Hanoi Hilton "Pajamas"
name: label: user
content: Carpenter, Allen
notes: label: Description
content: Physical Description
label: Description
content: Top and bottom of red-and-white-striped cloth which quickly faded to the pinkish-gray color. Initials "CAC" stenciled on patch.
label: Description
content: Specific History
label: Description
content: These two-toned, "pink" striped "pajamas" were issued to and worn by Commander Allan "Al" Carpenter, USN, a prisoner of war from November 1, 1966, to March 4, 1973. He was flying an A4E Skyhawk with squadron VA-72. His Vietnamese name "CAC" is stenciled on the white aiming patch on the pajamas.
label: Description
content: General History
label: Description
content: Americans were held as prisoners of war in North Vietnam, but also in Cambodia, China, Laos, and South Vietnam.
label: Description
content: From 1961 to 1973, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong held hundreds of Americans captive. In North Vietnam alone, more than a dozen prisons were scattered in and around the capital city of Hanoi. American POWs gave them nicknames: Alcatraz, Briarpatch, Dirty Bird, the Hanoi Hilton, the Zoo. Conditions were appalling; food was watery soup and bread, prisoners were variously isolated, starved, beaten, tortured—for countless hours—and paraded in anti-American propaganda. "It's easy to die but hard to live," a prison guard told one new arrival, "and we'll show you just how hard it is to live."
label: Description
content: American prisoners were held at the Hoa Lo prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton” from August 11, 1964 to March 28, 1973. The French completed construction of this prison in 1901.
place: label: Place Made
content: Viet Nam: North Vietnam
topic: label: Subject
content: POWs
label: related event
content: Vietnam War
label: related event
content: Postwar United States
setName: label: See more items in
content: Military and Society: Armed Forces History, Military
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content: Military
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content: ThinkFinity
label: Exhibition
content: Price of Freedom
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2004.0083.02
label: accession number
content: 2004.0083
label: catalog number
content: 2004.0083.02
objectType: label: Object Name
content: top, pajama
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: cotton (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 31 in x 33 1/2 in; 78.74 cm x 85.09 cm