Courage under communist captivity: American POWs in Korea--despite suffering nearly a 40% death rate--endured extreme hardship with dignity.(Korean War)

Sgt. Wilfred Ruff knew he should not have eaten that handful of raw corn. But Ruff's North Korean captors had not given the 21-year-old prisoner of war enough food to sustain him on the long march toward Manchuria, and the starving man could not resist the gut-destroying corn. Now, he was so weak from dysentery he could not even lift his head. Ruff knew that his life was slipping away.

Miraculously, another prisoner risked the wrath of the cruel guards and worked hard to save the dying soldier.

"He took food and jammed it into my mouth," Ruff told Harry Spiller,…