SAWHILL, ROBERT RALSTON

Name: Robert Ralston Sawhill
Rank/Branch: O4/United States Air Force
Unit: 555th TFS
Date of Birth:
Home City of Record: Carnegie PA
Date of Loss: 23 August 1967
Country of Loss: North Vietnam
Loss Coordinates: 210500 North 1055500 East
Status (in 1973): Returnee
Category:
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: F4D
Missions: 34
Other Personnel in Incident: Gerald Gerndt, returnee

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

REMARKS: 730314 RELEASED BY DRV

SOURCE: WE CAME HOME copyright 1977
Captain and Mrs. Frederic A Wyatt (USNR Ret), Barbara Powers Wyatt, Editor
P.O.W. Publications, 10250 Moorpark St., Toluca Lake, CA 91602
Text is reproduced as found in the original publication (including date and
spelling errors).
UPDATE - 09/95 by the P.O.W. NETWORK, Skidmore, MO

ROBERT R. SAWHILL
Colonel - United States Air Force
Shot Down: August 23, 1967
Released: March 14, 1973

I was commissioned in the Air Force through the ROTC program in the summer
of 1952 after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh. Most of my
career was spent in the Air Defense Command. After a tour in Japan I went to
Tactical Air Command in 1965. While at TAC I was stationed at Eglin AFB,
Florida where I spent two years. in May 1967 I went to Southeast Asia.

I was shot down near Hanoi on 23 August 1967. I spent the next five and a
half years in camps in and around Hanoi. Like most of the returning POWs, I
believe that my faith in God was the one driving motive that kept me, and I
am sure, a lot of us; going. I believe that the great group of guys that we
had together in Hanoi sustained each other and themselves in a manner which
permitted us to come out of Hanoi in as good shape as we were or are.

I plan to continue my career in the Air Force. I have been assigned to ICAF
(Industrial College of the Armed Forces) and hope to get back into the
cockpit of an F4 as well as the F-15. But right now I just want to get used
to being a human being again, visit my family, renew some old acquaintances
and see an awful lot of people who I met in Hanoi. I plan to travel quite a
bit. I'm trying to keep out of the limelight as much as possible. There seem
to be enough spokesmen for what went on there in the prison system and I
would just as soon let them handle all the gory details.

December 1996
Robert Sawhill retired from the United States Air Force as a Colonel. He and
his wife Roni reside in South Carolina.

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