KRAUSE, ARTHUR E.

Name: Arthur E. Krause
Rank/Branch: Civilian
Unit:
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Onarga, IL
Date of Loss: 08 June 1963
Country of Loss: South Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 150000N 1080000E
Status (in 1973): Released 18 November 1963
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Jeep

Other Personnel in Incident: None

Source: Compiled by P.O.W. NETWORK 06 September 1996 from one or more of the
following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources, correspondence with
POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews.

REMARKS: DOD SEZ Ground; JCRC SEZ Jeep


Chicago Sun Times
Tues., Nov. 26, 1963

Illinoisan Held By Viet Reds Tells Ordeal

By Sanche De Gramont
N.Y. Herald Tribune Special

SAIGON, South Viet Nam -A U.S. civilian engineer held in jungle
captivity for 5 1/2 months by the Communist Viet Cong told Monday how
he was forced to write a letter describing the U.S. war effort in
Viet Nam as aggressive and unjust to obtain his release.

The captive, Arthur E. Krause, 29, of Onarga, Ill., an employee of the
Philco Corp., was helping Army engineers build roads and airfields in
central Viet Nam when he was captured June 8 on a rock collecting
expedition. He was freed Saturday.

Krause said his captors told him he would be released if he requested
his freedom in a formal letter to Red authorities. But they added that
the letter must be friendly in tone, denounce the anti-Communist war and
mention planes bombing and strafing civilian areas.

Warned he might spend the rest of the war as a prisoner unless he
complied, Krause wrote such a letter with the assistance of an
English-speaking Viet Cong official. The letter, with embellishments,
was later quoted in Communist North Vietnamese propaganda broadcasts.

Krause said he had escaped from his guards on June 23, but "after 16
days of rice, salt and green limes I had no energy" and was quickly
tracked down. For a month afterward, he said, he was kept in a cage and
was tied to his bed. He became weaker from hunger, contracted malaria,
for which he was treated by a Viet Cong doctor and was tormented by
jungle insects.

But he said U.S. medics found him in good health, despite loss of
weight, after his release.

He said the Viet Cong decided on Friday to free him after he told them
that was his birthday. They gave him an elaborate birthday dinner that
night.

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