Gerald Coffee

From the first American pilot captured in 1964, each prisoner of war in the Hanoi prison known as Heartbreak Hotel was kept in solitary confinement. During the years of enforced seclusion, the Americans were forbidden to communicate among themselves and those who were caught communicating were severely punished. The North Vietnamese knew that permitting communication among the prisoners would improve their morale and help them resist interrogations by their captors. Despite the restrictions and the threat of torture, the Americans devised a communications system that allowed them to talk to each other and pass along news and orders through the POW chain of command.

In the following selection, Gerald Coffee, a navy fighter pilot who was shot down over the Gulf of Tonkin in February 1966, describes how he first learned the secret code that allowed the Americans to keep track...