Peter Schoeffel

Peter Schoeffel is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He served on board the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid (CVS-11) on multiple occasions. First, he was a pilot with attack squadron VA-66 during the ship's Mediterranean Cruise in 1961. He flew the A4D-2 Skyhawk. Schoeffel returned to Intrepid as an attack pilot with VA-15, flying the A-4B Skyhawk on the ship's deployments to Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. Schoeffel was shot down towards the end of his second deployment and spent 5 ½ years as prisoner of war, or POW, in North Vietnam. He was a lieutenant commander at the time. While incarcerated, Schoeffel wrote poetry in order to cope with his feelings of loneliness, depression and hopelessness. Initially, the poems where all composed and committed to memory, as paper and pencils where not permitted. He later improvised these items using paper from cigarette packs and stick dipped in ashes to create written works. The Intrepid Museum interviewed Schoeffel for the oral history collection (OHP 146).