Duane Whitney Martin (January 2, 1940 – July 3, 1966) was an American Air Force Helicopter Pilot and Prisoner of War during the Vietnam War.
Official USAF picture of Duane Martin
Lt. Duane Martin, USAF, was assigned to Detachment 1 of the 38th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron (38th ARRS), based at Nakhon Phanom Roal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. On September 20, 1965, Captain Thomas J. Curtis, Martin, Sergeant William A. Robinson crew chief, and Pararescue Specialist (PJ) Arthur Black took off in their Kaman HH-43 Huskie Helicopter, BuNo 62-4510, callsign Dutchy 41 on a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission for Essex 04, an F-105D fighter plane piloted by Captain Willis E. Forby, which was down in North Vietnam. The HH-43 was hit by ground fire and crashed in the jungle.
Curtis, Robinson, and Black were all captured by the North Vietnamese Army and taken to a Prisoner of War camp in North Vietnam. They were later released in 1973 during Operation Homecoming.
Martin was captured by the Pathet Lao and taken to a jungle POW camp in Laos. There, he joined fellow prisoners Eugene DeBruin (American), Phisit Intharathat, Prasit Promsuwan, Prasit Dhanee (all Thai), and Y.C. To (Chinese) - all aircrew members of a downed Air America transport plane. They were joined in February 1966 by US Naval Aviator Dieter Dengler, pilot of a Douglas A1 Skyraider.
After learning that the starving Pathet Lao guards planned on killing them and staging their bodies so that the killings looked like an escape, the prisoners decided to go ahead early with a planned escape attempt.
On June 29, 1966, while the guards were eating, the group slipped out of their hand and foot restraints and grabbed the guard's unattended weapons. The Pathet Lao guards spotted them. Dieter fired at a machete wielding guard, killing him and wounded at least one other guard. Meanwhile, Phisit Intharathat, in his own account, says he killed one guard as he reached for his rifle and says three in total were killed and the rest ran away.
The seven prisoners split into three groups: Phisit, and the other Thai prisoners; DeBruin stayed with Y.C To, who was ill; Dengler and Martin headed for the Mekong River to escape to Thailand, armed with an M1 Garand rifle and an M1 Carbine.
Several days after the escape, Martin and Dengler were hiding out near an Akha village. Martin had a bout with malaria and was severely weakened. He was further demoralized when an attempt to signal a Lockheed C-130 produced no results. He told Dengler that he was going to die. Later that day he told Dengler that he was going to try to steal some food from the village. Dengler told him it would be suicide but accompanied him on the venture. As they neared the village, they encountered a boy playing with a dog. The boy alerted the village of their presence and a villager came running toward them with a machete.
Martin knelt down on the trail with his hands clasped before him in supplication, but the man swung at Martin, first hitting him in the leg. His second swing struck Martin in the back of the neck, killing him.
Dengler managed to escape back into the jungle and was rescued several weeks later. Besides Dengler, Phisit Intharathat was the only other known survivor. Their fellow POW's remain unaccounted for.
In the 2007 film Rescue Dawn, which told the story from Dengler's point of view, Martin was portrayed by actor Steve Zahn.
Official USAF picture of Duane Martin
Lt. Duane Martin, USAF, was assigned to Detachment 1 of the 38th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron (38th ARRS), based at Nakhon Phanom Roal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. On September 20, 1965, Captain Thomas J. Curtis, Martin, Sergeant William A. Robinson crew chief, and Pararescue Specialist (PJ) Arthur Black took off in their Kaman HH-43 Huskie Helicopter, BuNo 62-4510, callsign Dutchy 41 on a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission for Essex 04, an F-105D fighter plane piloted by Captain Willis E. Forby, which was down in North Vietnam. The HH-43 was hit by ground fire and crashed in the jungle.
Curtis, Robinson, and Black were all captured by the North Vietnamese Army and taken to a Prisoner of War camp in North Vietnam. They were later released in 1973 during Operation Homecoming.
Martin was captured by the Pathet Lao and taken to a jungle POW camp in Laos. There, he joined fellow prisoners Eugene DeBruin (American), Phisit Intharathat, Prasit Promsuwan, Prasit Dhanee (all Thai), and Y.C. To (Chinese) - all aircrew members of a downed Air America transport plane. They were joined in February 1966 by US Naval Aviator Dieter Dengler, pilot of a Douglas A1 Skyraider.
After learning that the starving Pathet Lao guards planned on killing them and staging their bodies so that the killings looked like an escape, the prisoners decided to go ahead early with a planned escape attempt.
On June 29, 1966, while the guards were eating, the group slipped out of their hand and foot restraints and grabbed the guard's unattended weapons. The Pathet Lao guards spotted them. Dieter fired at a machete wielding guard, killing him and wounded at least one other guard. Meanwhile, Phisit Intharathat, in his own account, says he killed one guard as he reached for his rifle and says three in total were killed and the rest ran away.
The seven prisoners split into three groups: Phisit, and the other Thai prisoners; DeBruin stayed with Y.C To, who was ill; Dengler and Martin headed for the Mekong River to escape to Thailand, armed with an M1 Garand rifle and an M1 Carbine.
Several days after the escape, Martin and Dengler were hiding out near an Akha village. Martin had a bout with malaria and was severely weakened. He was further demoralized when an attempt to signal a Lockheed C-130 produced no results. He told Dengler that he was going to die. Later that day he told Dengler that he was going to try to steal some food from the village. Dengler told him it would be suicide but accompanied him on the venture. As they neared the village, they encountered a boy playing with a dog. The boy alerted the village of their presence and a villager came running toward them with a machete.
Martin knelt down on the trail with his hands clasped before him in supplication, but the man swung at Martin, first hitting him in the leg. His second swing struck Martin in the back of the neck, killing him.
Dengler managed to escape back into the jungle and was rescued several weeks later. Besides Dengler, Phisit Intharathat was the only other known survivor. Their fellow POW's remain unaccounted for.
In the 2007 film Rescue Dawn, which told the story from Dengler's point of view, Martin was portrayed by actor Steve Zahn.
