Ted Heckelman
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Ted Heckelman

Bellinham, WA-
Korean War Veteran of the United States Marines

"Our instructions to all were to let the first tank round the curve and then Cpl. Thomas was to hit the bogey wheel and knock the track off the tank causing it to become immobile. Then Cpl. Bowles was to concentrate on aiming for the gas tank and blow it up."

- Ted Heckelman

Memoir Index

• Lob Your Grenades
• Tank Battle at Naktong
• The Last Bridge out of Yudam-ni

Lob Your Grenades

It was on the first drive to the Naktong River in August 1950 (the exact date I cannot remember), that my anti-tank rocket section was temporarily attached to Baker Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. It had been a long, hot and grimy day of walking, running, stumbling and cussing when it began to rain heavily (more cussing). As I recall, Baker Company occupied a ridge line in the vicinity of Obong-Ni. As I looked over the ridge line, I could see the enemy advancing in what appeared to be mass. The word was spread along the line to "lob your grenades over the ridge line – they’re coming straight at us." As I scanned the landscape in front of our lines I could see to the right a group of North Koreans forming in the attack mode. I would estimate this group to be at least a company size unit. Baker Company’s First Sergeant and a Platoon Sergeant were on the ridge line to the right yelling "lob the grenades over the ridge, but keep your head down".

It was at this point that I checked my troops to see if we had any more grenades—there were none. We had already expended our supply. As I looked over the ridge line and again saw the North Koreans coming at us in mass and knowing we had no grenades available—panic suddenly set in! What do we do—where do we get grenades—how do we stop the onslaught??? I was scared to death that we would all be shot, maimed, or worse yet, become prisoners of war. I turned to Sgt. Summers with my back to the line and asked him if he knew where we could get more grenades. It was at this moment that I looked to my left and there laying in the mud was a grenade with a halo surrounding it. I immediately reached for the grenade. As I hunched over I felt a terrible jolt on my left shoulder that stung and knocked me to the ground. As I recovered myself, I asked Sgt. Summers, "Am I bleeding from my left shoulder"? Sgt. Summers replied, "No, but your shoulder strap is sure shredded like somebody took a knife to it." After this assurance that I was still on earth and alive and kicking, I again surveyed the spot where I saw the grenade lying on the ground, hoping to recover it and lob it over the ridge. To my dismay I could not find the grenade. There was no grenade to be had. And nobody else saw or picked up a grenade. To what could one attribute this strange event?

Having been raised in the Methodist religion I am a firm believer in the Almighty, and I can only attribute the above event to the fact that my Guardian Angel was working overtime to protect me from serious injury or death, and caused me to duck as described above.

Baker 1-5 held its position and turned back the North Korean attack and put them on the run again toward the Naktong River. I returned to the Company area with my troops, and praised the Lord for a victorious day and asked, with His Grace, that I could have tomorrow.

This is an honest and true story which I experienced and have carried with me for almost fifty years and will continue to carry with me until my death." - S/Sgt. Theodore H. Heckelman - Weapons-1-5

Tank Battle at Naktong

"The Korean War broke out on 25 June, 1950 (my 21st birthday), and I left for Korea with the First Provisional Marine Brigade on July 15th, 1950, arriving in Pusan, Korea on 2 August 1950. On the morning of August 6th or 7th, we, the Fifth Marines, were in the thick of combat north of Masan, Korea which is located west of Pusan and south of Tejon where the North Koreans had broken through the Army lines. On August 18th, the Marines were assigned the mission to stop the North Korean advance and push them back across the Naktong River. It was during this encounter with the enemy that the North Koreans had again broken through the lines and were coming in our direction with four tanks (Russian T34 Tanks) and approximately 200 to 250 Infantry.

I and my Anti-Tank Platoon Section had just started to bed down for the night, set up defenses, set up watch, eat a little chow and hit the rack. Major Russell, our Company Commander, came running up the hill towards my section and said, "Heckelman, get your section down on the road where the jeeps are forming." He pointed to the road and the jeeps and pinpointed on the map the area where we were expected to be to encounter the enemy tanks. We grabbed all the ammo that we could carry and headed down the hill to load on the jeep. I rode on the hood of the lead jeep as we proceeded up the road, which was primitive to say the least. We started to go around the bend of the road which was a sheer drop off on my left, and a hill that gradually climbed to the stars on our right. Located on the side of the hill were mounds which I later learned were graves of Korean dead, as they bury above ground.

As we proceeded to round the curve, I stopped the caravan. The first enemy tank was penetrating the pass, the position where we were to be. We turned around and I immediately directed the guys to go up on the side of the hill, positioning them in a skirmish line that covered from the road leading down to the main line of resistance, where our troops were in position, to the furthest most position where I could observe with ease the tank activity and enemy troops positioning. Corporal Thomas and his ammo carrier were the furthest position to my left leading to the MLR. Corporals Bowles and Lewis were positioned directly in front of myself right at the peek of the curve in the road. Corporal Walt Carrow and his ammo carrier were positioned at the furthest position to my right. Sgt. Art Bernard and myself positioned ourselves in the middle of the skirmish and behind us was Lt. Brown, our section leader, Sgt. Charlie Hudson, Cpl. Miller and Pfc Bill Dabbs, Company runner. To the left of their position, I had positioned Cpl. Thomas Fava and Pfc. Thomas Fox. It would be their responsibility to drop a white phosphorus round inside the tank, should the enemy open the turret hatch.

Our instructions to all were to let the first tank round the curve and then Cpl. Thomas was to hit the bogey wheel and knock the track off the tank causing it to become immobile. Then Cpl. Bowles was to concentrate on aiming for the gas tank and blow it up. I believed the second tank would then proceed to the curve and try to move the first tank out of the way. It was at that point, when the second tank made contact with the first tank, that Cpl. Bowles was to knock the bogey wheel out and Cpl. Carrow was to aim for the gas tank and destroy it. When the third tank came to the bend and made contact with the second tank, Cpl. Carrow was to aim for the gas tank and destroy it as well. All of us would then work out an instantaneous plan of attack should there be a slip up or slight deviation.

The first tank went around the bend as planned and Cpl. Thomas did his job. Because that tank was now exposed to our main line of resistance and our troops, our own tanks fired armor piercing shells that went straight through the front of the tank and out the back, exploding in the rice paddy several yards away. It must have been a horrifying experience because we could hear the activity of the Koreans inside the tank trying to start the engine and make things happen. As the escape hatch on the turret opened, out came the tank commander. I think everybody in the section cut loose with their carbines, rifles and pistols.

It was at this point that Cpl. Thomas Fava stood up from his fox hole and fired a white phosphorous round into the turret. Now we were not in the position that we were supposed to be in, and had no way to communicate with our troops as to our actual position. When Cpl. Fava stood up, our troops behind us thought he was a North Korean and opened up with a machine gun that riddled Cpl. Fava from his head to his waist, or he was shot down by our air Force planes strafing the area. Either way, it was friendly fire that took his life.

We had no corpsman—we were out of position—no means of communication—and three more tanks coming at us. After checking Cpl. Fava, we could see that there was nothing we could do to save him. All we could do was to offer a prayer to the Almighty. I tried to comfort Cpl. Fava as best I could. It was the most agonizing death that I have ever witnessed in my life. When all was over I returned to my original position to watch the progress of the second tank that was now coming around the curve in the road. But I shall never forget his calling out for "Mama, mama." I have heard that for years.

I advised Cpl. Bowles to hold his fire until that second tank made contact with the first. As the tank made the contact and proceeded to back up, he was to aim for the gas tank rather than the bogey wheel. It was at this point that I noticed that Cpl. Bowles’ rocket launcher was not loaded properly and had he fired, in all probability, would have wiped us all off the map. I yelled to Cpl. Bowles not to fire and I immediately scrambled from my position down to Cpl. Bowles, grabbed the rocket launcher from his grip and returned to my position up the hill where Sgt. Bernard properly loaded the rocket and gave me the OK to fire. I aimed where I thought the gas tank was and when the spot was sighted in, pulled the trigger and Eureka—pay dirt! I had hit the tank in the gas tank and it immediately exploded like a roman candle—a sight that I can still see to this day but cannot explain to others. It was a good thing that I made that direct hit because as I fired the rocket, the turret with its cannon was turning to our position on the side of the hill and one round was all that he would need to wipe us all out.

It was apparent the enemy troops that were some 1500 yards in front of our position had observed our positioning and communicated this to their incoming tank. We waited for what felt like hours after the explosion for the third tank to make its appearance. Although it seemed like hours, I’m sure it was almost momentarily—the third tank made its appearance and plowed into the second tank, trying to push it off the road or cliff. As contact was made, Sgt. Bernard yelled to Cpl. Carrow to aim for the gas tank. Cpl. Carrow fired his rocket after Sgt. Bernard and myself decided where we thought the most vulnerable spot would be—just in front of the back bogey wheel and a little to the top of the track. Cpl. Carrow’s aim was true and accurate and he hit the gas tank dead center. Another roman candle appeared in the night sky. Now it was a case of waiting for the fourth tank and/or the enemy troops—whichever came first.

We did not dare move because we did not know the password for the night. We did not know where our friendly troops were and we did not know exactly where we were. So we decided the best thing to do was to lay low and hope that the Almighty was on our side and would look after us.

As luck would have it, the Air Force came in, saw three tanks immobilized on the open road and began to strafe them. As they strafed the tanks, we took the brunt of their devastating fire power. I do not know to this day how or why we were not hit and wiped out but we would survive. After about an hour or what seemed to be an hour, no other tank or infantry arrived. But we were taking some sniper shots from the enemy troops that were approximately 1500 yards in our frontal area. Nobody moved—nobody panicked—but we were one scared anti-tank section that wishes we were somewhere else. As it developed, Lt. Brown made the decision that we would grab our equipment, start signing the Marine Corps Hymn—make as much racket as we could and head back towards our line. We made it through the listening post. We advanced and were recognized and were directed back to our company area. I was never so relieved in all my life to hear the familiar voices of my comrades in arms and buddies in life. I sprawled out on the ground and asked the Lord’s forgiveness for leaving Cpl. Fava dead and alone on the side of the hill, but I had no control over the circumstances and I prayed that both Tom and the good Lord would understand.

The next morning, Lt. Dale Brown, our Platoon Leader, went back to the site where Cpl. Fava’s body had fallen and escorted his body to Graves Administration. He stayed with him until he was tagged for burial at a temporary resting site. Later his body would be returned to the United States and his home town for formal burial. Cpl. Fava was our Platoon’s first casualty, but certainly not our last. It hit all of us very hard.

The above is a matter of military record, and the scars in my heart and mind will always be a part of me until the day I die." - S/Sgt. Ted Heckelman, USMC, Weapons 1-5

The Last Bridge out of Yudam-ni

"Time escapes me now (fifty years later) and to pin point exact dates of when things transpired, when I didn’t know where in the hell I was, or why, but it seems that after having our Thanksgiving dinner at Hagaru-ri (served hot, but frozen by the time we found a place to eat), we were boarded on trucks and transported up the very primitive winding road etched out of the side of the mountain, leading into the Chosin Reservoir. It was snowing much like a blizzard, almost to the point of white-out.

General MaArthur had been given command of not only the Army, but also of the 1st Marine Division. Army General Almond was given command of the X Corps (made up of Army units and the ROK units and the 1st Marine Division). Major General Oliver P. Smith, Commander of the 1st Marine Division). Major General Oliver P. Smith, Commander of the 1st Marine Division, disagreed with the battle tactics of the Army, laid out by General Almond, but was duty bound to follow orders as he interpreted them to apply to the 1st Marine Division.

The temperature ranged between 20 to 35 degrees below zero with a fierce wind coming out of the north, directly onto our faces. It is a cold that I never experienced before. It invaded your body regardless of how hard you tried to stay warm. Warm was not in the dictionary for the next 21 days. As we proceeded up the primitive road, little did we know that the Chinese were already in position, watching our progress. They had their orders to completely annihilate the First Marine Division in its entirety to the last man. The night was very clear and crisp and the stars looked like silver dollars, but as we reached the top of the 4,000 foot mountain pass we entered into a large valley. The road continued to wind from the southern most tip of the reservoir to the northern most tip of the reservoir, right through the community of Yudam-ni. Elements of the 7th Marines immediately took up positions on the western flank and the 5th took up positions on the eastern flank, protecting also the northern sector. As the road wound through Yudam-ni it came out at the very northern end of the valley, then it split to the east and to the west with a very large mountain peak in the middle of the intersection. Our orders were, the next morning, to continue our attack to the west to relieve the Chinese pressure on the 8th Army, commanded by Lt. General Walker. I don’t understand why we were herded into the valley with mountains on our north, east and west flank, and were not ordered to take the high ground. The mountains could be used for observation by the Chinese. In retrospect, it was a disastrous decision.

We arrived in this valley at approximately 7:30 p.m. and were told to take up defensive positions as usual, with a 50% watch, meaning half of each group was always awake during the night and early morning. I had posted my guards and had just laid down behind the watering trough, which later I found out, was snow on a cake of ice approximately twelve inches thick. We laid there beating our feet and hands trying to protect our faces and ears from freezing. Approximately 8 o’clock all hell broke out. There were bugles blasting from the high grounds and loud speakers blasting the message, "Tonight you die Marine—tonight you die!" Of course this brought a lot of comment from the troops and really pissed us off, I think, because I never dreamed in my lifetime that I would ever see a group of guys band together and fight to their death to save their buddies. I believe this attitude prevailed throughout that campaign. We did not dare move from our position to another because by that time the Chinese were amongst us—to the extent that if you saw movement, you had to be very sure of who or what you took aim at. This resulted in very close combat and hand-to-hand combat with each side shooting, yelling, screaming, artillery blasting over your head, mortars dropping in amongst the group to the point that there was mass confusion.

The Chinese communicate to their troops by word of mouth or by whistle and we soon learned that with one blast on the whistle, the Chinese would attack in mass. Two blasts would halt their attack and call them back. The Marine NCO’s had whistles and soon picked up this coding. The Chinese would give one blast on the whistle and we, the NCO’s, would wait a few moments and then give two blasts on our whistles, causing the Chinese to retreat. This game continued for a good portion of the night.

Early the next morning Able and Baker companies, 5th Marines, proceeded to take the high ground on our eastern-most flank. What a surprise when we looked over the crest of the mountains to see a long arm going higher and on to another high peak, which the Chinese occupied. In other words, they were looking down our throat when we took what we thought was the high ground. Anyway, the high ground was better than the low ground, and we were told to dig in and hold the ground to the last man. And this we did for approximately three days, when we were informed by the 5th Marine Regimental Commander, Colonel Ray Murray, that we were completely surrounded by the Chinese.

We had orders to evacuate the area and proceed to fight our way back to Hagaru-ri, some 14 miles south of Yudam-ni, the road we had just come up. Now we were going down over the ice laden rock bed large enough for one vehicle only, with straight up mountain on one side and a 500 to 1,000 foot drop-off on the other. The Chinese were continually blocking any progress we tried to make, and knocking out our vehicles and killing our troops. The Marine Corps orders were to bring all the usable equipment we could handle, all of the vehicles, trucks, tractors and jeeps that were usable, and all of the Marine wounded and dead. The unusable equipment was to be destroyed and any vehicles that were caught up in ambush and determined to be in non-usable condition were to be pushed over the side of the mountain.

Hagaru-ri is where the 1st Marine Division Headquarters were deployed and fighting for their life. Now at this stage, we knew that we were being attacked by three divisions. Hagaru-ri was being attacked by three divisions and Koto-ri was being attacked by two divisions. Elements of four additional Chinese divisions were scattered along the road leading from Yudam-ni, Hagaru-ri, Koto-ri, and the port of Hungnam, which was our ultimate destination for evacuation by ship from the north, if we made it.

As we formed our caravan on the road, turned our trucks around, formed our flanks, we vacated our mountain sanctuary and proceeded to search out the enemy on the eastern flank of the main road south. It was hard to locate the Chinese as they were excellent camouflage specialists. They carried white wool blankets with them and when they plopped in the snow, or got in a fox hole, the white blanket would come out over the top to hide them from the human eye, from the sky, or from the ground. And if they knew you were close by, they would lay and wait and then jump from underneath the blanket and shoot or engage in hand-to-hand combat. This was a brutal battle of fighting an enemy you couldn’t see and fighting the weather conditions never before experienced by our troops.

I believe it was either the first or second day after leaving the Yudam-ni area and I think this would be the fourth or fifth of December, 1950, that I was called from my position in the mountains to report to my Company Commander, Major Russell. He was located somewhere in front of the last tank on the road, protecting the rear guard. I made contact with Major Russell who informed me that I was to go back to Yudam-ni about a mile and a half north and blow up the bridge that was still standing. I stated to the Major, "Blow up the bridge? With what?? I have no demolition equipment to do the job but I know how I could if I had the right equipment." The Major informed me, "Just go and as you get down before the bride you will find all the equipment necessary. It was left by the engineers for you to blow the bridge." In demolition school, I was used to the standard dynamite sticks or plastic dynamite, rolls of detonating cord, fuse cord, and, of course, most of all, the detonating caps. When I arrived at the bridge with my volunteer troops I found four land mines and approximately eight captured enemy artillery shells, a roll of detonating cord, about ten feet of fuse cord, and no detonating caps. That was it.

The bridge in question was the last bridge out of Yudam-ni and the Chinese could have forged on either side of the bridge with little effort. But they wanted the bridge blown, so that I proceeded to do. We were approximately a mile and a half out in no man’s land between the oncoming onslaught of Chinese and the rear guard of the 5th Marines. Immediately, I took my troops, forged the stream and surveyed the under part of the bridge and how best to blow it. The bridge was well abutted on both the north and south end in North Korean clay, and rock and ice. The center of the bridge was supported by six pole uprights approximately sixteen to eighteen inches in girth.

I immediately assigned the volunteer troops to start digging away underneath the north end of the bridge to accommodate the four land mines and six to eight artillery shells. They were to save the dirt and rock as we would use those later to pack around the placement of the explosives. This would encase them in a cocoon type housing, causing the blast to center in one spot rather than to be left to splatter all over the countryside. As they forged ahead on their project, I started wrapping the detonating cord around each upright, approximately twelve to fifteen wraps per pole. I tied them together and attached the fuse cord to the detonating cord, wrapping it well so that when the fuse burned out, it would blow the detonating cord. This would cause a continuous explosion on the other uprights and on the explosives placed under the bridge abutments.

As I was rapping the detonating cord around the bridge upright, I noticed some black dots kept coming and coming. It got to the point where I dropped my project, went over to the edge of the bridge, peeked out over the side of the bride down over the draw into the low growing shrub area. I called them scrub trees as they were only approximately three feet tall and approximately five feet wide. The top almost looks like a brush cut and, of course, being flat they were covered with snow. These little black dots would dodge in between the trees and then pop out somewhere else. There must have been thousands of them, as that is the way the Orientals like to fight—in great mass.

It was after this observation that I realized that our time was limited to do the job and I had twelve other guys to look after besides myself. I immediately went back, advised the men what was going on, asked how they were doing, and observed the trench that they had dug with their hands and bayonets and decided it was good enough. We passed the explosives from the stream bed up underneath the bridge and as soon as it was all in place I released the guys to go back to the company area. After they were gone, it was awfully quiet and I wondered what in the hell am I doing here by myself. But I realized that I had a job to do. The troops were not asking for a miracle—they were just asking for a little bit of time and I was determined that they were going to get their time. I went up and started packing the earth and stone to form an eastern cocoon as best I could. The temperature was approximately 25 degrees below zero, overcast, fog coming in. When I took my gloves off to do the packing my hands and fingers got so cold, it was like dipping my hands in ice water. After approximately twenty minutes of this my fingertips were turning blue. I decided it was time to take some action, so I pulled my socks out from inside my parka and put my hands in them. I then put sock and all into the mittens provided with our cold weather gear and proceeded to complete the cocoon housing. After that project was completed, I then connected the fuse to detonating cord and detonating cord to explosives.

About this time I suddenly heard mortar shells hitting in pretty close. I knew it wasn’t incoming as I could hear the (woosh) before the explosion. I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, as it seems like I was under the bridge for hours wrapping up my project. I stopped what I was doing, went over to my vantage point to observe what was taking place. Much to my dismay, the mortar shells had landed approximately 200 yards from the bridge acting as a protective umbrella from the Chinese, as they were formed en-mass ready to attack. I immediately went back to wrap up my project. Under the circumstances, I put approximately a three minute fuse onto the detonating cord and pulled the cord. It started to smoke and hiss and I felt confident that it was a go, so I immediately vacated the area and headed back toward the company area. As I was half walking and half running, it suddenly dawned on me that if the explosives didn’t blow, I would have to go back with a rifle and force it to blow by shooting the detonating cord. So, I just plopped alongside the road in a small drainage ditch that gave me little or no protection and waited (what seemed like an hour).

I waited for that sucker to blow—I know it was not more than two or three minutes. I got up with rifle in hand and just started back to the bridge when suddenly there was this loud explosion and dirt and rocks flew. The north end of the bridge went up in the air, I would judge approximately 5 to 6 foot, and settled back in its original position. However, the uprights were sheared in half by the detonating cord explosion, causing the middle of the bridge to just kind of hang in suspense. If the Chinese had any vehicles and attempted to get across the bridge, they would have collapsed at the very beginning or just a few feet into the bridge and they would have found themselves swimming in the creek below them. It was cold!

I headed back to the company area to report the results to Major Russell, advised him that I had blown the bridge, and then learned that there were at least two enemy companies in the draw northwest of the bridge. There was no response from the Major—just "Job well done—thanks Heckelman—you can return to your area." Just how strategic the blowing up of this bridge was or the necessity for blowing the bridge remains to be seen. As I said before, the stream could have been forded on either side of the bridge with ease but would take a few minutes longer and I guess if you add those minutes up it gave us time to get to our next position and prepare for an attack.

It was the next day, I believe, that I ran into Sgt. Walter, who was in charge of the 81 mortars. I thanked him for laying the barrage that he did to halt the enemy’s attack into my position. His only comment was, "You’re welcome—Marines stand together."

The last bridge out of Yudam-ni had been blown and we all continued our drive south to Hagaru-ri and then on to Hungnam and the ships that would take us out of this frozen hell. From there we would have a short R&R at the "Bean Patch", get thawed out, take showers, get clean clothes (our first change of clothes in three months of bloody fighting) and then we were deployed to the mountains in the south of Korea to fight the guerillas.

The battle of Chosin Reservoir ranks among three major epic battles of the Marine Corps, along with the battle of Bella Woods during World War I and the battle of Iwo Jima, World War II. This was one battle in which 17 Medal of Honors, 72 Navy Crosses, numerous Silver Stars and Bronze Stars were awarded, not to mention the untold number of Purple Hearts. The tactics used in the battle of Chosin are and have been studied in great depth in military schools. I have a Marine buddy who designed a bumper sticker that reads: ‘Once Upon a Time Hell Froze Over. We Were There.’" - Ted Heckelman, Bellingham, WA