Wolfhound POW Richard Eugene Bolstad
Following the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, 591 U.S. prisoners of war (POW) were returned during Operation Homecoming. The U.S. listed about 1,350 Americans as prisoners of war or missing in action (MIA) and roughly 1,200 Americans reported killed in action and body not recovered. Many of these were airmen who were shot down over North Vietnam or Laos. One of these POW's is Richard Eugene Bolstad who was from 1956 till 1960 assigned to the 32nd Fighter Interceptor Squadron. He started his military career December 1948 in the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve and was called to active duty in August 1950 for the Korean War. He was assigned to the 1st Marine Division making the landing at Inchon, Korea. In Korea he received the Purple Heart. In 1955 he was accepted in the USAF Aviation Cadet program and received his wings and commission in September 1956.
The then second lieutenant Bolstad was throughout his service time with the Wolfhounds flying the F-100 Super Sabre and the T-33 T-bird. On 26 March 1958 during a deployment at Nouasseur Air Station, Morocco he crashed during a training flight. That day he and Captain Glen L. Wallin were scheduled to fly a night round-robin in a T-33 (51-8974). Lieutenant Bolstad as trainee pilot was in the rear cockpit, Captain Wallin who was the instructor pilot during the flight was sitting in the front one. Short after take-off they noticed that the tip tanks were not feeding. Wallin attempted to get the tips to feed by turning the tip switches off and on and to correct a stuck tip tank air shut off valve by turning off the generator switch a few times. Both actions did not prove successful so they decided to go back to Nouasseur and to drop the full tip tanks in the drop off area. At 10.000 feet the right tip tank jettisoned but the left one did not come off. Heading for runway 17 the aircraft went into an abrupt spin and crashed. Richard bailed out and survived the crash. Glen did not have the change to bail out and got killed.
 | After Camp New Amsterdam Richard was transferred to Myrtle Beach AFB, South Carolina where he again flew the F-100. In August 1964 he volunteered for duty in Vietnam flying an A-lE Skyraider. He arrived at Bien Hoa, South Vietnam on 31 March 1965 and there he trained South Vietnamese pilots to fly the A-1 E aircraft. This was 40% of his mission, the rest of the time he flew close air support missions in support of ground forces. October 1965 found home on leave in Minneapolis where he became engaged to his wife Helen (nickname Sissy). Upon return from leave he flew assigned to the 602d Air Commando Squadron (ACS) rescue support missions in North Vietnam when he was shot down on 6 November 1965 in an A-1E (52-132469) at the following coordinates 200600 North 1053000 East. |
Independence Day, then by the next Christmas. Fourteen times he held hope, six months at a time. From a prison camp nicknamed the Briarpatch, where he was locked in a room and tied with ropes for the full month of August 1966, to the Zoo to the Hanoi Hilton. If he did anything that displeased the Vietcong, he could expect to be beaten or forced to kneel with his hands up in the air or put in leg irons or put in tight forearm manacles or put in handcuffs or placed in solitary confinement. He left out "holding up the wall," being forced to stand chest against the wall, hands held high, from early morning to evening, sometimes for weeks.
 | With the cease-fire of January 1973, he and the other longest-held pilots flew out on the first of several freedom flights, February 12, 1973 and returned to Clark AB in the Philippines. His wife Helen waited the 2655 days he was in imprisoned. November 1996 Richard Bolstad retired from the United States Air Force as a Colonel. |
