POW, 1952
Helicopter pilot and Chief Petty Officer Duane Thorin was held by the Communist Chinese as a prisoner of war in North Korea. Duane joined the Navy in 1939. He earned his pilot wings in 1943 as a flying CPO. He was proficient in every plane that the Navy flew in the Pacific Fleet during WWII. In 1949 he was designated Helicopter Pilot #216. He made more than 130 rescues in Korea. During one rescue attempt, he fell captive on 8 February 1952. He escaped from a POW camp in July, 1952, but was recaptured. Release in September, 1953, he was tasked by COMNAVAIRPAC to produce classified analysis of communist purposes and techniques in their treatment of POW’s and develop a training program for survival, escape and evasion, and resistance in event of capture. He also served on the committee that developed our fighting forces’ Code of Conduct, which includes in Article VI, “I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.”
In his novel, A Ride to Panmunjom, he describes the man of character who had learned to trust in the help of Almighty God. He writes, “Though Ghant made no active supplication, within this cradle of “sleep” there was a prayer. Again, as always, it was for courage, strength, and wisdom; but it was different than Ghant’s prayers of the past, for now he knew his God far better than before…But when the Spirit has come to dwell within, It is united once again with the soul, and prayer becomes an impulse, not through the mind of man but from the soul directly to its Divinity. The need itself is the prayer, and the presence of the Spirit the answer. Thus did Ghant, in his hour of need, come to know the unconquerable power of Faith in God.”
