After being held as a prisoner of war for five years and eight months, Commander James W. (Bill) Bailey was released during Operation Homecoming to return to his Attala County home on Feb. 18, 1973.
On the 50th anniversary of his release, Attala County and the city of Kosciusko are honoring the Vietnam War veteran’s sacrifice to his country by proclaiming Feb. 18 as James W. (Bill) Bailey Day.
A joint proclamation signed by Kosciusko Mayor Tim Kyle and Board of Supervisors President Billy Coffee was recently read and presented to Bailey’s sister, Rita Bailey Brown, at Kosciusko City Hall. Members of the Kosciusko Board of Aldermen and Attala County Board of Supervisors attended the event.
“I knew him as a kid. I grew up down the road from you guys,” Kyle said to Brown before reading the proclamation. “This being the 50th year of his homecoming, the county and the city got together to do this proclamation for him.”
While Bailey, who resides in South Carolina, could not attend the event, he is appreciative of the honor. He also wants to encourage people to salute and recognize not only former prisoners of war but also all veterans, especially veterans of the Vietnam War.
“He is so grateful,” said Brown.
Bailey was born in Kosciusko and grew up in Attala County in the Nile Community. He graduated from Barnes High School. He was a standout basketball player and attended Holmes Community College on an athletic scholarship. After graduating from Holmes, he attended the University of Southern Mississippi. He later entered the Naval aviation cadet program in January 1964.
After he was commissioned as ensign in the U.S. Navy and designated a Naval flight officer, he attended radar intercept officer training before being assigned at NAS Miramar, California, in April 1965. He was deployed to Southeast Asia from January to August 1966. During this deployment, Bailey was on a combat mission on May 1, 1966, and because of his heroic actions after encountering anti-aircraft fire and his aircraft being hit by enemy fire, he was awarded the first of two Distinguished Flying Crosses.
About a year later, he was aboard the USS Constellation when his aircraft was shot down on June 28, 1967. He blacked out, and his seat ejected. The Vietnamese militia was waiting, and Bailey was taken as a prisoner of war to a camp Americans came to call the “Hanoi Hilton.” He was tortured for three straight days and later put in solitary confinement for six months. He was a prisoner of war for 2,063 days.
After retiring from the Navy in 1988, Bailey had a career in education, serving as assistant principal of a public high school in Anderson, South Carolina.
