Kenneth Cordier, Oral History

Kenneth Cordier, Oral History

Streaming Media

Date

2014-02-26

Description

This is a video recording of an oral history interview with Kenneth Cordier. It was conducted October 28, 2013. The interviewer is Nick Sprenger.

In this interview, Kenneth Cordier discusses his career in the United States Air Force and his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Kenneth Cordier was born on February 16, 1937, in Canton, Ohio. He showed an interest in aviation as a child, building model airplanes and studying cardboard renderings of aircraft control panels until he knew how they worked.

Cordier attended the University of Akron, where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. He received a commission in the U.S. Air Force and began training as a fighter pilot. Cordier flew fifty-nine missions in Thailand before he was sent to Vietnam with the first wave of U.S. forces. He was shot down over North Vietnam and held as a prisoner of war for seven years in Hanoi. He describes how prisoners were prohibited from exercising, speaking above a whisper, or communicating with other prisoners. He says that his fellow prisoners devised a system of tapping to communicate.

Cordier was released in 1973 and re-enlisted in the Air Force when his term was up. He served in Germany and the United Kingdom, rising to the rank of Colonel before retiring in 1985.

Type

Moving Image

Format

mp4

Language

eng

Department

Special Collections and University Archives

Identifier

2008-032_OH_01083_interview

Kenneth Cordier, Oral History

Subject

United States. Air Force; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Prisoners of war -- United States; Prisoners of War -- Vietnam


Keywords

East Texas War and Memory Project; ETWMP

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Rights Statement

In Copyright