Barack Obama, who was born here and graduated from Punahou School, isn't the only presidential candidate with an interesting history in Hawai'i.

Sen. John S. McCain III, the presumptive Republican nominee, was greeted by a throng of well-wishers at Hickam Air Force Base in 1973 after the Navy combat pilot spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

His father, Adm. John S. McCain Jr., was commander of U.S. Pacific Command in Hawai'i from 1968 to 1972.

The fact that McCain Jr. was a flag officer in 1967 when McCain III was shot down probably saved the younger McCain's life.

McCain III was on his 23rd bombing mission on Oct. 26, 1967, when a surface-to-air missile blew off the wing of his A-4 over Hanoi.

As the jet spiraled to earth at 550 mph, McCain ejected, breaking his left arm, his right arm in three places, and his right knee, he recounted in "Faith of My Fathers," a book he wrote with Mark Salter.

After parachuting into a lake, he was hauled ashore, smashed with a rifle butt, which broke his shoulder, and stuck with a bayonet in his ankle and groin.

He had been shot down a short distance from the French-built prison Hoa Lo, dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton" by POWs.

In coming days, McCain drifted in and out of consciousness as he was interrogated. His knee had become grossly swollen and discolored.

When he asked if he would be taken to a hospital, a medic told him, "No. It's too late."

McCain said the panic of approaching death overwhelmed him. Lapsing again into unconsciousness, McCain was awakened by the camp officer, a man the POWs called "Bug," who excitedly told him, "Your father is a big admiral. Now we take you to the hospital."

"God bless my father," were McCain's next words in the book.

At the time, Adm. John McCain Jr. was commander in chief of U.S. Naval Forces in Europe.

There would be more torture to come for his son, including beatings that cracked ribs and teeth. One punch sent McCain across the room. He fell, hitting his arm on a waste bucket, and breaking it again.

His father, "Jack" McCain, had assumed command of the Pacific in 1968, and was the senior military man for Vietnam.

In "John McCain, An American Odyssey," Robert Timberg said those who knew the elder McCain said he never brought up his son's plight.

In 1973, after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, nearly 600 POWs were released from the Hanoi Hilton. McCain, who was among them, was routed home through Clark Air Base in the Philippines and then Hickam Air Force Base.

"We were all astonished at the reception we received first at Clark and later when we stopped at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawai'i en route to our homes," McCain said in "Faith of My Fathers." "Thousands of people turned out, many of them wearing bracelets that bore our names, to cheer us as we disembarked the plane."

McCain said that during his captivity, the North Vietnamese had inundated the POWs with information about how unpopular the war and men who fought it had become, and "we were stunned and relieved to discover that most Americans were as happy to see us as we were to see them."

In a local news story, McCain said he wanted to take a long rest and then "get back to work fighting the Communists."

He also praised President Nixon, saying, "We are proud to have served under him as our commander in chief."

There is one other Hawai'i connection for the senator. McCain met his second wife, then Cindy Hensley, at a military reception in Hawai'i in 1979, the Arizona Republic reported. He persuaded her to have drinks at the Royal Hawaiian hotel.

"By the evening's end, I was in love," McCain wrote in a 2002 follow-up book.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.