Ernest C. Brace

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ernest C. Brace
Korean Presidential Unit Citation[3]
Spouse(s)
Patricia Emmons (divorced)
  • Nancy Jorina Rusth
[4]
Other workPilot, BirdAir
Manager, Evergreen International Aviation
Operations Lead, Sikorsky Aircraft

Ernest Cary Brace (August 15, 1931 – December 5, 2014) was the longest-held civilian

Presidential pardon
in light of his good conduct.

Military career

Brace was born in

Korean Peninsula, crashing in the Sea of Japan where he was rescued by USS Kidd. For his courage and initiative, Brace was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.[8]

Years later, Brace (then a captain) crashed his T-28 Trojan into a cornfield near the mouth of the Choptank River near Cambridge, Maryland, during a training flight on 3 January 1961. He fled the scene but turned himself in ten days later once his empty flight-suit was found hidden in vegetation.[3] Brace faced a court-martial and was charged with deliberately crashing his aircraft and faking his death so that his wife Patricia could collect insurance money to pay off debts.[9] Brace pleaded guilty to unauthorized absence and was acquitted of the deliberate destruction of his aircraft.[10] The court-martial ended his military career.[11]

Capture

Prisoner in a Cage (excerpt)

I'm just a prisoner in a cage;
I have no name, I have no age.
The guards don't even know what I've done,
All they know, I'm a captured one.

My feet are in stocks, my neck tied to a pole,
What food I get is shoved through a hole;
At night I lie down, and my hands are tied,
The rope is stretched to a pole outside.

Ernest Brace[12]

Brace then worked as a civilian pilot for a number of companies before flying for

Dien Bien Phu.[15] Brace was held in a bamboo cage with his limbs and neck bound to prevent escape. During his captivity he was beaten, interrogated, and faced with a mock execution. He escaped 6 June 1965 for a few days before being caught stealing food from a village. Upon his return to the cage his legs were put in stocks and bolted.[16] He escaped on 17 April 1966, and was recaptured in minutes. Buried up to his chin for seven days, Brace hit his low point and attempted to hang himself on 10 December 1967. He was sent in October 1968 to a POW camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed The Plantation, where he met John McCain in the cell next to him.[17] Brace re-tells his story in Season 8 of Locked Up Abroad.[18] Like Jim Bedinger, he was sequestered from other prisoners because he had been captured in Laos.[19] Before Doug Hegdahl's early release from the captivity, Brace contacted Hegdahl to ensure the outside world knew about the prisoners captured in Laos.[20]

Post-release

Kingsley Field Air National Guard Base in 2013, forty years after his release.[21]

Brace was released on March 28, 1973, spending 7 years, 10 months and 7 days in captivity, making him the longest-held civilian

POW in Vietnam.[22] Brace had not been listed as a prisoner during the past 7 years.[23] His wife Patricia assumed her husband was dead and she remarried; a fact Brace found out at the processing station after his release.[24] While receiving out-patient care in Naval Medical Center San Diego, Brace met a nurse named Nancy stationed there. He married her and moved to her hometown of Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he later resided.[25] In light of Brace's time as a POW, President Gerald Ford issued him a full pardon as well as an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps.[26][27] Brace, captured as a civilian, was nominated for the Prisoner of War Medal and the Purple Heart by Admiral James Stockdale, the senior officer among US prisoners held during the Vietnam War. Because Department of Defense regulations prohibit civilians from receiving military awards, the nominations were denied four times. The most recent application in 2011, sent to the office of United States Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus through fellow former POW John McCain, was successful.[28] Brace commented that "these medals are the ones no one wants to get" as personal suffering is involved in qualifying for them.[29]

Brace worked for a few years in the late 1970s as a manager for Evergreen International Aviation, supporting aviation contracts for the United Nations in South Vietnam, Africa, and Mexico. He went on to work as an operations lead for Sikorsky Aircraft with other overseas contracts.[20] In 2014, Klamath Community College awarded Brace an honorary associate degree in Aviation Science. The college is also considering naming their new veterans' center in his name.[30] He died on December 5, 2014, of a pulmonary embolism.[4][31] He was cremated and his ashes were scattered over his favorite fishing spot.[32][33]

See also

Autobiographies

  • Brace, Ernest C. (1988). A Code to Keep: The true story of America's longest held civilian prisoner of war in Vietnam. New York:
    ISBN 0-7090-3560-8
    .
  • Brace, Ernest C. (2012). Monkey Paw Soup: And Tales of Drugs, Thugs, Revolution, & War. Ernest C. Brace.
    ISBN 978-0-615-59019-6
    .

References

  1. ^ a b c "AuCoin moves to aid ex-Oregon Marine". The Register-Guard. 3 April 1979.
  2. ^ McCain, John (July 30, 2013). "Tribute to Ernest Cary Brace". Congressional Record. 159 (111): S6061.
  3. ^ a b "Missing Pilot Gives Self Up in Baltimore". Free-Lance Star. Fredericksburg, Virginia. 13 January 1961.
  4. ^ a b Martin, Douglas (December 8, 2014). "Ernest Brace, Civilian Pilot Held as P.O.W. in Vietnam, Dies at 83". The New York Times.
  5. ^ Nowicki, Dan; Muller, Bill (2007-03-01). "McCain Profile: Prisoner of war". The Arizona Republic. azcentral.com. Archived from the original on 2011-02-04. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
  6. ^ a b "Aviation Hall of Honor inducts local". Herald and News. 18 October 2010. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
  7. ^ Langer, Emily (15 December 2014). "Ernest Brace: War hero court-martialled for desertion who became the longest-serving civilian prisoner of war in Vietnam". The Independent.
  8. Military Times. Archived
    from the original on 2014-02-21. Retrieved 2013-07-20.
  9. Free-Lance Star
    . 5 July 1961.
  10. ^ "Marine Pilot to Present Defense at Court Martial". Petersburg Progress. 7 July 1961. p. 7.
  11. ^ William C. Creasy (1988-02-28). "Death Before Dishonor and Life After It". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
  12. ^ Barbara Wyatt, ed. (1977). We Came Home. P.O.W. Publications.
  13. ^ Conley, Margaret (2008-10-03). "POW Remembers McCain and Tapping Through Walls in Hanoi Prison". ABC News. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
  14. National Geographic. Archived from the original
    on April 17, 2013. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
  15. ISBN 978-0-312-38538-5
    .
  16. ISBN 978-1-59114-738-1
    . Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  17. National Geographic. 2013-03-22. Archived from the original
    on April 9, 2013. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  18. ^ Alfadl, Noura (2013-04-16). "Former POWs McCain and Brace reunite for documentary premiere - The Hill's In The Know". The Hill. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
  19. ^ "Bio, Bedinger, Henry J". Pownetwork.org. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  20. ^
    ISBN 978-0-615-59019-6
    .
  21. ^ "Southern Oregon Man Honored as POW". KDRV. August 16, 2013. Archived from the original on December 8, 2014. Retrieved December 6, 2014.
  22. ^ "U.S. Accounted-For from the Vietnam War: Prisoners of War, Escapees, Returnees and Remains Recovered" (PDF). Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. 2013-06-20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-05. Retrieved 2013-07-24.
  23. National Geographic. 2013-04-18. Archived from the original
    on 2013-05-30. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
  24. Air Force Magazine
    . Vol. 82, no. 8. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
  25. ^ Juillerat, Lee (2013-04-13). "Docudrama on Klamath Falls POW Wednesday on National Geographic". Herald and News. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
  26. Ford Presidential Library
    (pdf).
  27. ^ Brace, Ernest C. (1988-02-23). "A CODE TO KEEP: The True Story of America's Longest-Held Civilian Prisoner of War in Vietnam by Ernest C. Brace". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  28. Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System
    .
  29. ^ Thompson, Jefferson (September 2013). "Klamath Falls local honored for Vietnam captivity" (PDF). Kingsley Chronicle. Vol. 6, no. 5. Oregon Air National Guard. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-12-19. Retrieved 2014-12-06.
  30. ^ Dillemuth, Holly (November 13, 2014). "KCC pays tribute to POW, honors Brace with degree". Herald and News.
  31. ^ "Services Monday for Vietnam POW, war hero, Ernie Brace". Herald and News. December 8, 2014.
  32. ^ "Ernest C. Brace". POW Network. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
  33. ^ "Ernest C. Brace". Veteran Tributes. Retrieved 2022-12-04.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ernest_C._Brace&oldid=1219255519"