdahl from going overboard to capture to release. To achieve this, he seamlessly weaves multiple sources to provide readers with a superb account. These include Hegdahl's fellow POWs, shipmates on the Canberra, memoirs, congressional testimonies, oral histories, etc. Leepson's research in acquiring these sources for the book is a clear strength.
As highlighted earlier, Hegdahl declined to con tribute to the book. However, that does not mean that Leepson does not significantly utilize Hegdahl's own recollection of events. Leepson states, "I relied heavily on interviews Doug gave about his Vietnam War experiences to authors, reporters, and documentary filmmakers from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, when he all but stopped speaking for public consumption."11
I have no doubt readers will be completely emersed with Leepson's discussion of Hegdahl's experience in the Hanoi Hilton. Key in achieving this is the highly conversant style in which the author writes. Leepson, as he has showcased throughout his body of work, is an outstanding storyteller. Hegdahl's Vietnam experience provides numerous opportunities to display this quali ty. In past books I've read by Leepson, I was incredibly impressed with his skills. In fact, his superb biography on Barry Sadler (Vietnam veteran and cowriter/singer of the "Ballad of the Green Berets") was one of the best books I've read. The Unlikely War Hero is certainly in this category.12
Leepson concludes the volume with a powerful section on Hegdahl's life following his release. In this discussion, the author expounds on his initial role in advocating for POWs and in visiting the families of POWs. Leepson addresses Hegdahl's life after release when he states, "Doug reticently made his presence known on the national POW scene throughout the early seventies, but after his July 1, 1970, Navy discharge he cut back his public appearances. By the spring of 1973, Doug more or less shunned public attention and began living a quiet, almost reclusive life in San Diego, where he worked as a civilian for the U.S. Navy. Except for taking part in several POW television documentaries, Doug Hegdahl assiduously avoided all publicity."13
In one of the book's final paragraphs, Leepson pays Hegdahl one final tribute. He states, "Doug Hegdahl is, indeed, a fine American and for twenty-one months in 1967-1969 distinguished himself by acting selflessly and heroically while engaging in hazardous psychological combat action against the North Vietnamese in the Hanoi Hilton. In doing so, he helped improve the lot of his fellow prisoners of war, eased the concerns of dozens of their families back home, and had an impact on American Vietnam War policy. In short, Doug greatly distinguished himself through repeated acts of heroism that did involve actual combat in a war zone-actions that involved 'the risk of one's life.'"14
In Hegdahl, Leepson has once again selected a subject that will clearly interest perspective readers. His story is incredible, and Leepson has clearly done it justice. In crafting The Unlikely War Hero, he has brought to light to many the extraordinary contributions Hegdahl made to his fellow POWs, their families, and our Nation. These contributions have been severely overlooked and must be known and respected by far more people.
Notes
1. Marc Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero: A Vietnam War POW's Story of Courage and Resilience in the Hanoi Hilton (Stackpole Books, 2024), ix.
2. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero, 24. Within the book, the author comments on the most commonly held theories on how Douglas Hegdahl wound up overboard. He states, "Canberra sailors who served before Doug came on the ship, while he was onboard, and afterwards have speculated about what caused him to wind up in the water. The most repeated scuttlebutt: that he was despondent for some reason and jumped; that he was pushed over the side; that the ship lurched when he was close to the rail and he fell over; that the five-inch guns rocked the deck so violently that he thrown overboard; and that he was CIA spy who jumped on purpose with the idea of winding up in the Hanoi Hilton."
3. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero, 32.
4. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero.
5. Heziel Pitogo, "How Vietnam War POW Doug Hegdahl Tricked His Captors by Playing a Fool and Memorized the Names of 258 POWs of His Camp," War History Online, 6 August 2015, https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/doug-hegdahl.html.
6. Kyle Carmean, "How One Man Tricked the Enemy and Freed Over 500 POWs," History Defined, accessed 3 September 2025, https://www.historydefined.net/doug-hegdahl/.
7. "Douglas B. Hegdahl," Hall of Valor by Military Times, accessed 3 September 2025, https://valor.militarytimes.com/ recipient/recipient-27846/.
8. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero, 138.
9. Samuel J. Cox, "H-043-2: 'Sojourn Through Hell'-Vietnamization and the U.S. Navy Prisoners of War, 1969-70," Naval History and Heritage Command, 20 March 2020, https://www. history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-043/h-043-2.html.
10. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero, 6-7. The reason he was two years older was that he repeated first and sixth grades. It was not because of his intellect, but he simply did not pay attention in school.
11. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero, 181.
12. The author previously reviewed Marc Leepson, Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars of StaffSergeant Barry Sadler from the Vietnam War and Pop Stardom to Murder and an Unsolved, Violent Death (Stackpole Books, 2023), https://www.armyu-press.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/ July-August-2023/Green-Beret/.
13. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero, 155.
14. Leepson, The Unlikely War Hero, 175.
Copyright Department of the Army Headquarters 2025