ABSTRACT
By some official US government estimates there were slightly less than eight hundred American prisoners of war (POWs) during the Vietnam War, 1961–73. Although the Hanoi Hilton has dominated the popular historical perception of the POW experience in Vietnam, other Northern camps such as the Briarpatch and the Plantation provided unique elements to the POW stories. Similarly, the jungle camps of the South were smaller and held fewer prisoners than the northern camps and offered yet an additional dimension to the POW experience, one that has not been fully appreciated. Thus, the American POW experience has to be studied chronologically as well as geographically within the broader notion that there is no official or master POW narrative.
