On August 4, 1964, a 26-year-old Navy fighter pilot was shot down over North Vietnam. The first American airman to be captured by the Vietnamese, Everett Alvarez was a prisoner of war for eight and a half years–the longest period of captivity of any American war prisoner in North Vietnam. Alvarez, along with 461 other captured American airmen, would not be released until the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973.

"Return With Honor" is a testament to the ingenuity and endurance of these extraordinary men. Through riveting first-person accounts, the film describes their sudden transformation from self-confident "top-gun" aviators into prisoners of war. The men recall the harrowing moments of their shoot down and capture, the many years they were kept in solitary confinement, and the repeated bouts of excruciating torture. And it is also the story of the women left behind who for years did not know whether they were wives or widows.