In February 1966, U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler was shot down over "neutral Laos." He crashed deep in territory controlled by North Vietnamese army regulars and the communist Pathet Lao, who would eventually capture him and hold him prisoner in a fortified jungle prisoner-of-war camp. But German-born Dengler was no ordinary prisoner. Already a legend in the Navy for his escape and evasion skills---amply demonstrated during training in the California desert---he would initiate, plan, and lead an organized escape from the POW camp, becoming the longest-held American to escape captivity during the Vietnam War. Caught in a most desperate situation, imprisoned not only by the enemy but by the jungle itself, Dengler's heroic impulse was to not only get himself out but to free all the other POWs---Americans, Thai, and Chinese---some of whom had been held for years.
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