http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/world/eu...britain.html?hp
Britons Say They Feared for Lives in Iran Captivity

LONDON, April 6 — Their greatest scare, they recalled, came on the second day, when they were flown to Tehran, blindfolded and backed up against a prison wall while their Iranian captors fiddled with weapons, cocking rifles and making them fear for their lives.

“We thought we were going to the British Embassy but we got taken to a detention center," said Royal Marine Joe Tindell, 21, one of 15 British sailors and marines seized by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in disputed waters in the Persian Gulf on March 23.

At the detention center, the mood turned drastically, as their captors changed from military dress into all black, their faces covered.

“We had a blindfold and plastic cuffs, hands behind our backs, heads against the wall,” Royal Marine Tindell said in an interview with the BBC. “Someone, I’m not sure who, someone said, I quote, ‘Lads, lads, I think we’re going to get executed.’

“After that comment someone was sick, and as far as I was concerned he had just had his throat cut. From there we were rushed to a room, quick photo, and then stuffed into a cell and didn’t see or speak to anyone for six days.”

It was the beginning of days of psychological pressure that would ultimately extract televised “confessions” from some of the Britons that they had strayed into Iranian waters. The admissions tempered for some the joy at their safe return home to their families, with some military analysts expressing dismay that the sailors and marines had capitulated to their captors’ demands.
“It was highly damaging that all of them apologized publicly for something they had not done,” said Sir Max Hastings, a military historian and former newspaper editor, in a BBC radio interview on Friday, comparing the Britons unfavorably to American pilots who withstood much crueler treatment in North Vietnam for much longer.

(which is why I still call him Mr. McCain)
...

The lone woman among them was tricked into believing the men had all been released.

“There was a lot of trickery, and mind games being played,” Lt. Felix Carman, 26, of the Royal Navy, said when six of the Britons, freed two days ago, appeared at a news conference on Friday to chronicle for the first time in public a 14-day ordeal that began, by their account, when Iranian Revolutionary Guards apprehended them in Iraqi waters, executing what seemed a planned and heavily armed ambush.

“We were interrogated most nights, and presented with two options,” Lieutenant Carman said. “If we admitted we had strayed, we would be on a plane back to the U.K. soon. If we didn’t we faced up to seven years in prison.”

...

"Some of the Iranian sailors were becoming deliberately aggressive and unstable,” Captain Air said. “They rammed our boat and trained their heavy machine guns, R.P.G.’s and weapons on us. Another six boats were closing in on us,” he said, referring to rocket-propelled grenades by their initials.

“We realized that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway. Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down.

“It was at this point that we realized that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won, with consequences that would have had major strategic impact. We made a conscious decision to not engage the Iranians and do as they asked. They boarded our boats, removed our weapons and steered the boats towards the Iranian shore.”

“Let me be absolutely clear,” Captain Air said. “From the outset it was very apparent that fighting back was simply not an option. Had we chosen to do so then many of us would not be standing here today. Of that I have no doubts.”

On Friday, the Royal Navy supported the decision not to fight. “I would not agree at all that it was not our finest hour,” Adm. Sir Jonathon Band, Britain’s most senior naval officer, told the BBC on Friday. “I think our people have reacted extremely well in some very difficult circumstances.”

...


Among the toughest mind-sets to acquire in combat is mental preperation for the chance of being captured.
Most the guys I knew in-country had come to the understanding...you do not surrender. I don't judge others,
but we did not consider it an option. Either you were wounded and unable to resist, or you'd better be "prayed up"
and ready to knock on heaven's door.