POWs speak: 'I don't know how the guys in Vietnam made it. I wouldn't have'

This was not the war that Specialist Shoshana Johnson had envisaged for herself as a humble cook with the US Army's 507th Maintenance Company. Ambushed, shot in both feet, paraded on Iraqi television and held as a prisoner of war for three nerve-racking weeks, she experienced the depths of fear before being rescued by the marines along with six fellow prisoners at the weekend.

"Oh my God, I'm going home!" she exclaimed, through tears, as she realised her ordeal was over. All seven prisoners of war described in minute detail yesterday how they were captured, questioned and shunted from prison to prison, never quite knowing from day to day whether they would live or die.

Although they were roughed up and kicked when they first surrendered to Iraqi forces, the seven – five members of a logistics convoy and two pilots from a downed Apache helicopter – were not physically mistreated thereafter and received regular meals. Three of the soldiers who suffered gunshot wounds during an ambush on the Maintenance Company outside Nasiriyah underwent surgery and received medicine.

"More than once, a doctor said that they wanted to take good care of me to show that the Iraqi people had humanity," said Specialist Johnson, the only woman in the group. That humanity, however, was not something the soldiers – young, culturally displaced and, above all, scared – were prepared to count on.

Private Patrick Miller said: "I thought they were going to kill me. That was the first thing I asked when they captured me: 'Are you going to kill me?' They said no ... I still didn't believe them."

The seven told their stories to two American reporters on board a C-130 transport plane flying them out of Iraq to Kuwait, where they were being debriefed and subjected to medical and psychological evaluations. Members of the logistics team were taken prisoner after being overpowered when they took a wrong turn into Nasiriyah. As their rifles jammed because of the swirling sand, Edgar Hernandez was shot in the right arm, and Joseph Hudson in the ribs and upper left buttocks. The group also included Jessica Lynch, the badly wounded 19-year-old private who was rescued earlier from a hospital in Nasiriyah by Delta Force troops.

The pilots, meanwhile, made an unsuccessful attempt to escape Iraqi troops by swimming down a canal after their plane was downed. They ended up being captured by a farmer who presented them to the authorities like a trophy.

The gung-ho American media, and an openly jubilant President Bush, are already feting them as heroes. Their stories made clear, however, that the gravest danger they faced was not from their captors but from US bombs. At the first of their prisons, in Baghdad, the Iraqis had set up an artillery post, which made them feel especially vulnerable.

One night, an explosion from an A-10 damaged the wall of their cell enough to enable them to open the door, but the guards arrived before they could contemplate an escape. A few nights later, another powerful explosion just 50 yards away persuaded their captors to move them to the first of half a dozen new locations.

Although the seven had no concrete news of the progress of the war, they understood that the Iraqi defences were slowly crumbling. And that made them especially fearful. "We were a hot potato," said Specialist Johnson. "It was getting to the point where I believed they were going to kill us." At their final detention centre, in the town of Samarra, their captors were no longer Iraqi soldiers but ordinary policemen, who pooled their own money to buy food and medicine for the prisoners. Samarra is the setting for a famous appointment with death in the Arabian Nights, but for the seven American PoWs the town was to be their place of liberation.

Members of the Marines' 3rd Light Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion on their way to Tikrit were tipped off about their location and came running. "I was sitting there," said Private Miller. "Next thing I know the marines are kicking in the door, saying: 'Get down on the floor.' They said: 'If you're an American, stand up.' We stood up and they hustled us out of there." They didn't want to believe at first that Specialist Johnson, who is black, was an American, but demurred after her fellow prisoners vouched for her. Within three minutes, they were all on board a helicopter taking them to Numaniyah airfield south-east of Baghdad, and then on to Kuwait.

As waves of relief swept over the group, many broke down in tears at the prospect of seeing their families again. "We weren't PoWs very long," said Ronald Young, one of the Apache pilots. "I don't know how the guys in Vietnam made it. I wouldn't have made it."