Doug Hegdahl
US navy sailor
Douglas Brent Hegdahl (born September 3, 1946) is a former United States Navy petty officer second class (E-5) who was held as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. After an early release, he was able to provide the names and personal information of about 256 fellow POWs, as well as reveal the conditions of the prisoner-of-war camp.
Early life and military career
Hegdahl was born on September 3, 1946. Both of his parents were descended from Norwegian immigrants and he remarked how his entire family were devout Lutherans. Hegdahl graduated from Clark High School in Clark, South Dakota on May 24, 1966. Immediately afterwards, he enlisted in the United States Navy. Following recruit training and advanced school, he had achieved the rank of Seaman Apprentice and was sent to Dixie Station.
Sometime in the early morning hours of April 6, 1967, 20-year-old Hegdahl was onboard the USS Canberra in the Gulf of Tonkin, three miles off the coast, when he was knocked overboard by the blast from a 5-inch gun mount. He swam and tread water until he was picked up several hours later by Vietnamese fishermen who treated him well. He was reported missing at the 11:30 a.m.
“Doug Hegdahl” enters the record as uS navy sailor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Doug, Hegdahl and navy can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5300547. VIAF identifies the subject as 2303171976979818240000. The Library of Congress control number is no2024067387. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 1966 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Doug Hegdahl” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.