By Sheila Harris
Retired Navy Captain Edward Estes, a former resident of Purdy, had a story he liked to share about the time surrounding his five years as a prisoner of war (POW) in Vietnam.
“He would tell us about his release,” said Melissa Estes, one of Edward’s four grandchildren who lived near her grandparents in Virginia Beach, where she was born. “Always about his release. He didn’t like to talk about anything else connected with his time as a POW. It made him too emotional.”
According to the terms of the Paris Peace Accords, 591 POWs held in prison camps by the North Vietnamese, in and near Hanoi, and a few in surrounding countries, were released beginning in January of 1973. Cpt. Estes, then a Commander, was in the second group to be released in March of that year.
“Imagine you’re imprisoned in a cage; imagine the cage surrounded by the smell of feces; imagine the rotted food you eat is so infested with insects that to eat only a few is a blessing; imagine knowing your life could be taken by one of your captors on a whim at any moment; imagine you are subjected to mental and physical torture designed to break not bones but instead spirit on a daily basis. That was being a prisoner of North Vietnam,” Historian Andrew H. Lipps wrote, in his account, “Operation Homecoming: The Return of American POWs from Vietnam,” as quoted by the U.S. Air Force (https://tinyurl.com/33bsev2r).
“Then imagine one day, after seemingly endless disappointment, you are given a change of clothes and lined up to watch an American plane land to return you home,” he said. “That was Operation Homecoming.”
“Popop [as Melissa called her grandfather] said none of the prisoners could believe it was true until their rescue plane [a C-141A] left the ground,” Melissa said. “He said there was dead silence in the plane as it taxied on the runway; nobody said a word. The POWs were afraid it might be some kind of a trick, and that they weren’t really free.
“But, when the plane lifted off and was actually airborne, pandemonium broke loose. All the former prisoners started shouting and cheering and crying with joy, even throwing their hats into the air.”
Upon his return to mainland U.S. soil in California, Edward was welcomed with open arms by his family, including his wife Bette, two sons, James “Ed” and David, parents Harold and Catherine Estes, of Purdy, and sister and brother-in-law, LouAnna and John Dodson, also of Purdy.
In Purdy, where Estes graduated from high school, a Douglas-4 Skyhawk fighter jet is mounted in the city park in his honor. It’s the kind of plane Edward was flying when he was shot down over North Vietnam on a mission launched from the U.S.S. carrier Kitty Hawk in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1968. Edward managed to eject from the plane, but was taken prisoner when his parachute landed.
On the north side of Cassville, a city park is named after U.S. Air Force Pilot, Maj. Rocky Edmondson, who was reported missing in action (MIA) in Vietnam in 1966. Edmondson was part of the 61st Troop Carrier Squadron, stationed at Da Nang.
“I remember the day the Air Force notified my parents [Hazel and Bill Edmondson] that Rocky was missing,” said Gayle Farmer, his younger sister by three years who lives in Muskogee, Okla. “I was a student at the University of Arkansas and hurried home to be with my parents.”
The years that followed were horrible for all of them, Farmer said.
“It would be hard either way, whether the Air Force told us he was dead, or whether he was missing,” Farmer said. “But, the waiting and waiting and the not knowing that comes with an MIA status is she. Every day, you just get up and try to go on the best you can, hoping, but afraid to be too hopeful.”
Several years later, the Air Force changed Edmondson’s status to “Killed in Action.” His body was never recovered.
Edmondson was recruited by the U.S. Air Force after graduating from Cassville High School, where he served as student body president and played in every sport.
Edmondson was the navigator on a C-130 cargo plane when it was shot down while on a special low-flying “Rolling Thunder” mission to take out the Ham Rong (“Dragon’s Jaw”) Bridge, in North Vietnam, which had thus far proven to be invincible.
Because Edmondson wasn’t married when he went missing, the Air Force notified his mother of all news and updates during his MIA status. In turn, she notified the parents of other MIAs, Farmer said.
“If an MIA was married, they would send news to the spouses, who had possibly remarried, so parents wouldn’t necessarily receive the news,” Farmer said.
As much as 10 and 20 years after Edmondson was declared missing, and then killed, Farmer said she’d “see him.”
“I’d be walking somewhere and see the back of someone who looked like him, and think ‘Oh, my gosh! I think that’s Rocky,’” she said.
A tree was planted in Edmondson’s and fellow fallen Cassville soldier Aaron Lowe’s honor on the American Legion grounds in Cassville. In later years, Bill and Hazel Edmondson donated 13 acres of land for use as Rocky Edmondson Memorial Park in Cassville, where a monument now stands.
After his release from captivity, Edward Estes devoted himself to service to God and to his country, Melissa Estes said. She credits his service to his gratitude for being alive, when so many others didn’t survive.
“He felt a great sense of responsibility for the gift of life he’d been given,” she said.
Melissa said he used that gift to help others.
“Once, in his later years, a young man had a flat tire in front of our church, and Popop went out to help him change it,” she said. “When he found out the younger man was in military school, he paid for the remainder of his term. That’s just the way he was.”
U.S. Navy Cpt. Edward Estes retired in 1986. He “slipped the surly bonds of earth” for his final flight on Oct. 7, 2024, at age 90.
There are conflicting records of when Rocky Edmondson was declared Killed in Action by the U.S. Air Force.
Specialist 4th Class Aaron Lowe, of rural Cassville, died on May 12, 1969, the victim of a mortar attack on his base in Vietnam.
