This Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox program features conversations with three former prisoners of war from three branches of military service, sharing their harrowing experiences. --The late William Paty, former Director of the Hawaiʻi State Department of Land and Natural Resources, was 23 when he parachuted into Normandy with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division on D-Day and fell into enemy hands. --Retired Hawaiʻi State Supreme Court Associate Justice Frank Padgett (center) was a World War II Air Force pilot whose B-24 bomber was shot down. He was held prisoner for eight months by the feared Japanese Kempetai. --During the Vietnam War, Navy pilot Jerry Coffee (right) was on a combat mission over North Vietnam when his jet took enemy anti-aircraft fire. One of the longest-held Vietnam POWs, he spent more than seven years in captivity, much of it in the infamous prison nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton.” The men’s POW stories, told matter-of-factly, are a testament to the strength of the human spirit, even in the darkest of times.

Frank Padgett’s B-24 bomber was shot down over Indochina in World War II. Held prisoner by the Japanese, he was subjected to torture by one of the more abusive arms of the Japanese forces. Padgett survived the torture, disease and what was then known as “shell shock,” eventually became a lawyer in Hawaiʻi, and was later appointed to the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court.