The Hanoi Taxi

This movie was sent to me by someone very special -- Billy D. Templeton who was a POW during WWII. Billy was a radio operator on one of the early B17s. He participated on the first group flight from San Francisco to Clark Field in the Phillipines. (Before then, the planes were brought out by ship.) They landed on November 3, 1941. On December 8, 1941, the Japanese destroyed all of those beautiful new planes on the ground.

It was just the beginning for Billy. Already hungry, he retreated with the Army into the Bataan Peninsula and worked with the Signal Corps during the ensuing battle. He was captured in the jungle after the Army surrendered to the Japanese in early 1942. He is a survivor of the infamous Bataan Death March. He was at Camp O'Donnel and Cabantuan. He spent many days on the open ocean in a Hell Ship, which narrowly avoided being sunk by an American submarine. He spent the rest of the war as a slave laborer in Manchuria. Toward the end of the war,the POW Camp was mistakenly bombed by American planes. After he was liberated, the ship taking him home hit a mine.

Billy knows suffering -- and he knows how freedom feels.

He knows kindness too.

When he sends me something, it's never a nasty email bashing one politician or another. He doesn't send me complaints -- or ugliness of any kind. Perhaps because of his experiences, he doesn't have time for that.

Like Billy, I love airplanes. I hope you all find this movie as wonderful as I do.


The Hanoi Taxi (tail #66-0177) was retired from active service in May 2006.

She was the last of the 285 C-141's built by Lockheed to leave active service. She flew 100 POWs out of Hanoi on 12 February 1973, some of them tasting freedom for the first time in six years. Each POW put their shot-down date on the face of the oxygen panel during their flight to Clark Air Base in the Philippines. For her retirement ceremony, the POWs she brought home were brought back for the ceremony and one last flight. Most of them are old men now but their enthusiasm, emotions, and excitement were evident during this flight and retirement ceremony. She was then flown to Dayton, OH where she will spend her final days in the Air Force Museum.