Freedom Music: 7 Songs That Inspired POWs

“So, blow, blow Seminole wind,” came the words, floating into Durant’s cell. "Blow like you're never going to blow again; I'm calling to you like a long-lost friend. But I don't know who you are.” 

Unbeknown to Durant, Briley had been killed when Super Six One crashed on October 4. “Seminole Wind” had been dedicated to Durant from Briley by their 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment teammates.

The song inspired Durant, who told me when I interviewed him in 2003: “Donovan was part Cherokee and proud of it. He never let you forget it.” Thinking of Briley and the others killed in Somalia, he added: “We were tight, we were closer than brothers in some cases.”

‘After You’ve Gone’ (Benny Goodman)

Lt. William L. Riley and his B-17 crew were shot down over Berlin on Dec. 20, 1943. While imprisoned in Stalag Luft I, he received a notebook via the American Red Cross.

Riley wrote poems, drew pictures and also filled many pages with the titles of songs — 76 in all. In 2021, his great-grandson Piper Gillen revealed that the notebook was still in his family’s possession and listed the songs. Number one was the jazz instrumental “After You’ve Gone” by Benny Goodman.

Bette Midler in 'Beaches.'

Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection

‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ (Bette Midler)

Maj. Rhonda Cornum was a flight surgeon onboard a UH-60 Black Hawk shot down over Iraq on Feb. 27, 1991, during the Gulf War. Her favorite song was Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” — which she already knew by heart, in part because it made her think of her husband Kory, a fellow Army officer and surgeon.

Lying in a hospital in Baghdad with two broken arms, a smashed finger, lacerations and bruises, Cornum sang the song to herself again and again. She wrote to her husband: “I know you don't like gooey, emotional letters (or tears on phone calls, etc.), but sometimes my loving-ness gets too big and I have to tell you I've been humming “The Wind Beneath My Wings” for the past two days, and it sort of applies to us … I would never have been able to have the potential to be as great a success at anything if it wasn't for you.”

Rhonda Cornum was released after eight days in captivity. She and her husband served full careers in the Army and both retired with the rank of brigadier-general.

‘Land of Hope and Glory’ (Edward Elgar)

In 1943, Nesta James, an Australian nurse who had been captured fleeing Singapore, was among those in a choir that the POWs had formed in a Japanese jungle prison camp. Among the songs they sang was “Land of Hope and Glory,” the British patriotic classic that begins: “Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?”

The writer Heather Morris, author of the new novel Sisters Under The Rising Sun that tells the story of the choir, explained: “Together they wrote music, trained a choir, an orchestra of voices that wove magic throughout the camp and melted away the pain and suffering, brought joy to the heart, tears to the eyes, beauty long denied to the prisoners.”

‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ (traditional)

In the winter of 1971, the North Vietnamese broke up a church service being held by prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton. As a show of defiance, the POWs sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and moved on to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Onward Christian Soldiers.” After exhausting their repertoire of patriotic and Christian songs, the POWs sang state songs such as “California, Here I Come,” “Georgia on My Mind,” and “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

After being shot down on Oct. 12, 1972, Lt. Cecil Brunson was lying in his cell at the Hanoi Hilton in solitary confinement and close to death from brutal beatings when he decided to whistle the “U.S. Air Force Song” and the “Tennessee Waltz” to identify himself to any other American prisoners. He was delighted when the prisoner in the next cell whistled back with the “U.S. Navy Song” and “The Yellow Rose of Texas."

In 2021, Brunson’s daughter Angela wrote a University of Memphis doctoral thesis titled “Faith, Hope and Torture: Music in the Prisoner-of-War Camps of North Vietnam.”

‘Hard Day’s Night’ (The Beatles)

The North Vietnamese captors at the Hanoi Hilton would try to break the morale of American POWs by broadcasting anti-war songs using Hanoi Hannah, the propaganda mouthpiece from the Voice of Vietnam.

According to Angela Brunson, one POW struck back by managing to convince the camp authorities that “A Hard Day’s Night” was a “great anti-war song in the U.S.” When the prisoners heard Hannah introduce the song, they roared with laughter.