[Jon Genrich and Lynnita (Sommer) Brown exchanged questions and answers about his Korean War
experiences in 1999. In February 2002, Jon published Ghost in the Night, a book about his military
experiences. The following memoir is a combination of the interview and Ghost in the Night.
The copyrighted text is reprinted as Jon's memoirs on the KWE website with Jon's permission.]
Memoir Contents:
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Preface
Introduction
I seemed to forget about everything that happened during my Marine Corps career and during my tour of duty in
Korea for about eight years, and then I started to remember. In 1961, I decided to write a book, but after
three chapters I quit. After September 11, 2001, I decided to finish writing it for my sons and daughter,
plus family members and a few Marines who served with me fifty years ago. I am fortunate to have had almost total
recall of most of my life in school, the Marine Corps, and in the business world. I can remember events and
picture them in my mind like they are the present rather than the past.
I hope this will help my family and friends to know me a little better. If anyone who reads the book can
relate to anything in my life, they will realize that we all have doubts, secrets and concerns about the present
and the future. The book is about the forgotten war crowded in between World War Two and Vietnam. The
Korean War seldom made the papers, but in three years it had more soldiers killed than Vietnam had in thirteen
years. Some magazines list different casualty numbers in the nineties. All numbers were far too high
in Korea and Vietnam. It is difficult to believe that more artillery rounds were fired in Korea than in all
of World War Two. On September 11, 1951, Howe Company, 3rd Battalion Seventh Marines was on what we called
Bloody Ridge. I was there and believe the following account to be an accurate description of the events that
took place while I served in Howe Company.
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Rand McNally Atlas
Korean War/Vietnam War Casualties
United States
- Korean War Killed - 54,246
- Vietnam War Killed - 49,193
- Korean War Wounded - 103,284
- Vietnam War Wounded - 153,303
Communist Regiments & Guerillas
North Korea & Chinese Killed & Wounded
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, per Rand McNally Atlas, VFW Magazine, and Old Breed News 1st Marine
Division.
[KWE Note: The Rand McNally Atlas figures quoted above are not limited to the Korean/Vietnam
theater of combat. They are world-wide casualty statistics for each war.]
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The Dream
A dream that repeats itself over seven or more years makes one wonder what it means. I have had a
recurring dream with images clear and never seeming to change. I wish to share them with you so that you may
create your own meaning. I will try to paint a picture in your mind to remember.
You are on top of a mountain looking down the hillside at a valley between you and the next mountain ridge
across from your location. You are inside a bunker that is covered with large tree logs and sand bags with
an aperture about three feet wide and one foot high. You are sitting behind a light machinegun, looking
out the aperture with a barbed wire fence in front of the bunker about 15 yards down the side of the hill.
The hillside is partly covered by trees with many of them broken off from artillery fire. The deep snow is
three to four feet deep on the side of the hill. The white snow and the moon lights up the night and you
see hundreds of Chinese soldiers coming up the hill. They are dressed in quilted winter uniforms and fur
caps with dog-ear flaps hanging down over their ears for warmth.
I am firing my machinegun, as is everyone along the front line as the Chinese come up the hill. There
are countless Chinese bodies lying all over the hillside. I notice their leader keeps coming and nothing
seems to stop him. I fire directly at him, but he keeps coming and then he is climbing over the barbed
wire fence and running toward my bunker. I have to stop him somehow, but then I see his face and it is me!
At this point, I always wake up with confusion and wonder what it means. Will I be killed or destroyed by
my own hand? Or could it mean that he is doing his job for his country just like I am and maybe we are not
that different?
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Pre-Military
My name is Jon Charles Genrich of Greenville, Texas. The name Jon came from one of Charles Lindberg sons
and Charles came from mother, father, or Lindberg--I'm not sure which. I was born October 16, 1932, in Gage
County, Nebraska, a son of William Nicholas and Cora Ethyl Packer Genrich. Both of my parents were born in the
USA--Mother about fourth generation and Father first generation. His father and mother came from Germany in
1886.
My mother was a homemaker. Father was a farmer until 1945, and he later worked with the U.S. Soil
Conservation. I lived on the farm in Gage County until I was age 13 and then in Beatrice, Nebraska through
High school. The people in Beatrice were German, Polish, French, Irish, African, and Jewish, but they were
all American. We lived through the Great Depression. The same as most people at that time, we never
starved and we had a roof overhead. We never thought we were poor, but by today's standards the government
would think so. People were healthier back then because of good food, hard work, and fewer doctors!
I have brothers and sisters Kenneth (born 1922), Eleanor (born 1923), Inez (born 1926), Dale (born 1927), and
Judy (born 1945). We attended country schools and I graduated from Beatrice High School, Beatrice, Nebraska,
in 1950. While in school I carried newspapers and worked as a janitor cleaning Ed Smith's dry goods store three
hours before school so I could be free to play sports after school. I was a Boy Scout from 1945 to 1948,
where I enjoyed friends and working together to accomplish goals. I loved camping, building fires, cooking,
using the bow and arrow, rope climbing, and swimming contests. I participated in school sports and was a
football running back/line backer. I also ran track relays, 880 yards and mile. I participated in
Drama and B Club, the varsity letter club.
I was in school at the time World War II was going on. I remember all the patriotic plays and music.
Father saved iron for army trucks to pick up. Gas, shoes, and certain foods were rationed and some colors could
not be used in packaging, but it was no great sacrifice for most people unless they were spoiled. I
collected a truckload of paper (one ton) in Scouts and received the "Eisenhower Medal" for this effort. I
followed every battle in the war as I had several cousins in the service. Some received medals and
battlefield commissions.
My oldest brother Kenneth was 6 foot, 3 inches and about 220 pounds. He tried to enlist in the Marines
and then the Army, but was turned down because of a punctured ear drum. He heard plenty of comments about that.
My brother Dale ran away from home at age 16 to join the merchant marines and than the Marine Corps at age 17 with
only five months left in the war. He was six feet, six inches. I was called the runt at six foot tall.
When the war was over, a few people shot off guns in the air, but there was not too big of a celebration.
I was well-behaved as school was very easy. I loved our church. I had many friends and loved to
party and became the designated driver at 16 years old. Most fights were with bullies who picked on the weak, not
me. My cousins and friends have said I would never turn down a dare regardless of the danger or back
away from anyone regardless of age or size. I loved girls (and still do).
Since my family had military tradition, I wanted to follow it and be the best, so I joined the Marine Corps in
Omaha, Nebraska, on February 19, 1951. My friend Joe Nicholson joined with me. Mother was glad I
joined the Marines because she felt that I would be safer. Many years later I wrote a book about my Marine
Corps experiences. It is entitled, "Ghost in the Night." In it I wrote about the Marine Corps and
Korea, and have granted permission to the Korean War Educator to reproduce it below.
"Ghost in the Night"
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The Confusion of Youth
The sun shined bright through the window as I awoke thinking that I had overslept and would be late for work.
Thank heavens I remembered that today was Saturday and I wasn't supposed to be at work. Life was becoming
more of a bore every day. I was 17 years old and graduated from high school. I had ran away to
California, came back, and was still looking for something different or exciting in life. I guess many
teenagers go through the same thing, but we all think we are individuals and not like anyone else in body or mind.
Some of the guys had planned a poker game for Saturday night, which sounded dull. It got old listening to
the same old jokes.
The bright spot was El, as I considered him my best friend. We had known each other since Sunday School
and in the scout troop while I still lived on the farm. He was smart in school, very well behaved, and a
little bashful. I tried to be like him most of the time, but my wild streak came out occasionally. I
began to wonder if this was a preview of the future. What could I do for some excitement or a chance to get
out of a small town in Nebraska and see the world? I thought maybe I could drive to one of the smaller towns
nearby and spend a couple of hours loving up one of their local girls who seem enchanted with boys from our
notorious town. Some of these girls were nice to talk to as they made us feel important. After my high
school senior year of football, I had hoped for a scholarship to continue playing football, but only a few small
schools showed any interest. I felt a little left out as many on our team had received a scholarship.
We were the top team in the state my senior year. It had been an honor to play with the team. I was
not one of the stars of the team, but I still had the dream that I could be in the future. Many of the guys
still around had little direction in life and I felt everything I had worked for in school and sports was gone and
my life seemed like it was over at seventeen.
My friend Joe Nicholson was in college and talked about joining the Marines after the first semester was over.
He wanted me to go in with him so he wouldn't be leaving alone. It was still three months off so I sort of
agreed, which gave me another reason to party every chance I got. Little did we realize that once we joined,
we might never see each other again after boot camp. My brother had been in the Marines and he had traveled
to China, Hawaii, California, Guam, etc., so I became more interested in joining. I thought about it every
day. Maybe this was my chance as it sounded better than my life in the present situation without much
excitement or future. The Korean Conflict or War, whatever you would like to call it, had started in June
1950. Our Congress and military leaders never seemed quite able to figure out as to what it should be named.
Since I wasn't 18 years old, I was going to wait a few months as my parents might not understand my joining the
Marines. Besides, my friend Smokey Joe wanted to finish the college semester. My parents had done a
good job teaching me respect for God, morals, and the law. I had always tried to live a decent life with
passion for everyone. The last few months I had not lived up to what they had taught me as I drank, raced
cars, and made love every chance I had. I realized later that young men seem destined to destroy their
morals or life at this age. These young men make the best fighters at age 18 to 21, as they want to live
fast, dangerous, for fun, and excitement. Live fast and die young while not being worried about family,
death, or the consequences of their actions.
My reckless behavior in the recent months was for attention and recognition by my peers. I wanted to be
more than just another person without any identity in life or purpose. I had overcome the stigma of being
from the farm after my first year of school in the city. This was because of sports and friends gained from
church and Boy Scouts. The next few years I became more accepted in high school and thought those were the
days I never wanted to end. I tried to talk to some of the farm kids to let them know that I wasn't like the
other jocks or preps. I realized later this was for my own conscious. If I had really cared, I would
have spoken in their defense. When we are young the desire of being accepted is the most important thing in
life. We fail in life until we realize that to accept others is more important than being accepted
ourselves. Only then will we have peace of mind and true friends.
Now that high school was over and many of my friends were gone, I really felt the need for something in my life
to feel accepted and needed. The thought of joining the Marines gave me the feeling of a new hope. The
next three months were a time for work, family, parties, and falling in love for the first time. The time
seemed to go so fast and the time grew shorter each day, not allowing for completion of my goals.
The girl I had met was the most wonderful person in the world in my mind as she idolized me. This
girlfriend gave me confidence in myself and ended up writing me several times a week while I was in the Marine
Corps. This, along with letters from several other girls from high school and friends, kept me going and
thinking positive. The letters seemed to give purpose to life for both of us as we looked forward to a life
together. However, it never happened as we both changed and grew in life. Later in life I married the
second woman that I really fell in love with and couldn't live without.
The last few weeks before leaving was filled with parties and friends, and created some doubt as to whether I
really wanted to join the service. All of my old friends seemed to be more special as the days became
shorter and our relationships closer each day. My good friend El thought that I had let Smokey Joe talk me
into it and said, "You can always change your mind." I then realized that I wanted to make this change in my
life more than Joe did. My recklessness had increased. I began to wonder if I would be in trouble with
the law. My passion grew for fast driving, racing, drinking, and they all seemed to be out of control.
The day to leave for the service finally came on February 19, 1951 on a cold winter morning in Nebraska.
Joe's folks drove him and me to Fort Omaha at Omaha, Nebraska, for physicals and induction into the United States
Marine Corps. The day went pretty fast, but it was interesting. We had our physicals, took
intelligence tests, etc. Smokey Joe had high blood pressure. I thought, "What if he doesn't make it?"
They allowed him to lie down for a half hour and took his blood pressure again and he made it. The test they
gave us seemed about 8th grade level and one of the guys failed it. I couldn't imagine that since I had made
almost a perfect score. The recruiting Sergeant came in and explained how he was going to help out the guy
that failed by changing a few answers so he would pass. He said we couldn't say anything or he would get
into trouble. I always wonder if the guy thought it was a good favor after he was in boot camp a few weeks
later.
I felt that I had a certain family honor to live up to in the military service. I come from a military
background. Grandfather August Genrich was born 1854 in Berlin, Germany but he was Prussian, not German.
He was considered huge for that period of time. He was about six feet, two inches and weighed 225 pounds.
My grandfather was a Prussian military man for seven years. He served at the Kaiser summer palace as a
coachman. He came to America in 1886. My Uncle Gus had been a hero in the First World War and died
shortly after from mustard gas. Willis Genrich, a cousin, had served in the Army Air Corps in Europe in a
bomber. Herman Genrich was in Company C Reserves and was taken into the Army in October of 1941 as a PFC. He
spent several years in Europe and was on Omaha Beach, in the Battle of the Bulge, and many other battles. He
received two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star and came home as a 1st Lieutenant. On my
mother's side of the family (the Packers), one nephew was at Pearl Harbor as a Lieutenant over anti-aircraft, Don
Packer served in the Air Force, and one cousin Eldon lost his leg at the knee in combat. This was a lot of
tradition to live up to in the family and the honor to defend my country.
They swore us into the Marines and I was put in charge as I had the highest test score. I was made
responsible for seeing that they all made the train on time for 8 p.m. departure for Marine Corps boot camp at San
Diego, California. We were in the Marines and a new life was before us that none of us could have ever
dreamed about. There were about 12 recruits from Nebraska, South Dakota, and Iowa on the train. Joe
Nicholson and I were among them.
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Marine Boot Camp
The train pulled into San Diego, California and we had a nice trip. The next thing we heard was yelling
to move out and get on the buses to Marine training depot. The nice guys were gone. The NCOs were
yelling and insulting recruits. Little did we know this would be the start of the psychological training to
change our lives and thinking forever!
We arrived at our temporary barracks and then ran about a half a mile to the mess hall for the evening meal.
After we finished eating we ran to another building and were told to empty our pockets as we were not allowed to
keep anything. One kid from California flipped the sergeant a left-handed salute. The sergeant slapped
him across the face and yelled, "Don't insult me. I'm not an officer." It became very quiet and
everyone paid attention. We were told our Drill Instructor would pick us up in the morning. When we
got back to the barracks it was lights out, but several of us talked in the dark and wondered what we had gotten
into by enlisting. (I remember that a major national news columnist of the time closed each day by saying,
"If you know a Marine in Korea, write to him. If you know a Marine in boot camp, pray for him.")
The other recruits in Platoon 82 and I met our drill instructors the next morning. They were Corporal
Cook from Texas and Sergeant Harris. Neither of them were World War II veterans. After a few verbal
insults about ancestors, intelligence, appearance, etc., we spent the rest of the day running all over the base.
We had physicals, haircuts, and they supplied us with uniforms, a scrub brush and soap to wash them, and toiletry
supplies. We now had everything we needed and returned to our barracks. We learned how and what we
were supposed to do and to never speak unless spoken to. From this day forward we would never go anywhere
unless all eighty men in the platoon went together. If two recruits, or "boots" as we were called, needed to
wash clothes, all eighty recruits went and stood at attention and waited. There was no church, no movies, no
PX, no free time.
Boot camp was eight weeks of team work, discipline, weapons training, learning hand-to-hand combat, and strong
mind control to break us down and build us into a Marine. The first seven weeks our DIs were particularly
strict. Some feet were stomped and some rifles were banged against heads. We were insulted because of
the way we looked, our place of birth, etc. This was part of the psychology used in the Marines. Both
individual and collective discipline was used. The entire platoon worked to straighten out individuals.
When the discipline was done by platoon members, it got the message across. One or two recruits were kicked
out as undesirable for being unable to march or for not following orders. They were physical or mental
zeroes.
Our days start at 0500 and end at 2200--unless someone messed up. If that happened we all would be up
half the night. We cleaned up the barracks and head after use. Some recruits were scrubbed by others
to teach cleanliness. Lights out was at 9:00 p.m., but sometimes we were awakened in the middle of the night
as harassment to keep us alert. We learned to work together as a team, and close order drill taught us the
discipline to follow orders without even thinking about the results. The most difficult thing was not being
able to use the heads after they were cleaned up at 0600 hours until 1300 hours. This created kidney and
stomach pains. We learned to live with all kinds of pains such as bruises, sprains, muscles, and abrasions
without slowing down in our training.
Corporal Cook was a hard but fair head drill instructor from Texas, but his assistant drill instructor was not
too sharp. One of them slept in the barracks every night and sometimes both of them did. They lived,
ate, and worked with us 24 hours every day as we were on a short training schedule. The platoon was made up
of four squads of twenty men each and they picked squad leaders to lead each squad. The flag was carried by
what was called the "right guard".
The squad leaders were the ones allowed into the PX to buy toothpaste, etc. for the recruits in their squad
while the rest of the platoon waited in formation outside. Each platoon had its eight or ten recruits with
ROTC or other experience that the DI used to help train others in the platoon. The makeup of the platoon was
a few experienced recruits in front of the main body of the platoon, about 55 men who would become real fighting
Marines, and 10 to 15 at the rear of the platoon called "shit birds" for their many mistakes. Everyone was
yelled at daily, told about what they did wrong, and shown the right way until it sank into the brain tissue.
We watched documentary and educational films about weapons, war pictures, and venereal diseases. There
were some feet stomped for not knowing the left foot, and rifles banged against heads for carrying the weapon
wrong. Again, we were insulted for our dress uniform and place of birth. Both individual and group
discipline was used so the entire platoon would work to straighten out individuals who were doing something wrong.
The DI used collective-type discipline as a last resort to get the message across when disciplined by a platoon
member.
We had about eight men with two or more years of college and they all said they would never be changed
psychologically. It was interesting to see them one by one become and believe they were the lowest living
creature on the face of the earth. This is what we all became after about five weeks, and then they started
to build our self-esteem and bodies to be invincible. The second week, six of us from Platoon 82 and Platoon
81, which both started the same week, were called out to take a test for a school at Great Lakes. We had all
scored high on the intelligence test. We were told we needed to score a minimum of 75 to be considered.
I only scored a 64, but felt good since it had a lot of college math and I was the only one without at least two
years of college. None of the six recruits taking the test passed and this made me feel better as I had
always considered myself an average student in high school. Maybe if I had studied I would have done better,
but school had been so easy and other jocks called you a brain or teased you in those days. The Marine Corps
was telling me I was smart, and this helped to build my self-esteem. I realized that I could do anything if
I tried.
After the first two weeks, we fell into a routine of taking care of our body and uniforms and marching daily.
Once we started to think we knew what we were doing, they issued rifles to us. The two platoons fell out of
the barracks and they told us that after boot camp we would go to Camp Pendleton for advanced military training.
After completion of advanced training, we would leave for the Far East on approximately July 12, 1951. I was
amazed later when I boarded the Cavalier APA ship on July 12 just as they had stated.
Learning to march with rifles while doing the manual of arms was all new and like starting over. If we
didn't keep our elbow tucked in to the body and the rifle wasn't straight, the DI slammed it up against the side
of our head. This was very effective and caused most of the platoon members to work harder on doing it
right. We were all surprised that by the sixth week we could do all kinds of maneuvers without an error,
including throwing the rifles over our head while marching in a circle and catching the rifle from the man in
front of us without dropping one single rifle. We continued to improve every day in our appearance,
marching, and learning from the many classes on weapons and military procedures. We still got chewed out
occasionally because of a fourth-inch long thread hanging from a buttonhole or for not digging our heels into the
concrete hard enough when we marched. We now strutted when we passed newer platoons to show those shit birds
what a real Marine looked like. The DIs even let a little smile creep on their face when we completed a
difficult maneuver to perfection.
We now wanted to learn more on how to be the best Marines possible. We were told that we would move to
the Camp Matthews rifle range the following week into tents. Although there were rattlesnakes at Camp
Matthews, this training what we had been waiting for, as it would be our chance to prove to ourselves that we were
ready. The two weeks at Camp Matthews would go fast, but we would learn about all the weapons and how to
field strip them. We also finished up on swimming classes, which we had started at MCRD in San Diego.
The first week we went out to the range and were assigned a rifle range instructor. The instructor told
the DI's that they could either leave or shut their mouths as the range instructor ran the range and training.
The Marines take firing weapons very serious and consider every man a basic rifleman first and a cook, truck
driver, typist, pilot, or whatever as second priority. The Marine Corps was the only branch of service that
increased base monthly pay by five dollars for qualifying as a sharpshooter and ten dollars for expert. This
may not sound like much money, but the monthly pay for a PFC was seventy-five dollars per month.
The range instructor showed us how to adjust the sling for a tight fit to hold the rifle still in all the
awkward positions for standing, kneeling, sitting, and prone for firing a rifle. We spent about five hours
every morning in dry firing without ammo. We got into position, aimed, and practiced squeezing the trigger.
The range instructor spent time with each man making sure he was in the right position so the rifle couldn't move.
He slapped down on the barrel to make sure the rifle bounced back into the correct position. He also worked
with each recruit on holding his breath for two or three seconds and squeezing the trigger very slowly.
After five hours of lying in this dirt in positions our muscles didn't know, firing without ammo, it was a
relief to stop. We spent the afternoon in a class learning about other weapons or undergoing swimming
instruction. The swimming class was different from the first time when our platoon was still at main side.
Main side had consisted of eighty naked men taking showers and then going to the pool side for 45 minutes of
pushups and other calisthenics. None of us ever had a chance to get into the pool or touch the water.
We finally made it into the pool and all swimmers were required to go off the high board, whether they knew how to
swim or not. The non-swimmers that didn't want to go off the high board were thrown off. They were
told they should try to swim to the side of the pool. When several went down for the second or third time,
the instructors would say that they were not going to get wet for any boot. If any of us wanted them to go
in after them, we could.
The requirements were to swim at least 50 yards. The instructor threw an old rusty M1 rifle into the
nine-foot deep water, and each man had to dive in to pick up the rifle from the bottom and swim to the side.
If one was an average swimmer, he could pass. But poor or non-swimmers had trouble. Some finally made
it and some didn't. The weapons classes were more interesting, as we were shown how to field strip several
weapons and put them back together. We were told what some common problems could cause the weapon to fail to
fire. This helped to prepare us for any problems in a combat situation and taught us how to resolve jams or
misfires.
We had to sit in a Quonset hut with gas masks on and then tear gas was set off and we had to take our mask off.
We were allowed to walk out only when the drill instructor walked out. The DI still worked with us on close order
drill after the evening meal so we would not forget before returning to MCRD in San Diego for our final parade and
graduation. I believe we only lost three or four recruits along the way to sick bay or for an undesirable
discharge.
We also learned valuable new terms and strategy from our head DI on how to requisition or to confiscate for the
good of the Corps. The head DI had us fall in one night before lights out and he explained that we were six
blankets short. He said that he would have to pay for them if we did not find them. The tent sides
were rolled up at night because of the heat and about midnight a group went out to a far off location. They
grabbed the blankets off other platoon recruits while they were sleeping. The next morning the DI found ten
blankets on the landing of his tent. He explained that day that he didn't know what to do with the extra
blankets.
When in Korea this training helped to save a lot of Marines. The Marines are quite often the first to be
asked to fight, but the last to receive the equipment needed in battle, while other military branches have more
supplies than they will ever use. The Marines in Korea often confiscated Jeeps, trucks, boots, ammo, and
even machinegun barrels from other outfits that were over-supplied. We had one Marine who had a hole through
the sole of his boots for a month in the winter. They said none were available from supply. He walked
about eight miles to an army supply center and begged for a pair of boots (which they had in supply). He was
told no by the supply sergeant. The sergeant finally offered to sell them to him for more money than he had.
He came back without boots, but someone got the boots for him one night. This was not stealing, but
confiscation for the war effort. (We learned many things in boot camp, some maybe better than others.)
The second week at Camp Matthews we received live ammo and started to fire fifty rounds each day at
targets--ten rounds offhand or standing at 200 yards at "A" targets, ten rounds rapid fire for fifty seconds at
dog targets. ten rounds slow fire sitting and kneeling combined from three hundred yards, ten rounds rapid fire
from the prone position, and ten rounds slow fire from 500 yards at baker targets to finish. The total score
possible was 250 with 190 required to qualify, 210 for sharpshooter, and 220 for expert. We soon learned the
standing position was the most difficult. If we lost too many points at the start, it was difficult to make
it up at other positions and distance.
Each day everyone seemed to improve a little. We had less harassment from the DIs as they would be judged
along with the rifle range instructor on how many qualified. The third day was my best score on the range,
but only Friday would count for qualification. The fourth day everything seemed to go wrong and my score
fell about twenty points from the previous day. I was frustrated and the range instructor realized it
because he told me not to worry or think about it and relax that night. The fifth day we fired for
qualification and I fired a 204, which was a few points under the third day. I qualified, but missed
sharpshooter. Later in the service while in Cuba, I qualified expert and was an alternate for the rifle team
that fired in competition. I qualified with the M1 .30 caliber, carbine .30 caliber, light machinegun .30
caliber, and .50 caliber machinegun. I believe if possible I must have qualified with grenades, as I threw
several hundred in Korea. Although I learned to fire a 60mm mortar and a .45 pistol, I never qualified on
either of them.
We had now finished at Camp Matthews and returned to MCRD in San Diego for our last week and graduation.
We had two more casualties in our platoon. One was from South Dakota who had enlisted at Omaha, Nebraska.
He went a little berserk at Camp Matthews. Another refused to get out of bed one morning after being ordered
and he was taken to the brig.
We returned to the Main Base at San Diego and were allowed to wear our dress greens for the first time. I
didn't feel like I was a Marine yet. I had a lot to learn because I wanted to be the best. I had self
confidence to do anything, however. We had come to appreciate our DI, and even took up a collection for a
new motor for his car.
We spent our last week in spit and polish for the finale parade and graduation. The head DI inspected us
all the last day before graduation and when he stopped in front of me he asked me what my name was. After I
told him he said, "Have you been in the platoon all along?" He didn't remember me. This hurt a little
after all the abuse and training. I later thought, "How could I be the only one he didn't remember?"
There were the few he had always praised and the shit birds he had constantly yelled at 24 hours a day. The
rest he had corrected and yelled at a few times each day.
The parade went perfectly. We got a picture of our platoon, received our first pay, and were given our
next duty station orders. I had a ten-day leave before reporting to Camp Joseph H. Pendleton for advanced
military training. Only about twelve men received orders for other camps for training and Smokey Joe was one
of them. He would go to Barstow to play in the sand with amphibious landing craft.
The last night at the recruit depot several of the recruits were gambling and the assistant D.I. caught them
and wrote them up for a possible court martial. When the head D.I. came back from town, he found out.
We only heard the yelling between the two DIs and what sounded like some busted furniture in the office. The
head DI yelled, "You're not going to destroy their careers now that they have graduated." We found out later
that the report had been left while the officer of the day was out. The head DI went over and snatched the
report off the officer of the day's desk before he could see it.
The next day we left the base and got airplane tickets to Nebraska. We then made a short visit to
Tijuana, Mexico for drinks and entertainment. We were now looking ahead to our next assignment and felt
proud to be Marines. I had had no regrets during boot camp at joining the Marine Corps. I only wanted
to "major up" like with a championship football team. We flew home from boot camp and had the hardest DI at
San Diego on the plane with us. I sat at attention on the flight.
Back to Memoir Contents
Advanced Training at Pendleton
Back home, I discovered that Nebraskans were proud of their servicemen. I started to feel proud and like
a Marine. It was good to see my family and friends, but I realized that I was not the same person that had
left just eight weeks before. The ten days seemed to go fast as I tried to spend time with friends, family,
and girlfriend. My friend Joe and I had come home together, but were going to different camps so we didn't
make plans to leave together when we left to report back to our next duty station. I caught a ride to take
the train back to California and Camp Joseph H. Pendleton. The second day on the train I ran into Joe in the
club car as he was on the same train. We were both surprised and spent a lot of time talking about boot camp
and being home with the family. Joe got off the train at Barstow and I went on to Los Angeles to catch a
ride to Pendleton. Once I checked into the barracks, it was like old home week as John, Kenneth, and Lester,
all from Texas and in my platoon from basic were there. We had about 200 men in the barracks and about 30
were from boot camp.
We were told that we would be sent to Tent Camp Three, which hadn't been used since World War II when it had
been used for training by the Marine raiders. We were going to help clean up the camp to get it ready, as
well as start our training. When we arrived, we found that the mix of men included Marines from reserves,
Camp Lejeune on the east coast, San Diego on the west coast, and some men left over from previous training.
This ten-week training period began in April of 1951. We learned military tactics, grenades, the BAR,
etc., by the hands-on method. We did not have any cold weather training, but we underwent some
amphibious training on beach landings. Our instructors were mostly Korean War veterans and some World War II
veterans. Advanced training was different than boot camp training in that there was less emphasis on
discipline and more emphasis on working together as a team. My biggest challenge of this infantry training
was fear that they would find out that I had a football knee that could lock up.
The non-coms were rough during training, but friendly off duty, which made our training hard work, but fun.
We started working on maneuvers in the field with squad and fire team formations. In the Marines everything
is in three's with three fire teams in a squad, three squads in a platoon, and three rifle platoons in a company.
The fire team is the smallest entity, made up of fire team leader, scout, BAR man and assistant BARman. The
four men move in a diamond shape or other configuration with five yards or more between each man. This was
for safety and gave the unit control and contact between members of the fire team. The three fire teams have
similar formations in the squad. Hand signals are used in the field and each group leader stays in contact
with the next larger unit group leader.
We also started running the obstacle course first thing in the morning and last thing at the end of the day.
We spent hours in the Colonel Biddel Knife Fighting School where we learned how the Russians, Orientals, South
Americans, and street fighters used knives. We also were taught a combination of judo using the other man's
strength and dirty fighting. The objective was learning to kill with our hands or whatever we had available.
They also showed the many Japanese atrocities during their war with China and the Second World War. We
learned about Japanese soldiers having fun throwing babies in the air and catching them on bayonets and some of
their methods of torture, such as bamboo sticks under the finger nails, etc.
This woke us up to realize that war was not about just fighting and heroes, but also about killing or being
killed. They talked about prisoners taken by Koreans found with their hands tied and shot in the head.
I decided right then that I would never be taken prisoner, but die fighting to the end. I often thought
later that Americans could never win a war on their own soil because fair play, understanding, and compassion
would only get them killed. I hoped I was wrong, but thought that if many Americans were too soft in the
fifties, by the turn of the century we would have only a handful ready to die with pride. How would Congress
and the public respond if a million or more were killed on their own homeland?
We worked hard on training and were too tired to go off the base during the week. One of the guys was
named Lester. He was married so he never went off the base, but he was a good friend and always wanted to
take me to the PX and buy me a strawberry malt. Lester was a raw-boned, six foot one, 190 pound former high
school all-state running back from Texas. He had received a full scholarship to Southern Methodist
University, but after one year he left to join the Marines. John and Kenneth had gone to high school
together in Dallas and they wanted to get off the base just as I did. We did not get paid, as our records
were lost per the Marine Corps until just before we finished advanced military training. Since we had no
money, we decided to take turns wiring home for money each weekend. I had sold my car for $300 before
joining, so I had my folks wire me $100 on three occasions. The three of us would then hitchhike to Long
Beach or San Diego each weekend and make a hundred dollars go a long way. Kenneth was about five nine and
165. He was the "ladies man" as he had an ability to meet girls. John was more like me as he was about
six foot and about 210 pounds. I was about the same, but 15 pounds lighter. We always kept Kenneth out
of trouble as he would do or try anything to meet girls, even if they had a boyfriend along. John had played
high school football in the state playoffs and talked about playing football until the first of December.
When we didn't have money to go out on the weekend, John and I spent hours in the dirt working on judo moves
and dirty fighting techniques. We were caught up in the training and wanted to be the best. They also
had three-round boxing matches they called smokers and they wanted John and me to box one weekend. John had
boxed a little in Golden Gloves but I had never boxed other than playing with bigger brothers. They finally
talked me into fighting and we went the three rounds. They called it a draw. I had caught John on the
chin a couple of times and protected my head so I didn't get hit in the head. John had pounded me in the
ribs about 60 times and I was pretty sore. I thought, "If I feel this bad in a draw, what would it be like
to lose?" This was a better sport than what a lot of the guys did on the weekend. It was a big deal
for some of the guys to go rattlesnake hunting. They had a money pool in which the guy with the largest
snake took all the money. I had no love for snakes. Since our area was loaded with them, it was bad
enough to run through the tall grass and hit the ground during maneuvers. Out of about a thousand men
training, only one guy was bitten. Another one froze one day halfway to the ground because he saw a rattler
coiled on the ground. It was hard to believe he could stay in that position.
One day we decided to go off the base after maneuvers and about 16 miles of hiking. It was the middle of
the week and we were coming back to camp at six in the evening. We were about a mile and a half from Tent
Camp when John, Kenneth, and I ran up to the front of the company. We asked the officer for permission to
double-time the rest of the way into camp. The officer said that if we were that gung ho to go ahead.
The rest of the company was tired and thought we were crazy. When they marched into camp, we were already in
the showers. This saved us an hour of waiting in line to shower and gave us a head start off the base.
We were learning every day in training. I had always thought that I was in good shape while in sports,
but had never been in this good of condition in my life. We were getting better at the obstacle course and
each day we were timed on how long it took the whole platoon to finish. Some of us went down and practiced
and tried to help some of the Marines having trouble with the course. The rope climbing and clearing the
ten-foot solid wood wall were the hardest for me, but I figured out how to do it the right way.
One morning we woke up and Lester was not in our tent, nor had his bed been slept in during the night. We
fell out for roll call and Lester was not around. We wondered, "Where could he be?" Since he never
went off the base hardly and saved his money to send to his wife, we were all confused. The Sergeant
questioned those in the same tent to see if we had any information or ideas on where he had gone. About five
days later, Lester was back in the tent when we came back from the field. He didn't say much except he said
that he had to go see the company commander for office hours. When he came back from the company commander,
I asked, "What are they going to do to you?" He said nothing. Then later he told me in his slow, deep
voice what happened at the office hours hearing. He said the Captain asked him why he had gone absent
without leave. Lester said, "I told him that I heard my best friend was messing around with my wife. I
just went back to Mesquite, Texas, and hit him over the head with a two by four a couple of times and came right
back." He said the Captain just smiled and said, "Promise me you will ask for permission next time."
Lester agreed and the Captain told him to return to training and nothing would be on his record. Hey, this
was great to hear and showed that officers could be human after all, since we were all in this together.
I was from a small town in Nebraska and I think the hardest thing for me to understand was some of the names
people were using to describe other recruits. I heard a little at the end of boot camp, but a lot at Camp
Pendleton. At first I didn't understand what they were talking about. I heard names like wop, kike,
spic, spade, kraut, head, frog, none of which I had ever heard before. Once I understood what they meant, I
was even more confused and started to think about what nationality or religion everyone I went to high school with
had been. I decided, "Who cares?" The black people from my home town were mostly small business owners
and highly respected. Otis P.W. once had an article written about him in the Omaha World Herald newspaper
that said he had one of the best memories that they had ever heard about. We also had Art T., who owned an
auto repair garage. He coached the American Legion baseball team with only one black player. We were
lucky to have Art as a coach since he had played professional baseball for the Kansas City Monarchs.
Everyone in my hometown was judged on what he or she did and how they lived, not on religion or race. I then
realized it was lack of knowledge on their part since they never took the time to know the people. I'm not a
saint because I have met white, black, brown, and yellow people I didn't like. I found many more of all
groups of people that I did like. I normally like people who like me and do not like people who don't like
me.
The good thing about the Marines is that they judged every man on how he performed. Those who used the
name-calling were only a small percent of the recruits. We were becoming a well-trained fighting team and
realized that we had to rely on each other to protect ourselves in the field. We were doing some marches
without any water in our canteens. We had learned that putting a small stone in our mouth kept saliva glands
working so we wouldn't get thirsty. Our training broadened to firing mortars, throwing hand grenades, and
attaching detonators to explosives. We also continued to run the obstacle course daily and occasionally the
bayonet course. This was fun as, besides jabbing the bayonet into the straw dummies, we also tried to knock
the heads off of the dummies with the butt of the rifle. If we broke our rifle stock we were in for a good
bit of trouble with the non-coms in our platoon.
We also walked up the ditches lined with tall grass and they would have pop up targets to see how fast we
reacted. We graduated from knife fighting school and the instructor gave a speech saying that we were the
best trained knife fighters in the world. He said to remember that we may have to take a knife cut to make
the kill. He also said that the best defense if not trapped or cornered was to drop our skivvies and run
like hell.
We tried to get off base more every week as time grew shorter. John and Kenneth had graduated from high
school with a friend whose dad had married a big name movie star and they were living in Beverly Hills.
Their friend invited them to come up to Beverly Hills one weekend and they asked me to go along. I was a
little intimidated and declined, making up some weak excuse. When they told me later what a good time they
had over the weekend, I felt a little sorry that I hadn't gone.
The next weekend I went to meet a friend from my home town who was working in California on a summer job.
Jim had been one year behind me in school but we were about the same age. We had gone to several Boy Scout
camps together and played a lot of sandlot baseball and football. He had lived about two blocks away from me
on the same street, and he was one of my many junior friends. When I was a senior in high school I was
younger by almost a year than most of the senior class. We spent the weekend together and fell asleep on the
beach and burned the back of our legs real bad. I told him that I was concerned since I couldn't go to sick
bay as I could be court-martialed for damage to government property. This was a regulation. The next
three days I never missed any training, but the skin came off the back of my knees. I was scared that I
would get an infection and I was lucky that none occurred and that I never missed a beat on my training schedule.
I could have done without some of the vaccination shots. We were required to have twelve shots before
going overseas. I didn't mind shots that bad, but each time we had them a few Marines were gone out of our
unit. The Marines way was to give them to everybody again rather than just to the persons who had missed
them. I ended up receiving three complete sets of shots over about three weeks and felt I should be immune
for the rest of my life.
The time was growing short at tent camp before we would go back to main side to prepare for debarkation on
ships to the Far East. Kenneth had met a girl at Long Beach that he had gone out with several times.
John and I went with him and she brought along a couple of nice girl friends. We didn't have much money, but
just enjoyed talking to Sandy as she was a very nice person from Alhambra, California. She said she would
write to me when I went overseas, which sounded great as I had about six girls to write to me and getting mail was
always good. The next weekend I went to San Diego and met two young ladies in a restaurant who were married
to naval officers. We sat and talked for about two hours and Barbara said she would write to me in Korea.
I said okay and she gave me her address. Some people wouldn't understand that just talking to a woman
whether single or married was nice for a change. I got tired of all the Marines on base and the many hours
of training.
We had a very good squad leader from Chicago during our training. Al was an older married man about 21 or
22. He worked with us and he was always very fair and understanding. When we got carried away with
horseplay around the tent camps, he ignored it as long as we performed well in the field. Al was about six
foot two, weighed 210, and was very strong. He was a good-looking man who tried to be hard on his troops,
but never came across that way. He would save my butt later in Japan from getting into trouble, which I will
go into at a later time.
We were now finishing up our final week at the tent camp and on the last weekend we ran the obstacle course for
the last time. Our platoon had the fastest time that last day and I was amazed at myself as I came over the
high wall at the end. A Master Sergeant told me to drop down and do push-ups on my finger tips. I was
able to do 50 on my finger tips after running the course and had never been able to do that many in high school or
training before. We also went through the live fire course where we crawled under barbed wire with
explosives going off around us. We had been warned not to panic and jump up, as the machine guns would be
firing at about forty inches high with live ammunition. When I finished, the gunny sergeant asked me why I
was always covered with more dirt than anyone else. I told him because I tried harder when on an obstacle
course. We were now finished with our training except for a two day and night combat training exercise in
the field against former combat experienced Marines. When we got back to main side at Pendleton, we prepared
for the combat exercise, which would include blanks and random explosions for artillery.
We started on a long march and ended up in a wooded area to make camp for the night. We made foxholes,
ate C-rations, and prepared for the night as it was getting very dark. Later we were "attacked" about 11
o'clock. They ran through our area firing blanks. Some of our guys got mad at them for firing so close
to their face. They started grabbing some of the attackers, pulling them down into the foxholes, and beating
the crap out of them. This would later come to hurt all the ratings of our outfit. The colonel in
charge of the aggressors was mad about his men getting beaten up. After the attack we moved out at night
about midnight walking over hills.
I sprained my ankle real bad coming down a steep hill in the dark. They asked if I needed to be
transported back and I said, "No, I think I can make it to the next area." They took off after telling me to
follow the dirt path and that the camp was about five miles ahead. I walked as fast as I could, but dropped
behind and soon couldn't hear the troops moving ahead of me. I thought that I had to be quiet so I wouldn't
be captured. It was a funny feeling just like I was already in a combat area and the enemy was out there.
I finally caught up to them just before dawn where they had made camp. In about a half an hour, they said
they were moving out. My ankle felt better and was not hurting as much. The corpsman said he heard
that exercise was the best thing for a sprain as it kept the blood flowing. This sounded good whether true
or not and by noon I had no pain in my ankle.
We continued on moving and while moving up a hill on the run and weaving back and forth, my left knee went out
and I took cover behind a tree. I worked on my knee for a couple of minutes and it popped back into place so
I continued to the top of the hill. My squad leader mentioned that I was a little slow and my ankle must
still be bothering me. I didn't want him to know the truth--that I had had trouble with my knee since
football in my sophomore year in high school. I was afraid that it would keep me out of a combat outfit.
Besides, it only happened at random. Sometimes every six months or maybe in two weeks or less my knee would
act up. It hadn't bothered me on the obstacle course or in all the running and maneuvers, so why now?
I didn't want to jeopardize my fellow comrades in combat, but felt that I was more competent than most of the
troops. I didn't want to end up in some office job or to be kicked out of the service, which would be a
disgrace.
We were now only a week from leaving for Korea and would have our last weekend off the base and a barbecue and
beer party on the beach the following week. When I came back from my weekend, I noticed that about 25
percent of the unit had not come back to base. During the next couple of days most of them showed up,
but a few didn't make it until the day before we boarded ship. We had a big day on the beach with games,
food and beer. I figured they wanted to wine and dine us before throwing us to the lions.
I was surprised nothing happened to the Marines that had come back late. Many had gone home for a few
days to be with family and friends. One of the guys who came back late said, "What can they do to us?
If they put us in the brig we won't get to go to Korea, and that won't hurt my feelings." I didn't agree
because I wanted to go to Korea and I didn't have the money to fly home. The idea of seeing family and
friends now wouldn't be good as my mind was prepared for what was ahead. I looked forward to front line duty
and doing my job. My biggest concern was not for myself but my fellow Marines. I did not want to let
them down and cause them to be wounded or killed.
We packed all of our gear on July 11 so we would be ready the next day when we would be transported to the
ships for loading. I remember how we had all jumped off a 50-foot platform with life jackets during our
advanced training so we would be prepared in case we had to abandon ship. The biggest thing to remember was
that when we stepped off we were to cross our legs to protect valuable property. We had to grab the top of
the lifejacket and pull down hard so it wouldn't break our neck when we hit the water. We hit the bottom
pretty hard in nine feet of water. We were worried about safety when we jumped and not how shallow the water
was in the pool.
The next morning we were ready early as was customary in the Marines. Then we sat and waited for several
hours until the transportation arrived. The trip to the ships in San Diego was crowded and long, but we
finally arrived at the pier. We boarded the Cavalier, which was said to be the most decorated APA in the
Navy. The only problem was, I think that they forgot to repair the ship after it had taken hits during the
Second World War. We were guided down either four or five levels to store our gear. The bunks were
canvas stacked five levels high, with about 18 inches in between each rack. This was adequate space to store
equipment--if we didn't plan to sleep in the rack. It was very hot and stuffy in the hole, so John, Lester,
Ken, and Phillips headed for the deck with me. We wanted to get air and a last look at San Diego women.
Phillips had also been in our basic training and advance training platoons. Phillips was a square-faced,
bronze-skinned man, about five foot eleven and 195 pounds. He looked like he was as solid as granite.
We went to the mess hall (or galley, as the Navy would call it), and ate our evening meal, which included beans,
and then went back to topside for air and scenery.
We learned fast that the hold where our racks were started to stink terribly after a couple of days, especially
since the galley served beans for every meal as a side dish. Once we set to sea it was smooth, but a lot of
the men started to get seasick and throw up while eating. The smell was terrible so we stayed on deck all
day. At night we tried to crawl back behind large pipes and sleep. We were successful at this for
about five days and then they caught up with us and put us on a work detail to chip paint. One of our guys
figured out that the room behind where we had started to work was filled with sailors that were trying to sleep.
They had been on duty all night and had just gotten to bed. We decided to bang on the steel walls as hard as
we could. In a few minutes one of the sailors came out and said, "Knock it off. We're trying to
sleep." We told them that we didn't want to get in trouble and were just doing what we had been told to do.
About five minutes later an officer came down and told us to stop working for the day. We never got caught
for another work detail.
The next day at daylight we could see the other two ships in the convoy steaming off into the distance. A
short time later they announced our ship had a broken rudder and had been going in circles for the last few hours.
This was followed by the Cavalier blowing a boiler a couple of days later. We had to limp into Japan the
last two days at about four knots and the trip took two days longer than normal. That doesn't say much for
being on the oldest and most decorated ship.
We had a bad incident several days before reaching Japan. A bunch of the guys had been in an all-night
poker game and got caught by the officer on watch. He started to confiscate the money and threatened to
bring charges against several players. One of the men was from Orange, Texas. He was about six foot
tall and about six foot across the shoulders and would make some apes look anemic. He grabbed the officer,
picked him up above his head, and walked out on the deck and threatened to throw him overboard. It was about
two in the morning on a dark night. Several of the guys talked to him, trying to convince him to put the
officer down. They finally succeeded. I believe he could have held him all night as strong as he was.
They finally locked him up in the brig until we reached Korea, and then they let him go to a front line company
rather than stay in the brig. They were very strict the last two days aboard ship on any men on deck or
playing cards. We finally steamed into Kobe, Japan, for a three-day layover. We were told that we
would get one day of liberty in Japan. We didn't know it at the time, but we were going to help save the
Marine Corps from becoming extinct!
Back to Memoir Contents
Howe Company: The Beginning
After the Cavalier had been docked at the pier, the gangplank was let down and we had our first view of Kobe,
Japan. This was something a young kid from Nebraska had never dreamed possible--that he would be in this far
off country which he had heard so many war stories about. We were told that evening that half of the Marines
would be allowed to go on liberty from 1000 hours to 2300 hours the next day. I was lucky that I was on the
list for the first day of liberty.
The following morning we were ready to go early and couldn't wait to run down the gangplank and see the sites.
I was with a group of about ten Marines that decided to go together. We walked to the end of the pier and
when it opened into the streets there were about 100 Japanese girls in kimonos singing, "Come on to my house.
I have something nice for you." We had been given strict guidelines to what was off-limits for the military
and where we could go, but this hadn't been included. We had to exchange our currency first, and then we
became tourists riding in rickshaws, trying Japanese beer, etc.
We soon learned the places we were told we could go were dance halls and bars. They were not that great
but they had lots of women and so were designed for servicemen. The off-limits places were the nicer hotels,
restaurants, department stores, etc., and they didn't want servicemen. This was just the opposite of what we
had expected off-limits to be, as the dives were where they wanted us to go.
We went to several bars by early evening. John, Ken, and J.C. broke off from the group, toured several
stores, and ended up in a very nice restaurant and bar which was off-limits. We talked to some of the
Japanese businessmen who spoke English. We stayed at the bar for about one hour before going back to the
ship. The following day my name was not on the duty list, but instead was on the list to go off the ship
again. I decided to go into Kobe alone. Since I was alone, I visited a few stores for gifts to send
back home as they had told us on the ship that they could mail items. I eventually ended up back at the
off-limits restaurant and bar from the previous day. I got a good meal and had a few beers at the bar while
talking to several Japanese men. They told me that the hardest thing to find in Japan was a Bible.
They said they would pay me if I would send them some Bibles and they seemed very interested in Christianity.
I told them there were organizations that gave away Bibles in America and I would contact them. They gave me
their names and addresses as to where to send the Bibles. Before I could leave the bar, an officer with
several shore patrolmen came in and started to question me. They asked why I was in an off-limits
establishment. They had a Marine MP with them, and it was my squad leader Al from Camp Pendleton. They
started to arrest me and Al spoke up and said he would escort the prisoner back to the ship. He took me out
and we walked several blocks before he asked me to do him a favor. He wanted me to buy a silk kimono for his
wife and asked me if I would do it for him. I agreed and he gave me $20 and told me to get lost and he would
see me back at the ship. Five days later I was in a front line company and had lost the address for the
Japanese men. I always felt that I had failed the Japanese men and hoped they would understand.
The next morning the ship sailed for Pusan, Korea, and we arrived the following day. We departed the ship
to move to a tent camp holding area for incoming troops. We had left our duffle bags, dress uniforms, and
all personal property in Kobe, Japan. The second day we were loaded on airplanes and flown north to the
nearest airport on the front lines. We were then loaded on trucks for about a fifteen-mile ride to a little
valley where we unloaded our gear and were told to sit down on the side of the road. We sat there for
several hours. First, a sergeant came up asking if anybody could type as they needed a typist at battalion and
regiment headquarters. I had taken typing in high school and was afraid they would find out and I wouldn't
make it to a combat company. Another sergeant came up and he needed about fifteen men for Howe Company.
They took us by alphabetical order with last names starting with G's.
We picked up our gear and followed him down the road to the reserve area bivouac where the Seventh Marines were
located in a valley. I was assigned to a machine gun squad. I had been trained as a rifleman and
learned all the maneuvers and weapons used by riflemen, but knew nothing about machine guns. The machine
guns were attached to the rifle companies all of my tour of duty and I never met or heard of anybody from a
weapons company.
The section leader was Sam, a Cherokee from Oklahoma. The two squad leaders were Pres and Murphy. I
soon learned that I was lucky to have them to train me the next two weeks. Sergeant Sam knew combat and
machine guns better than anyone in Howe Company did. I came to realize this at a later date when I felt that
I was the best machine gunner. Some of the men talked about him getting drunk when in reserve area, but I
listened to him and learned the things to be successful in combat. Sergeant Sam made all the new men attend
his class on field stripping the machine guns and putting it together and setting headspace on the barrel.
The headspace could cause the gun to fire sluggish--or not at all. We learned that every gun works a little
different with each new barrel. When we field stripped the gun I was a little slow, so Sergeant Sam made me
stay and we worked until dark. He said I should learn to do it in the dark, as it may save my life one day
in the future. The two squad leaders in the second section were very outgoing men and they talked to us
about throwing away gear and anything heavy. They said, "When you start climbing mountains with two 20-pound
cans of ammo for the machine gun, plus your rifle, ammo, helmet, water, trenching tool, sleeping bag, etc., you
won't want any extra weight."
The next three weeks was an opportunity to learn about a machine gun section and the men that made it up.
J.B. was a very friendly and talkative Texan. Richard was a young man from Indiana not much older than I
was. Big Mac was about six foot six from Texas and had served in China. He reminded me of my brother
who had been in the Marines. The first section had a gunner and assistant gunner from California who looked
like Hollywood poster men. We had an ammo carrier named Ed from Wisconsin who had several months with the
section, as well as two other new ammo carriers--Vic from Pennsylvania and Gluck from New Jersey. and me.
Kit was the second squad gunner with about eight months in Korea. He kept to the previous members of his
squad. He did not talk much and ignored the new recruits.
I heard the many stories about some of the battles and heroes who gave all they had for God, country, and
fellow Marines. The one that I remember was about what they called Guinea Hill, named after the hero of the
battle. To save his platoon and fellow Marines when overrun, he stayed behind so the platoon could escape.
They told how he was behind a rock wall in a field, firing his Browning Automatic Rifle, killing a dozen or more.
When out of ammo they saw him from a distant hill, standing on the rock wall, shot several times but using his
entrenching tool to kill more. This was a hero who gave all for his fellow men with pride.
The section leader of the third section talked to me several times because he heard I was from Nebraska.
He had spent some time in Nebraska in the past and wanted to know where I was from. I liked to fool some of
the Texans by telling them I was from Dallas. They would not believe me at first, but after describing White
Rock Lake, the Majestic theater, Lovers Lane, and a few other locations, they started to believe me. I had
spent so much time with Texans in boot camp and advanced training that I had heard all the stories.
We slowly came to know everyone in the second section and many of the second platoon's riflemen that we would
be working with in the field. My greatest fear was not learning enough about my duties, but rather the fear
of falling another Marine in combat. I was a replacement, so several in my squad and section offered advice.
Most were reservists with little training, so I accepted or declined their advice on gut feeling.
I have always been known as a talker, so I asked many questions about the front lines and firefights. I
drained all the knowledge possible from the mouths and minds of the experienced Marines. We had a lot of
activity going on at the camp as they had a General hold a formal inspection of the troops. The new men were
not required to stand inspection for some reason. I thought maybe our dungarees were too new and clean
compared to the other troops. One of the men called Bookie got in a discussion about the war with the
General and a lot of the older troops were laughing about Bookie. They also held a field day, holding sport
competition with food and prizes the week before we moved to the front lines. I stuck my foot in my mouth
when I commented on a chubby little captain that won the football passing. He didn't look that good, I told
everyone. I later found out that it was Eddie LeBaron who played professional football before and after his
tour of duty in Korea. Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox and Jerry Coleman of the Yankees were also called
into duty for the Marines in Korea.
The last few days before moving out were used for checking equipment and wondering if we would see the enemy
and under what conditions. It started to rain the last day as we loaded up on the trucks. They drove
for several hours in the rain and mud. We were all soaking wet sitting in the open bed of the "four deuces"
trucks, as we called them. When they stopped and dumped us off to walk in the rain and deep mud, we realized
that riding in the rain wasn't really that bad.
Korea was a country with very rugged mountains with heavy forest. There were valleys in between with
rivers and rice paddies and the occasional one or two houses located in the valley. We must have walked four
or five miles when we came to a river with rushing water. We were told to take a break while the officers
decided what to do in order to cross the river. We heard that the river was knee high in the morning when
the Colonel checked the river, and now it was five feet deep or more.
It was decided that we would cross the river in groups of six to eight men with arms locked to hold each other
up. The bottom of the river was covered with large, slick rocks. Each man was carrying 60 to 90 pounds
and it could be fatal if anyone slipped and fell. The first dozen groups made it in good shape, but then one
group fell when several slipped at one time. The river seemed to be rushing faster and the men were swept
down the river. Some were able to discard some of the weight and make it to shore a couple of hundred yards
downstream. Two of the men were swept further downstream with Marines running to try and pull them out of
the water.
We waited for our turn to cross the river. Big Mac said he would carry the gun and asked me if I thought
that I could keep my footing. I said I felt I could do it. We put a shorter Marine between us and
locked arms to hold each other up in the water. When we started, Big Mac said, "If anybody feels like he is
slipping, yell out and everyone else should stop and hold their footing." We started across and when we got
to the middle the water was knocking us around. We stopped several times to straighten our line or to get
better footing. We finally made it to the other side and stopped on the bank. We found we were
standing in mud and water six inches deep. We were told they had stopped looking for the two men that had
washed down the river. They had followed them about a mile down river and had lost sight of them. They
only allowed a couple more groups to cross the river behind our group and then they decided to wait until morning.
We were told to bed down where we stood and they placed several watch guards toward the ridge in front of us
with the water to our back. We were hungry, wet, cold Marines, lying in a mud hole with the water soaking
through the sleeping bag. Every ten minutes we would roll over and it would feel dry for a few minutes, but
we could not sleep so we prayed for the morning to come.
The next morning the rain had stopped and the sun came out. We moved about a half mile up the ridge and
hung up the sleeping bags and clothes to dry. The river had gone down during the night and the rest of the
Marines were able to cross over the river. We were told they had found the two men in the river about one
mile down the river. Both had drowned. One of the men had been in the Coast Guard and was an excellent
swimmer, but couldn't get the pack and ammo loose from his back.
Howe Company reorganized and we proceeded about another mile up the ridge and set up camp for the night.
They set up the machine gun and the rest of the squad was deployed for protection of the gun in case we were
attacked. I felt that this was more like camping out than war as we hadn't seen the enemy or heard any
artillery or gunfire.
I noticed a lot of talking and some arguments between the squad leader, gunner, and several of the previous
squad members. The new men were not included in the discussions and we couldn't hear what they were talking
about. I felt left out and concerned. I realized that being left out was a lot worse than knowing even
bad news or what to expect.
Back to Memoir Contents
Able Hill
The next morning we woke up and were told to be ready to move up and to keep our eyes open for snipers.
We didn't move over about a half mile and were told to disperse down along the hillside. Some of the company
(I believe one platoon and a machine gun squad) moved on up the path. We moved about thirty feet down from
the path and noticed it seemed to be steeper the further we moved down the hill. We spread out and the new
men looked at each other as if to ask, "What is going on ahead of us?" We sat there on the hillside for
about a half hour and then heard small arms fire and what sounded like mortars up ahead.
After about 15 minutes of the sound of battle, the Sergeant said, "Move out on the run up the hill. They
have overrun our troops." We moved up fast, ready to fire, and when we arrived we saw only two North Koreans
left on the left flank. It seemed that everyone fired at once and they went down. We saw more bodies
lying around. The Marines were scattered out in shallow holes and seemed to be holding their own. The
machine gun had been overrun and the gunner and assistant gunner were dead.
The first thing was to set up the perimeter for the next attack wave of the North Koreans. Big Mac asked
me how my arm was and I said that it was pretty good. He threw me a sack of hand grenades. We later
heard that Big Mac had beat down the first wave by throwing several grenades and rushing the Koreans firing until
he had killed five or six. Big Mac later took over the machine gun with Richard as his assistant gunner.
The hole behind the gun wasn't deep enough with the two dead Marines still in the hole. Big Mac told Richard
to help throw their bodies up along the gun for protection so they would have more room to get behind the gun.
Richard was concerned about putting the bodies up in front of them and told Big Mac. Big Mac said, "They're
dead men and nothing is going to hurt them anymore." The two machine gunners killed were the two from
California who had looked like models. Someone spoke up and said that they were two great men, and that it
seemed that the good are always the first ones to die young.
Before we had time to think or fully prepare, the next attack came at us. I was in a shallow hole about a
foot deep and fifteen feet behind the gun. I raised up to fire my rifle but I couldn't see the enemy because
of the terrain. We were on a point in the 20-foot wide dogleg of the hill with the machine gun on the very
corner. The area widened to about 50-foot wide as we moved back about 50 feet from the edge. I grabbed
the sack of hand grenades, dumped them out, and started throwing them over the edge of the hill into the trees.
I threw the first grenade to the right, one straight ahead, and the last to the left like mortars. I felt
this was my mortar fire and kept throwing until the grenades were gone. I heard Big Mac yell as he was
firing the machine gun, "This is the most fun I've had since my grandmother got her tit caught in the wringer."
Big Mac thought a lot of his grandmother from Tyler, Texas, and talked about her more than anyone in his family.
We had beaten them back the second time, which had been difficult since they had come out of thick trees and
brush only 20 yards down the hill. The first 20 yards dropped down about 15 feet or more and they were
difficult to see until they were almost on our position. The Company Commander called in artillery from the
rear command post and the first round was short. The white phosphorus exploded on our location.
Several hit my leg and burned right through my dungarees and into the leg. I grabbed at the phosphorus to
pull and knock them off and my index finger was burned. (It had no fingerprint for several years
afterwards.) I then remembered to grab dirt to smother the phosphorus. The burning went away and I
felt in fine condition. After the artillery found the range, they pounded them for what seemed like 15
minutes. We stayed ready for the next attack, but it never came. We relaxed as more Marines moved into
the area.
A sergeant came up and asked, "What happened to all the grenades?" I said, "I threw them all until they
ran out." He wasn't too happy with me and said there had been at least 60 grenades. I felt that I had
done the right thing, so I didn't let it bother me. I knew that the grenades were made to be thrown in
combat, so why save them for war scrap?
We started to clean up the area, picking up weapons, dead bodies, and extra ammo. I stopped to look at
several Korean bodies. I had heard that one of the riflemen had been saving gold teeth to make a necklace
for his wife. I called one of the other new men over and told him to get pliers out of the maintenance kit
from the machine gun. When he came back, I told him that I would pry their mouths open with an entrenching
tool and he could pull out any gold teeth to give to the rifleman. He thought that I was crazy, but I
convinced him to do it anyway. I wondered in later years how someone who never liked to hurt anyone, who
believed in Christ and had been raised in the church, could have done this. I guess I never thought of the
enemy as humans. Instead I considered them more like wild dogs trying to kill my fellow Marines. I
never did believe that anyone was trying to kill me as an individual. I thought they were after all the men
around me.
We started to dig deeper foxholes and clear some of the brush in front of our positions. While we were
digging, I noticed my squad leader Murph sitting down and digging around a large dud mortar round. I yelled
over at him, "Isn't that dangerous?" He just kept hitting the ground around the dud and never looked up.
I said something several times, then tapped him on the shoulder and took the entrenching tool. I told a
medical corpsman and he and an officer came over and took the squad leader away to talk to him.
The next day we started cutting trees down to build roofs for the bunkers. We also set up defenses with
flares and land mines. The Korean Marine Corps, or KMC as they were known, moved through our position and up
the dogleg ridge to the left. They were moving up the ridge to higher ground to attack a hill in the
distance. We could see the hill about a mile away and it looked almost straight up and solid rock. The
artillery shells and many air attacks with napalm had left the face of the hill barren. We realized that
they had a very difficult battle ahead of them without cover or concealment.
We were getting our position in good condition to defend it against whatever troops came at us. One of
the men spotted North Korean women on another hill. They set up knee mortars, fired at us, and then moved to
cover. The Japanese in the Second World War had developed and used the knee mortars. I was surprised
to hear that women were fighting on the front lines. We had heard of women carrying supplies for the North
Korean army, but not of them being involved in combat. It was now fairly quiet except for a few mortar
rounds fired mostly for harassment of our troops.
That day we received mail for the first time since we left the reserve area. I had several letters and
one was from my oldest sister who scolded me for not writing more often. She said my mother was concerned
when she didn't hear from me very often. I wrote on toilet paper from C-rations and told her that was all
the paper that I had. Actually, I was spacing my letters out. I would tell my mother that I was in a
reserve area until just before we left the front lines. Then I would write her and tell her that we were
going to move up to the front lines and that a week later I would be back in reserve. I didn't want her to
worry, as I was not the same person she thought she knew.
One of the Marines was bitching about college students as he had newspaper clippings about panty raids at some
of the colleges. I had friends in college and didn't approve of his comments and told him, "You dumb shit.
That's why I'm over here fighting for the right to freedom. When I go home I want to do crazy things and
feel that our way of life is protected in the future." I felt that the Marine was just jealous and he wished
he was in the states doing something crazy!
I no longer felt left out as a new recruit. I had tasted my first battle without fear and now felt
invincible. I was glad to see my squad leader back. It was explained that he had been worried about
his younger brother at home. I understood that he hadn't heard from him in awhile and he felt responsible
for his brother. It was common for servicemen to worry about family, wife, or friends back home more than to
be concerned about themselves.
The next few days the KMC attacked the rock cliff every day and the casualties were very heavy. They kept
trying to rush the positions of the North Koreans with no cover or concealment. When they pulled back,
artillery and air strikes would blast the hillside until we wondered how anything could survive. The KMC
never gave up until every one of them was dead or until they took the hill.
We kept busy chopping down trees and cutting up more logs while we watched the KMC's from the distance.
The gunner Kit, who hadn't been too friendly earlier, was working with me on the big bunker. We stopped to
talk to Big Mac one day and he said he was going to walk down to see some guys in another platoon. Several
hours later we heard he had been killed by a burp gun. It was hard to believe this giant of a man who had
seemed so invincible a few days before could be dead. He had thrown grenades, fired his rifle to kill over
half dozen North Koreans, and had beat the last to death with his rifle butt. Some thought he should have
gotten the Medal of Honor, but this requires an officer to write it up. They never seem to be around when
one was needed.
My biggest concern was my feelings. I felt close to Big Mac and would miss him, but I didn't seem to have
any compassion for the dead. Kit started to talk to me while we were working and said he knew he would be
killed on the next hill. He had to do something so he wouldn't have to go up another hill in the Punchbowl.
He kept talking and I didn't pay much attention as it was hot and the work was hard. He finally asked me if
I would smash his hand with the back of the axe. I was upset that a Marine could even think of such a thing,
as this was being a coward. He then kept begging me to smash his hand because he said he knew that he would
be killed on the next hill. I finally told him in disgust that if he wanted out that I would use the sharp
edge of the axe and chop his whole damned hand off. He didn't want that and never bothered me anymore.
I heard smashed his hand with a rock a couple days later. A day later, the company clerk remarked that Kit
had said that I had accidentally smashed his hand. I told him that I hadn't smashed his hand and didn't know
how it happened.
The KMC's continued to attack the big rock-faced hill a couple times per day and they finally took the hill.
They had many casualties and moved the dead and wounded down through our area. They would stop and show us
their wounds and where bullets had hit their rifles. They were a fierce-fighting, proud group that wanted to
live up to the U.S. Marines. They had shown they were every bit as good as our outfit.
We heard a lot of firing in the distance with some artillery fire. We were told that a Marine patrol had
been hit the day before and that they had to leave a couple of dead Marines. The company had attacked
another ridge with a larger force close by the first so a squad of Marines could sneak up and get the dead bodies.
The Marines never leave their dead, even if they take additional casualties to get them back. For some crazy
reason, that seemed important to those who were alive, but it's difficult to understand as the dead wouldn't know.
We had taken Able hill around the first of September and they were now talking that we would attack a higher,
larger hill. I always felt Korea was like "king on the hill" and that each side wanted the tallest hill.
We had taken casualties in Howe Company and I was told that some men from the twelfth draft had been added, but
none were in machine guns that I knew about. We would never get to know any of these men as the coming days
would take them to heaven or to the hospitals in the rear. We now had two squads of six men instead of the
normal eight, with just three ammo carriers in the second squad--Ed, Vic, and me. We were told that we would
leave about 0500 the following morning and were going down the hill from the side where we had been attacked from
the first day. We all had learned that the enemy couldn't see any better than we could in the dark.
The truth was, a reinforced company of about 200-plus men would make a lot of noise going down a steep incline.
We would have to carry heavy loads because of the extra ammo, and this would probably cause us to slip and fall as
we moved down the hill--a sure sign to the enemy that we were coming.
The next morning as we moved out, everyone seemed quiet and tried their best to keep the noise down as we
worked ourselves down to the winding river. The river was not very deep now, only about 18 inches deep.
The noise level increased as we looked up at the first faint light on the horizon above the treetops on the
mountain. It looked like too beautiful of a day for so many young men to die.
Back to Memoir Contents
Bloody Ridge
We were on the move until wiped out on Bloody Ridge on September 10-13, 1951. We went up the hill on the
10th of September at 6:00 hours and were on the hill about 102 hours from the start. This may not be what
the history of the division shows, but most of the history was written some time after actual events.
In the dim morning light we started up the ridge on the trail. The climb was very steep the first several
hundred yards. We were spaced out about ten feet apart, which didn't seem like very much space as we
followed the path. After climbing about half an hour, we stopped and everyone took a little break. We
figured they must have had a patrol scouting ahead of the company. I was somewhat surprised as this didn't
seem like the way we had been taught in training to advance on a hill.
Everyone seemed far too relaxed and there were some quiet conversations. A few even broke out a can of
C-rations. After about ten minutes we were told to move out and keep a distance between each man. We
proceeded up the trail, unable to see much for about a half mile because of the tall trees and wooded area.
Then everything happened at once. The enemy pinned us down with automatic gun fire, trimming limbs from
trees and pounding us with mortars, mostly hitting the main body of the company. It reminded me of an
amphibious landing on a beach as they let the first few waves "land" and then tried to blow the remainder out of
the water. The few closing in on the enemy were in a heavy ground fight.
We had heavy automatic fire coming from our left flank and mortars exploding all around. We hit the deck
and the little branches rained down on us from the heavy firepower chopping up the trees. They yelled, "Machine
guns up" and the squad leader, gunner, and assistant gunner moved out up the path. I looked at Ed, the first
ammo carrier, and he looked back at me and just laid there. The other ammo carriers didn't move either.
I thought they only had two or three boxes of ammo with the gun. I grabbed an extra can of ammo, dropped my
pack, and started running up the path with my rifle and three boxes of ammo. Gunny Sergeant Studebaker
yelled, "Get down. You're going to get hit." I yelled back, "They don't have ammo for the machine
guns," and kept running. Brave? No. I was just doing my job. The limbs and twigs kept
falling all around, but I felt the squad was depending on me.
I didn't know how far ahead they had gone but I finally caught up with them. They had the gun set up on
the left flank, firing at a smaller ridge about 200 yards away. I dropped the ammo and told them I didn't
think the rest of the ammo was coming. Murph said for me to get back behind them and start digging a hole as
they needed cover. They hadn't been able to dig in yet as the exchange of fire was heavy with J.B. and
Richard on the gun. I started digging, but it was mostly solid rock with just a little dirt. In what
seemed like hours, but was more likely about ten minutes, I had a hole two feet deep.
The squad leader told me to go down and find the other ammo carriers, so I took off on the run to where I had
left them. It was only about 150 yards from where the gun was up front. They were no longer at that
location. I was told some men were carrying wounded down the hill. I gathered up about four cans of
ammo and my pack, and it was all I could do to lug them back up the hill. The distance seemed much further
with the load. The gunner and his assistant were in a small, shallow hole behind the gun. I noticed we
were only about 40 feet from the edge of the trees going up the hill. In front of the trees was barren,
clay-like ground for about 75 yards to the top where the tree line started again.
Several attempts had been made by rifle squads to rush up the hill, I was told, but they had been shot up
pretty badly. My squad leader went to help out on another gun and this left J.B., Richard, and me with the
gun. I later went back down the hill to pick up some gear left behind. While I was coming back up, I
saw J.B. coming down the hill with part of his hand shot off. He had also been hit in the shoulder. I
asked him if he needed help and he said, "Get up there and help Richard. He is all alone." J.B. had
needed help since we were surrounded and he had to lie all night at the bottom of the hill before he could get
medical aid the next morning. He was lucky that he didn't bleed to death. I realized that J.B. was
right about Richard needing help. I realized even more that if we didn't hold our positions, everyone would
be lost.
When I got to the gun, Richard was firing. I jumped down in the hole to help load the gun and assist him.
The mortar rounds seem to mostly be hitting further back down the hill, but we had a half dozen hit close and
throw rocks. Several pieces of rock hit my left hand on the back and I got three or four minor cuts that didn't
amount to much. I heard later that a sergeant and a private in a foxhole back down the hill had a direct hit
by mortar fire. We heard they picked them up in a body bag, not knowing how to separate body parts. We
fired off and on as they fired at us, but we couldn't see too much because of the trees and large clumps of bushes
on the other ridge.
After about a half hour, they zeroed in on our gun again with automatic gunfire. I saw the bullets
kicking up dirt about 15 feet in front of our gun and they walked them in on us. Richard ducked down in the
foxhole and I saw the bullets hitting the back of the hole right where he had been. They couldn't have
missed me more than 18 inches. I grabbed the gun, started firing, and told Richard, "You're now the squad
leader. Let me take over the gun." I may have wasted several hundred rounds the next hour, as I
started firing for where I thought they could be concealed. There were several groups of heavy brush about
30 feet long and six feet high still covered with heavy foliage. I searched and traversed back and forth at
different heights firing bursts, and then fired up in the trees the same way for possible snipers. It seemed
to quiet down for a while after that. Maybe the enemy was waiting for me to use up the ammo.
We settled in. There was a little rise to the left of us and I couldn't see any of our men, but could
hear them firing. To the right about 20 yards away were two riflemen in a small hole. They were about
ten feet from the edge of the tree line before the open ground area going to the top of the hill. This was
all we could see from our position, but we could feel and hear other Marines around.
The darkness started to settle in and I ate my last can of C-rations, which I would have saved had I known it
was the last food for four days. After dark a runner came by and said all squad leaders were to meet in half
and hour at the company command. Richard, who was now the squad leader, went down to the meeting and when he
came back he told me of the heavy casualties. The only officer left was the new 2nd Lieutenant from Brooklyn
who had joined Howe Company about five days after I had arrived.
I went from ammo carrier to gunner in about five hours. The assistant gunner became the squad leader as we were
the only two left in the squad. Richard was a little depressed for the first time. He said they
outnumbered us 50-to-1 and could overrun us any time they wanted. I was young and new and said, "Never!
We're Marines. Nobody can beat us!" This was some of my brainwashing leftover from stateside training.
I told Richard that I had to take a crap and I was going to go down the hill in front of the gun. He told me
to do it on top of the hill near the foxhole. I said that I didn't want to smell up our area and went about
20 feet down in front of our hole. We later heard after the hill was secured that they had over 2,500 land
mines on the hill and not one Marine stepped on one. I guess they didn't expect us to use the path on the
way up the hill.
When I speak of "hills", they should actually be called "mountains." They were rough and rugged, covered
with pines and other trees. Most of the hills on the east coast were only 3,000-4,000 feet high, but when
starting at near sea level, that was tall. We soon learned that going up was easier than going down.
When it got too steep going up we could go on all fours. The problem going down carrying 60 to 80 pounds was
that if we lost our footing and fell, we knew we would probably only be stopped when we hit a tree 20 or 30 feet
down the hill. All we could do was hope that we would survive.
The first night about 2200 hours they started heavy mortar fire and it shook the ground all around us. We
knew we couldn't sleep at night anyway, and learned that the ones that we heard before they hit would miss us.
Daybreak brought constant air cover from the Army, Navy, and Marines from daylight to sundown. We had
Mustangs, Corsairs, and I believe some hellcats. As one group left, the next group arrived. They
dropped bombs and napalm, and fired 20mm's and machine guns at the enemy positions. Some of our guys thought
they were being hit when the empty 20mm casings fell on them.
We had yellow and red banners lying out on the barren area so they would know where we were located. They
flew so low they almost touched the tops of the trees and we could see their heads like the size of a softball in
the cockpit. The jet fighters were not useful at low levels because hills 3,000 feet high were only six to
eight hundred yards apart. The Marine Corsairs had a very successful combat record against jet MIGs in
Korea. The Corsairs would dive down into valleys between hills. The MIGs would follow, but were unable
to pull up fast enough, and crashed. When the jets were used, they would drop their payload from a couple
thousand feet up and were not very accurate at hitting targets. Some years later, I was in a VFW club and
heard an ex-Navy pilot who had been in World War II and Korea talking about a mission. He said that for
three days they bombed and strafed one hill constantly. Even when running low on gas they were told they had
to wait for the next group to arrive. I introduced myself and met "Jiggs", who confirmed that he was talking
about our hill in September of 1951. He said he felt sorry for those Marines on the ground.
The word was out that we were surrounded and they would be dropping ammo from planes, but no food or water.
One of the guys found a water spring down the hillside and they went down in the dark to fill canteens. We
were told that only about 35 men were left on the hill. Why be concerned? I still felt we would come
out on top. The second day we had a little sporadic fire, but with the planes overhead it was much calmer.
They dropped ammo to us, but two-thirds went into enemy occupied areas. I noticed by noon time I was getting
hungry, but it wasn't that important under the present conditions.
That evening after dark, Richard went to another meeting at the company command. He came back and told me
that the Lieutenant was going to take one rifleman down the hill to try to make it to headquarters. They
left about 2300 hours to try to get back to battalion. The company commander in his absence would be a
corporal from one of the rifle platoons. We still had a sergeant left in third section machine guns, but
they were only attached to the company so not in the direct line of command.
I must admit in my mind that I felt that the Lieutenant was bugging out while he still could and I didn't
expect him to come back. In the late night I was getting very hungry and wished that I felt secure enough to
sleep a few hours. Richard had told me to catch some sleep, but with just the two of us I felt I needed to
keep him company. When daylight came I felt better as the hunger from the day before had gone away.
There was a higher ridge on our right flank and the 5th Marines were attacking the hill with battalion strength or
greater. Richard mentioned that this would maybe take some of the pressure off our position if the enemy
needed men and supplies on the other hill. The airplanes were back attacking both hills and the napalm lit
up the skies.
Sometime around the middle of the day, Corporal Nash from another machinegun section came over to our gun.
He said two enemy machinegun bunkers were giving problems to the 5th Marines. One machine gun was on the
right flank firing at the bunkers, but they needed help. I believe it was the gun that Jack was on from
third section. We moved our gun to the top of our ridge so we could see the larger hill more clearly.
We started to set the gun up on the hard rocks and Nash said, "You need sand bags or you'll never hit anything."
Sorry, but we didn't have sand bags, and I chipped away at the rock with my entrenching tool. I finally had
a few notches in the rocks and set the tripod down into the notches. Richard helped me set the gun up and
Nash said it was about 800 yards. I took aim at the higher bunker on the left, which was almost straight
across from my position. I looked at the aperture and aimed at the top of the bunker about two feet directly
above the aperture.
I fired the first burst of about five rounds and the tracer round went right into the aperture the first time.
The machine gun in the bunker stopped firing for about 15 seconds. When it started firing again, I fired
five or six bursts and we saw a couple of tracers go into the aperture again. The enemy gun stopped firing
all together and we switched over to the other machinegun bunker which was lower on the hill and further to the
right. The angle wasn't very good so after about 20 minutes we decided to leave it to the third section gun
and move back to the left flank position. This would be my proudest hour in Korea for hitting the bunker on
the first burst at 800 yards. When new men joined our squad in the future and it was mentioned once or
twice, I played it down as no big deal. I knew I was lucky and had used a little Kentucky windage that is
not approved of in the Marines.
We set our gun up in its original position and the random exchange of fire had almost ended. We felt
better and Richard was more confident that we would take the hill. We heard that we were no longer
surrounded and hoped to have more ammo and food delivered the next day.
We were told Item Company had moved up the hill to move through our positions. I never saw Item Company,
so they must not have made it up to where we were located. All the survivors at our reunions talk about Item
coming up our hill on the 11th and getting hit real bad. I was almost at the top of the hill with a couple of
rifleman, as well as our machine gun, and Item Company never made it up the hill to my location, so I'm only
taking their word for it.
The Lieutenant who had gone down the hill the night before returned about 600 hours during the night of the
13th. He was gone about 36 hours to battalion. When he returned, he called all squad leaders back to a
meeting to tell them that George Company was coming up on the left ridge, but I was not aware of that until later
the next day. Richard had gone back to another meeting with the squad leaders still left in Howe Company.
I was sitting behind the gun the next morning and the sun had been up about one hour when I saw North Koreans
jumping up and running. It had been so quiet that I was very surprised and started shooting as two, then
three more jumped up and ran toward the higher part of the hill. Richard was back at the command station and
I kept firing. I hit four or five but it should have been a dozen. Since I had been caught by
surprise, my accuracy wasn't as good as it should have been. Then I saw several more figures under a couple
of huge shade trees at the far end of the ridge where it had a steep drop off. I turned and fired several
bursts at the figures in the shadows and then I saw a couple move into the sunlight. They were Marines and I
stopped firing in almost shock. I later found out that they were from George Company. We were on the
front perimeter and some of our troops hadn't been told that Marines were coming up the other ridge on the attack.
Richard got back and I told him what happened. He said, "You had no way of knowing." I prayed to
myself that I hadn't killed any Marines.
Since the North Koreans had taken off, we grabbed the gun and raced up the barren open area to try and beat
George Company to the top of the hill. This is something that I had heard when I first arrived--that
machineguns in final assault of a hill tried to be the first to the top. They had been on several hills
before and we were trying to be the first on this hill. Several riflemen beat us to the top before George
Company made it up the hill. We were happy it was part of our Howe Company. We had finally taken what
we referred to as Bloody Ridge. The Marine historians called it something else and I later heard that army
troops were on a different ridge that they called Bloody Ridge. Hell, we didn't have much respect for either
of them anyway so I figured we could call it what we wanted. The history of combat in Korea is almost
non-existent or is lacking in accuracy. I heard one historian who questioned two or three men about what
happened after a battle. He said their comments could be anything depending on where they were located and
what they saw.
Once we were on top of George Company, what was left of Howe Company set up defenses. We had a large hole
on the reverse slope that gave a good field of fire for the machinegun. The Lieutenant said he wanted
experienced men on the machinegun and he had Nash come over to be with Richard on "my gun." What did he
think I had been doing the last three days, 24 hours a day? It did hurt a little bit as I had very likely
(and pretty successfully) fired over 3000 rounds-plus the last few days. Richard was pretty good to me and
suggested there was room for all three of us in the foxhole.
Someone came up with a couple of trip flares and I talked a Marine into going with me down the hill. I
needed his rifle for protection. We went about 75 feet. We were on the side the enemy had retreated
from and most likely the way they would come back in a counter attack. It was just starting to get a little
dark and I set the trip wires for the flares in two open areas between trees. We crawled into our foxholes
and took turns catching an hour of sleep each until about 2300 hours, when somebody thought they had heard a
noise. We were all alert when we heard a bugle start to blow a charge. I laughed with disbelief
because they had told us about the blowing of bugles before a charge during advance training. The next
minute one of my flares went off and everyone started firing down the hill. Then the second flare went off.
I felt better about my contr | 
