[KWE Note: The following memoir is the result of an online interview between Lynnita Brown and
Kenneth Kendall that took place in 2001.]
Memoir Contents:
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Pre-Military
I was born on September 2, 1930, in Marion, Williamson County, Illinois, the eldest son of Royce Thomas and
Mahala Josephine McDowell Kendall. My father was born on July 1, 1901 in Thebes, Illinois, south of Marion.
Mother was born on January 8, 1910 in Little Rock, Arkansas.
My father fell when he was four years old and broke his left thigh bone. He was put to bed for two weeks
and the bone healed side to side rather than end to end, leaving his left leg 5 and 7/8 inches shorter than the
left leg and him a cripple. My earliest memory is father owning a truck, and hauling general cargo such as
coal for home heating and beer from St. Louis, Missouri to for a local distributor. He also hauled Italian
immigrants to St. Louis to see the sighs, such as the zoo. He lost the truck around 1934 because of the
Depression. He worked odd jobs that could be found, trying to feed the family which, by 1934, was three
adults and three children. I have a brother Donald Gene Kendall, born March 14, 1932, and a brother James
Ralph Kendall, born October 27, 1934.
His last good job was running an elevator in a bank/hotel for $10.00 per week. He was fired from that job
so that a woman who would be paid a lower wage could be hired. This was around 1935. Around 1936 or
37, he was hired as a time keeper on Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects. Around 1939, a large
project was started. It was to be an ordnance plant to manufacture bombs, shells, and land mines. He
worked as time keeper during construction and transferred to the plant time keeper office as the plant started
producing. After World War II was over, the ordnance plant shut down and he was out of a job again. He
again worked odd jobs until he was hired at a state highway garage as a janitor. He stayed with this until
he retired.
Mother worked in early years in a restaurant that her mother-in-law owned on a corner of our home lot.
She worked there until the restaurant closed around 1937-38, again due to the Depression. In 1939 or 40, she
started working at the ordnance plant making bombs, shells, and land mines. She then started a new
restaurant in a new building built where the old building was. She ran that until 1960, when she left and
worked in Waukegan, Illinois at a bakery and movie theater until retirement.
I attended Lincoln Grade School kindergarten through grade six. I attended Washington Junior High School
for grades seven and eight. I attended Marion Township High School, grades nine through twelve, graduating
in May of 1948. While in school, I worked. Around the age of seven or eight, I started selling White
Clover salve, Grit newspaper, and magazines door to door. Around age nine (1940), I started setting pins in
a bowling alley evenings and days. In addition to my bowling alley job, I went "junking" in 1942. That was
an honorable profession during World War II, because it helped the war effort.
I just recently saw a program on the History Channel about Axis Powers POWs who were held in the USA during
World War II. This brought back memories of my youth and the summer of 1946. I worked in the
Washington, Illinois area, detasseling hybrid seed corn for Pioneer Hybrid Company, harvesting dwarf sweet peas.
When weather was too bad to work outside, I worked in a cannery canning peas and other vegetables for Libby
Canning Company. I also cooked the vegetables in large pressure cookers. It was at this time that I
saw where POWs had been kept in 1946 or 1947 in a POW holding camp in my area of southern Illinois. The
place where we lived was old barracks that had been used to hold German POWs. The area was heavily populated
with German immigrants, and we were told the POWs felt at home there. One time there was a count of the
prisoners who had returned to the barracks after a day's work in the fields, and they were one prisoner short.
The Military Police assigned to guard the POWs went back out to look for what they thought was a runaway prisoner.
However. they found the guy on the highway, hitchhiking to get back to the barracks as he did not want to miss
supper. The History Channel program also told me one aspect of the POW holding that I had known That is, we
held the POWs even after the war was over, giving them schooling to learn the American way of democracy. Now
that I think of it, this was perhaps leading up to the "brainwashing" of prisoners of war that was conducted
during the Korean War.
Besides my work in the fields and for the cannery in 1946, I was also a janitor/usher in a theater and a
janitor in a ladies clothing store. (That job was embarrassing at times when I had to move unclothed
mannequins in store display windows to clean and my buddies walked by outside the windows.) I was in a Boy
Scout group for a short time, but left as I had no money for uniforms. My money was needed to help at home.
I had buddies that were in Scouts, too, but they quit also and the group just folded up.
Our family contributed to the war effort, like everybody else did those days. My great aunt had adopted a
girl who we later found out had a twin sister adopted by a family in Herrin, Illinois about ten miles away.
My cousin was married and her husband was in the U.S. Army in the Pacific campaign, and later was in forces
occupying Japan. Her twin sister was married also and her husband was in the U.S. Army and was in the D Day
Invasion. He was wounded during the landing and sent to England for two weeks to recover. He was sent
back to his unit and in less than a day was wounded again and sent back to England for two weeks to recover.
He was sent back to his unit again, and in two days wounded again. This time he was sent back to the States
to train new soldiers.
My school also had activities relating to World War II. There were school-conducted war bond/war stamp
sales every week and collection of items valuable to the war efforts. As explained earlier, as an individual
I collected metals, papers, and other items needed in the war efforts.
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C.A.P., Cookies, & Christ
I lied about my age when I was around 12 years old. I was a big boy, so I was accepted when I said I was
15 years old and joined the civil Air Patrol (C.A.P.), a training unit of the U.S. Army Air Corps. We
learned military things like how to march and line up in formation. We studied enemy and friendly aircraft
silhouettes and other such training. In 1943, I attended a two week summer stay at Chanute Air Base in
Rantoul, Illinois. We continued in learning military training and had a ride in a C-47 airplane. In
1944, an Airplane Pilot Training (PT) 17 was sent to the Marion Airport where we trained and studied. We
were taken for a ride in this airplane. It had two wings and two cockpits. The real pilot sat in the
rear cockpit while we took turns riding in the front cockpit. We wore a leather hat with earphones in it and
while in the sky were told to hold on to the joystick, put our feet on the rudder pedals, and then bank and turn
the airplane. I am sure the pilot had a near death grip on his joystick and strength enough to out-push us
on the rudder pedals.
An aside to this ride: If you have seen the movie, "The Great Escape," it was about an escape from a German POW
camp in World War II. During the preparations for the escape, an English prisoner who worked doing the
forgery of documents and such went blind. He was assigned to an American pilot played by James Garner.
They were to steal a German plane and fly to freedom. The starting mechanism on that airplane was like the
one we flew that day. A crank was inserted into a hole not very far back from the propeller. The crank
then was turned, which started a large flywheel to spin. When it was spinning fast enough (the whine it made
was the gauge) and the crank pulled out, the pilot engaged the starter into the flywheel. It usually took at
least two and as many as four times before the engine would start and continue running. Meanwhile, the
person turning the crank had to stand stock still as you were less than 15 inches from the spinning propeller.
In the movie, James Garner told the blind guy to stand still or he would be kissing the propeller--and to think
that we were children (teenagers) doing the same kind of procedure.
I spent two weeks in the summer at Chanute Air Force Base at Rantoul, Illinois, while I was in the Civil Air
Patrol. I remember that, while I was waiting at the railroad station in Rantoul to catch a train to go home
to Marion, a man and woman came up and started talking to me. They asked if I would like some cookies and
milk. Being a typical teenage who was always hungry, I said sure. They then told me that I would have
to come to their church and be baptized before I could have the cookies and milk. There was time as my train
was not due for some time, so off I went with them. (I must stress that times were different then than they are
now.) I was prayed over and told I had been baptized and saved and now I could have the cookies and milk.
While in C.A.P., I also clearly remember the time when an Army Air Force officer was in charge of us cadets
sometime in 1943 or 1944. When I asked him how to line up properly when in formation, he said that he looked
for something on the person in front of him to line up on, like the dirt spot on the back of my neck. This
snide remark stayed with me for the rest of my life, as I scrub the back of my neck as hard as I can when
showering so as to get rid of the dirt I imagine is on me.
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Joining Up
I believe that my decision to join the Army was a combination of factors. I was working a nothing job at
a dairy. The only good paying jobs were in the coalmining industry, and I did not like the idea of working
underground. My best friend and I were bored and out drinking when one subject led to another and we decided
to join the army. The next day we told our parents and walked to the enlistment office to enlist. They
were both concerned, but realized that I was determined to enlist, so they gave me limited blessings. My friend
had bad eyes and in a pre-enlistment questioning was asked to take off his glasses and read the chart on the wall.
When he said he could not see the wall, he was told to forget the Army and go home. Why I did not walk out
with him, I have never figured out. So I guess the reason I joined was "whim and boredom."
I could have joined some other branch of the service. Though I may make some reader of this memoir angry,
I have to say that I never thought much of the Marines. At the time I enlisted, my opinion of the Marines
was not a favorable one. I didn't want to join the Navy because I could not swim. I am not sure why I
didn't join the Air Corps. I had the C.A.P. experience. But I decided to join the Army, enlisting on
September 23, 1948.
My friend who was turned down when we tried to join together later enlisted during the Korean War. His
eyes were still bad, but they allowed him to join and he was kept in the States during his enlistment. He
ended up stationed in Colorado, operating a bulldozer to make "rice paddies" in Colorado for the filming of one
movie on the Korean War starring Robert Mitchum. This also brings to mind the fact that my middle brother,
Donald G. Kendall, was near totally deaf in one ear, but he was allowed to enlist during the Korean War. He
spent most of his enlistment stationed in Germany.
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Basic Training
From home in Marion, Illinois, I was sent to West Frankfort, Illinois, for an overnight stay. The next
day I boarded a train, along with others, and was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for almost two weeks of processing.
While still at Fort Knox and processing, there were eight new recruits who committed suicide by hanging themselves
on a water tower. We were in Company C, 45th Medical Battalion. It was an actual unit, but only
used to process new recruits before being sent to basic training units. I also remember that it was at Fort
Knox that I first ever saw a guy with a venereal disease. He was quite a hairy guy and he had crabs.
He was given DDT powder to apply to his groin area. Upon dashing the powder on himself, the crabs started to
move all over his body. It was funny seeing him rolling and so forth on the ground to scratch the itching.
We also had a guy who believed all that he was told. In a formation, the Captain commanding us asked if
there were any questions. This guy asked if it was true that we would receive shots in the left hall with a
square needle.
I then boarded a train for transportation to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where I took basic training. No one
that I knew prior to enlistment traveled with me to the training camp. The train arrived around 1 a.m.
There were 2 and 1/2 ton trucks waiting for us, and as I boarded a truck, the smell of the exhausts of the trucks
imprinted itself. To this day, when I run across that peculiar smell, I am taken back in time to getting off
the train, being somewhat confused, a bit apprehensive, and kind of wondering, "What did I get myself into???"
I am not too sure how many of us had been on the train, but we were driven to some barracks buildings and
there were bunks with blankets and pillows for us to sleep on.
The next day, we were awakened around 7 a.m. I seem to remember that they took pity on us for getting in
so late. We were introduced to our sergeants. After breakfast, we were taken to a large supply
room--not the regular company supply room--and measured for and issued clothing. We also received sheets,
blankets, and pillow and pillowcase. We were assigned to a bunk in an assigned barracks building. I
cannot remember ever being interviewed or tested or anything that determined which company or platoon we would end
up being assigned to. There was some kind of testing that we took at Fort Knox. That may have been
sent along with us to make that determination.
We were assigned to three sergeants from World War II. Their names were Sgt. Rubin L. Harvinson, Sgt. Roy
A. Prince, and Sgt. Eugene C. Satterly. A good friend from my platoon wrote down all the names of the
sergeants, the names of all 30 of us guys, and our home addresses, too. Several years ago, he located me
through the KWVA address book and since then we have located 20 of the 30 guys of the I&R Platoon. Of the
20, 13 of us are now living and seven are known to be dead. We are still looking for the other 13.
Nine of us get together once a year.
We were warned at the beginning that it was expected of us to be regular in clothing and underwear changes.
We were also supposed to shower regularly and brush our teeth regularly. I cannot remember any open mouth
inspections, however. I didn't remember it until I read an old letter that I wrote home, but we were lined
up and marched to church on Sunday.
The training was an eight-week basic training (a very basic basics). World War II was over, so there was
no great emphasis on training. We first were introduced to basic military information--formation, attention,
at ease, right shoulder rifle, marching and various commands. The unit was in the Fourth Army Command, 37th
Regimental Combat Team, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, and in the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon.
My platoon did extra studying in the areas of gathering intelligence about an enemy, such as strengths in
manpower, armor, mechanized vehicles and supplies while doing reconnaissance in the enemy's area and on advancing
against an enemy. Parts of the platoon were designated as scouts, lead scouts, and flank scouts. We
did both in-classroom and in-the-field study, using maps and compass for navigating with little or no landmarks to
use to figure out our location. We also studied and learned methods of concealment to both conceal ourselves
and to detect the enemy's concealment. For instance, there is nothing in nature that has an absolute
straight line. It might be straight for several feet, like a tree truck, but eventually it will curve.
That is what is needed to detect--something straight that the enemy forgot to break its straight lines. We did the
usual rifle range shooting for proficiency and marksman medals, but only with the rifle.
During basic, we never had any kind of training in various other weapons such as pistols, grenades, bazookas,
or any others. We took paper tests (at least in my platoon) for our I&R subjects like map reading and
compass knowledge, camouflage, and recognizance of various vehicles and airplanes. We saw a few movies during
basics, and I believe they were all educational. This was in the time between World War II and the Korean
War and nothing of a propaganda nature was involved in our training. Being so close behind World War II, we all
were still feeling the "good war" feelings of World War II.
If memory serves me (it's been a long time), we were awakened by our sergeants at I believe 6 a.m.
Breakfast was at 7 a.m., lunch at 12 noon, and supper at 5 p.m. There was some give and take, as these times
were not cast in concrete. All in all I would say our food was great. Of course, we were moving and
doing all day and we needed calories badly, so whatever was put on the mess tray was eaten. Second were also
allowed when there were leftovers. The meals were generally scrambled eggs with toast and jelly, bacon,
milk, and coffee for breakfast; a light meal, lots of time being cold cuts with bread for lunch; and a hearty meal
like pork chops, pot roasts, shit on a shingle (bits of meat in gravy), meat loafs and such heavier foods for
supper. Usually we had green beans, corn, or peas for vegetables. We also had coffee at lunch and
supper, and we usually had a dessert like sheet cake three or four times a week. While on maneuvers, we were
fed the K-ration type of foods, and on a few occasions during basic training the K-rations were fed to us in place
of a meal. The reason for that was to get us accustomed to the food and its tastes (or perhaps to use up
stocks left over from World War II). During 1949 and part of 1950 at Fort Benning, we were served the
K-rations. In 1952 in Camp Cooke, California, we were again fed K-rations.
It doesn't seem to me that our training was regimented, because we jumped from one thing to another. Yet
it might have been the plan. I did learn that you cannot figure out the inner workings of the Army. After
supper we were mostly free and on our own through the week. We could hang around the barracks or take in a
movie if we had the money. At that time, a recruit's monthly pay was a whopping $75.00 a month. We
could check out the Post Exchange (PX), too. Most items were quite cheap as there were no taxes on items.
Cigarettes were about 20 cents or less a pack. We could also explore the post. There was the "old
post" area with carved out of solid rock jail cells. One of them once held the Indian chief Geronimo.
There was also an area where Geronimo was said to have jumped his horse off of a cliff to a river below.
During the weekends, we were able to visit in the town of Lawton, Oklahoma. Beer was 3.2 percent alcohol,
so you had to drink a whole lot before feeling any effects beyond an urge to visit the rest room. A joke was
that it was called "Airplane Beer" (Drink 1 and P - 38). A P-38 was an airplane used in World War II. I also
liked to visit the White Swan Cafe. They had real good chili that needed to be washed down with quite a few
beers to cool the mouth and throat. Nearly every Saturday night enough of a fight happened that smashed the
front door, a wooden door with oval glass near the size of the door. It was in Lawton that I visited my
first house of ill repute, but I chickened out at the last minute for two reasons: I was scared, and I didn't have
the cost of the transaction.
We were responsible for the housekeeping of the barracks and were split up for various jobs, like cleaning the
latrine. At times there was a complete cleanup of the barracks. A job that we also had was "fire
guard." Each barracks had a fire room with a furnace that burned coal to heat the barracks and I think to
provide heat for hot water. The fire guard tended the furnace all night, doing two jobs--first keeping the
furnace burning and second, to be an early detection in case the furnace caught the barracks on fire. If it
did, we were supposed to wake the guys who were sleeping.
Our instructors were quite fair with us. At times it seemed to me that they actually cared for us, so
really, there was no strictness beyond trying to instill basic military knowledge in us in case we would ever need
it down the line. We were never mistreated in any way or fashion. One time I dropped my rifle and had
to sleep with it. Several times rifles were referred to as "guns" and we had to repeat the poem, "This is my
rifle" (holding out our rifle), "This is my gun" (holding our penises), "This I use to shoot with" and "This I use
for fun."
Another time, we were out on the rifle range shooting for marksman badges. It was quite cold in November.
The person on the loudspeaker giving instructions cracked an ethnic joke ("this shooting is like shooting Jews in
a rain barrel"). Even though the joke was different from what I had ever heart (like shooting fish in a rain
barrel), I thought I was expected to laugh. I was laying in the prone position to fire and the next thing I
remember was someone cracking my bare hands and fingers with a riding crop. In the cold weather it hurt
quite a bit at the time. But when I got back inside where it was warm, the pain became almost unbearable.
The person who had hit me was a major and the officer in charge of the firing range. He never said anything
to me as he hit me and I was at first unable to determine why he hit me. Later I figured it out as having to be my
laughing at the joke. At the time I also was ignorant of the fact that an officer should never strike an
enlisted man and that I could have filed charges against him. But I was raised that authority must be obeyed
and had teachers who used paddles on me. I never pursued the case that I rightfully had against the officer.
Because of this incident, I wondered why I had joined the Army, but on the whole I enjoyed my near five years of
service. The Jews joke was the only prejudice I saw in the Army. This was 1948 and the Army was still
segregated. Without blacks around, no prejudice was seen.
I also remember that, while out in the field on maneuvers, I tripped and fell and opened a deep puncture in the
palm of my left hand. I was sent off to the medical tent for treatment. The person(s) there sent me
back to the platoon without any treatment. I was told that after supper I should wash my hands and the cut
in the garbage cans where we cleaned our mess kits, then rinse and return to the medical tent. This person
then spread the cut as far open as he could, then dipped a cotton swab into pure iodine and swabbed the inside of
the cut with it. He then squeezed the edges of the wound together, and with a fresh cotton swab, swabbed the
edges of the cut so that they were cauterized together. He placed a homemade "butterfly" type adhesive tape
across the cut. Looking back on this today, I realize that this person, whoever he was, was acting in a sadistic
manner, causing great pain from the lye soap and hot water in the mess kit washing cans, then using raw iodine
inside an open wound, cauterizing the wound with the iodine. The heck of it is that I never have known why
he did what he did.
Beyond this, I never received any harsh punishment while I was in basics. I was just told I should do
better at learning the things that we were being taught. I also cannot remember ever seeing anyone else
being disciplined beyond the "Can't you learn what is being taught to you?" type of dressing down. As far as
I can remember, we never were punished as a platoon for the mistake of an individual, either. When a person
made a mistake, it was always him getting yelled at or having to do pushups type of punishment. At times the
platoon continued to do marching drills if there was a large amount of mistakes, but that was it. We didn't have
any troublemakers in our platoon. We really were lucky in that we all hit it off well with each other,
considering we came from vastly different kinds of backgrounds. Some jokes and pranks were done, but there
was no dissention in the platoon. We had fun while on off time, exploring the area, cutting up while taking
pictures of each other and hamming it up with our rifles and such, but no organized kind of fun things.
There were no drop outs from basic training. Dropping out was not allowed like it is in today's army.
Ft. Sill is located next to Lawton, Oklahoma, about 40 miles north of the Texas state line and about 120 miles
southwest of Oklahoma City. It is southwestern desert country--dry, sandy, windy, and with sparse
vegetation. It is warm in the spring and summer, and cold in the fall and winter. (I remember that,
during one wind storm, a lot of sand blew into our barracks building, coating everything in the building.
The tumbleweeds were piled high against the side of the building.) There were tiny but aggravating sand
fleas and assorted other insects. One morning as I started to put my foot in my boot, I turned it upside
down to shake out the usual sand. a spider of some kind the size of a penny match box fell out and got away.
I don't think it was a tarantula, but after that boots were checked more often. There was, to my memory, no
physical or health conditions of the trainees from or by insects, etc.
For me personally, the only thing that bothered me during basic was my physical abilities. I had smoked
from age ten or eleven, and did not have the wind for running and long marches, especially when wearing field
pack. I was also a bit slower in learning some things. At the time, I didn't have an appreciation for
my instructors, but later when I saw that all they had done was to prepare me for whatever might befall me in my
Army life, I appreciated them a great deal. Even so, I don't believe that basics prepared me for combat.
I think all of us had a false sense of being combat ready, even though we had really had only a minimal amount of
real training. Had we been sent into combat n short order, we would probably have suffered great amounts of
casualties, just like what happened in Korea right after the first American troops started fighting. They
were "garrison-occupation" troops from Japan and like us, probably had a minimum of real training.
My basic training during October, November, and December 1948 was to me at that time a more or less serious
training. Truce, there was no war. Also, the term "Cold War" was still quite new and hardly used at
that time. We were told that we were scheduled for advanced training after this basic training, and that we
would become part of an elite outfit of some kind in Europe. Of course, that story changed along the way to
some other story and the end result was that, in my estimation, we barely received any real training at all, much
less any training that would be of any great use in combat. The reason for my thinking this way comes from
talking with other soldiers later and comparing my training with the training they had received.
Still, I was more self confident about myself by the end of basic training, and I was used to being with
different kinds of people. I could navigate myself in daily military life and survive. I had been the kind
of a person who thought the best of everyone else and many times had been taken advantage of because of that.
I still never became a cynic, but I was less trusting than before at the end of basics.
At the completion of basics, there was no organized celebration. We went from one day doing basic
training to the next day watching the bulletin board and listening to the rumor factory about what was going to
happen to us next. There had been a lot of rumors during training as to what kind of a unit we were training
to become. We were to become an elite, quick strike unit like we see lots of today. We were to go to
Fort Dix, New Jersey, for advanced training and then be sent to Europe and be in readiness for anything. The
Cold War had become hot/cold war around then, there were the early testing of nuclear weapons, the A bomb secrets
had been leaked to the Soviet Union, and some time along in there the Soviets closed off access to West Berlin by
ground and the Berlin Airlift was in force, and war jitters were prevalent. In other words, it was a time of
very much worry and wondering by the government about if a new war would be starting at any time.
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Home on Leave
After so many rumors as to what would happen after basics, we ended up being sent to various units across the
country. Just before leaving Fort Sill, those of us who knew we were to go to Fort Benning made plans to get
together when we arrived there. Four of the guys and I ended up in Third Infantry Division Headquarters and
Headquarters Company in Fort Benning, Georgia. On the way from Fort Sill to Fort Benning, I was given some
leave time at home. It was factored into my travel time between the two forts. Thinking back, it had
to have been a short time--perhaps only a few days.
I wore my uniform while home on leave to sort of show off a bit to impress the guys and girls. After that
there was little comment other than, "You're home, huh?" and "What are you doing next?" I visited my grade
school and especially my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Baggett. He was my first male teacher and was more strict
than the women teachers I had before him. He caught me cheating on a geography exam once, and I was to be
punished with a whipping with a paddle. Before starting, he said to me, "I am going to give you this
spanking today and I will have forgotten about it by tomorrow, but you will remember it the rest of your life."
Boy, was he right. At that visit I asked him, "Can you remember that spanking you gave me?" He
replied, "No, but you still do." And to think I still remember it today, a good sixty years later, and that
it was over cheating on geography, a drawing of a map if I remember.
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Life at Fort Benning
I went to Fort Benning, Georgia, next. I remember taking a Greyhound Bus and getting off at the terminal
to ask how to get transportation to Fort Benning. Remember how I described the smells of truck fumes at Fort
Sill? Well, I can still smell the smells of that bus station in Columbus, too. I thought for years
that the station was underground, but when I returned to Columbus a few years ago, I discovered that it was still
in the same place and it was under a large roofed area.
I had no advanced training. We went about regular military life in garrison. There were times of
some training and visits to the rifle ranges to keep up proficiency, but no advanced training of any kind.
Instead, I had several occupations while at Fort Benning. I arrived shortly after January 1949 and was
assigned to Third Infantry Division Headquarters. On arrival (shortly after the first of January 1949), I
was assigned to Third Infantry Division Headquarters and Headquarters Company. The Headquarters side or
section consisted of the actual Headquarters of the Division from the Division's Commanding General down to
sections such as G1-G2-G3, the Chaplain's office, etc. The Headquarters Company consisted of the clerks that
staffed the Headquarters sections and the Company Motor Pool, the Company Supply Room, the Company Kitchen, the
Defense Platoon, and other sections. The Defense Platoon provided defense and security for the Division
Headquarters from guarding the Commanding General's and Staff Officers' quarters and the offices of these officers
and the living quarters of Liaison Officers from attached units. They also guarded the living areas of the
enlisted personnel and outer perimeter of the whole Division Headquarters.
After several weeks, I was transferred into the 15th Infantry Division's Service Company. I was assigned
as a driver of a two and a half ton truck. After several weeks more weeks, I was transferred back into
Division Headquarters Company. No reason was ever given for the transfer out of and back into Headquarters
Company. This time I was assigned to the Motor Pool. The Division was just getting reactivated and there was
a need for drivers in the motor pool. The bulk of the personnel being assigned to the company and motor pool
were from large cities like New York and such places that had public transportation. The guys being assigned
to us had never driven before, so several of us were assigned to teach them how to drive! As you can assume,
we did have our work cut out for us, but all survived--both teachers and pupils.
After this experience, I was assigned to Headquarters Commandant Office in the Division Headquarters as an
office clerk. (I had taken typing while in high school.) My duties included typing, filing, stencil
making, and general clerk duties. Also, the office was the scheduling office for obtaining Jeep drivers from
the motor pool to drive the officers of the Division Headquarters (G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4, Chaplain's office, Special
Services office, and other such offices. After several months in this office, I was assigned back to the
Company side and into the motor pool. I served as a driver for several months. I remember that one officer
that I drove was an old time Cavalry officer. When calling for a ride, he always requested "a horse."
During my stay at Fort Benning, I became good friends with the Division's chaplain, Colonel Rush (Catholic) and
Assistant Chaplain, Lt. Colonel Kendell (Protestant). It turned out that Lt. Colonel Kendell's family name
had originally be spelled Kendall (the same as mine), but that there were two Kendall families in town, so his
ancestor had changed the spelling. Though friends with the two of them, I never attended on my own any of
their services. I can only remember attending church twice before going to Korea. I attended a
mandatory church service during processing at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in 1948, and another in 1950 while in Camp
Stoneman, California, waiting to leave for Japan.
I mostly enjoyed my time at Fort Benning in 1949 and 1950. The cities outside of the base were Columbus,
Georgia, and across the Chattahoochee River, Phoenix City, Alabama. Columbus was a typical camp city that
liked the income from having an Army base, but hated the soldiers that made them their living. Phoenix City
was a wide open city where lawlessness was rampant. One guy from my Company killed a guy while on the bridge
between the cities, and tossed him into the river. Neither city bothered to investigate the murder, as each
felt it was in the other city or state's jurisdiction.
During 1949 I started dating a girl from Columbus. On New Years Eve 1949, we went with some buddies to
Phoenix City, ending up at the Phoenix City Country Club. sometime during that evening, after I had become
quite drunk, I got angry at the girl for flirting with some other guys. I was on the porch outside trying to
walk it off in the fresh air, when a person holding broken beer bottles in both hands started to attack me.
The girl happened to come outside to check on me at that time. Being a big girl and the person attacking me
being somewhat smaller, she knocked him down and kicked him in the ribs several times. She then took me
inside and I sat a chair sort of off to the sides. More fights started to break out, mostly between soldiers
and civilians. While sitting there, someone grabbed me by my hair and tipped my face up. He said he
was looking for whoever it was who had kicked him in the ribs, as he thought they were broken. Along about
that time, my girl and my friends all got out of the area. We were lucky to get out as the fights increased
and turned into a near riot. Both Phoenix City and Fort Benning MPs were sent there to restore order.
A favorite spot I visited near the end of every month was a pawn shop where I got $5.00 for my watch to tide me
over until the next month's payday. I also go the tattoo I now have on my left arm to cover up the one I had
put on in 1948 between high school graduation and enlisting in the Army. The first tattoo cost, I think,
about $1.50 and a couple of beers at a carnival. It was a picture of a girl's head with long flowing hair.
I was working in a dairy at that time and had to climb into huge vats that milk was processed in and scrub them.
The soap from scrubbing got into the tattoo and infected it. My scratching made it look bad, so I got the
new one sometime in 1949. It is an eagle standing on a limb to cover the girl's hair, and it cost about
$3.00 plus several beers.
Saving money was never possible given the pay in those days. A recruit's pay was $75.00 a month. By
then I had been promoted up to Private First Class (PFC) and must have been drawing at least $85.00 to $90 a
month. Items bought in the Post Exchange (PX) were cheaper than off base. Cigarettes had no tax at all
and were probably 20 cents a pack or less. But I was in with a drinking roadhouse running crowd, and a lot
of pay went for that occupation. In Columbus, Georgia, there were several clubs, but the real action was
across the Chattahoochee River in Phoenix City. There was a club called "Beachie Howard's" that was
frequented a lot by the Airborne troops. Another was "Cliff's Fish Camp", where the price of a fish dinner
included a companion with dinner. After dinner, she cleared the table and finished out the "dinner" with SEX
on the table.
When times were real hard, we bought Aquavelvet after shave and strained it through slices of bread. It
tasted a bit like a mint Schnapps. I usually ended up pawning my wristwatch every month just before payday
for $5.00, reclaiming it after payday. At one time a couple or three of us discovered a parking meter head
was somewhat loose. Over time, we managed to get it off the post. We took it back in an alley and
tried to bust it open, but never were able to open it. It probably did not have a couple bucks in it.
It was just the challenge it offered to bored GI's.
At one point, I was assigned to the Company side Kitchen and started training as third cook. I am not
sure how long I was in the kitchen, but after a serious burn to my left hand I was moved again and assigned to the
company supply room again, using the typing skills I had learned in high school. I remained in the supply
room until we left Fort Benning shortly after January 1, 1950 for amphibious training.
We traveled first to the Camp Pickett, Virginia, Marine Corps base for Operation Portex amphibious training.
I sailed first from Charleston, South Carolina to Camp Pickett, Virginia, on a regular troop transport. Then
from Camp Pickett to the Puerto Rican island of Vieaques on a regular troop transport. While unloading off
the troop ship, I saw a guy slip while climbing down a cargo net to get on an LCI. His legs were caught
between the ship and the LCI and they were crushed.
The training we went through was like the amphibious landing shown in the "Saving Private Ryan" movie, only
without an enemy firing at us. Day after day we were driven to the bay area where we boarded the landing
craft. The front ramp was raised and closed, the craft was driven out into the bay, and then turned around
and ran full speed back to shore. The ramps dropped and we, dressed in full field dress with full field
packs and combat boots and carrying rifles, had to run as fast as we could across the sandy beach. This
divided the men and the boys in a hurry. After catching our breath and a quick smoke, we did it all over --
again and again and again all day.
While we were on Vieaques Island in the Caribbean, it was quite cool at night and rained a lot during the week
or so that I was there. On the last night on the island, several of us slipped away and visited the only
town on the island. There I was given a "Mickey Finn" and came close to passing out. A buddy caught a
local woman trying to steal my watch off my arm and slapped her. From there it got bad. At tat time,
one of the guys who had traded his Army clothes for civilian clothes started posing as being in the Counter
Intelligence Corps (CIC). The people backed away from us and we made our escape. During the escape, a
guy nicknamed "Mule Train" and I stole a burro to ride and were chased by a lot of people. We were late in
getting back to camp and near missed the ship to leave the island. Upon getting back to the camp area, we
found that all the tents were down except for ours. The Mickey Finn had left me thirsty, and I drank all the water
I could get. I found a can of "C" rations of ham and lima beans to eat and this made me even more thirsty.
As we got close to the LST I would be riding back to the States on, I saw a big pot of lemonade in a tent
belonging to the harbor masters in charge of the loading of the ship, so I grabbed some of it.
The trip back to Charleston was aboard a Landing Ship Tank (LST). An LST is a flat bottom scow that rides
like a bucking bronco in high seas. Loading the vessel was a hard and dirty job that day. After
getting done, I headed for the sleeping compartment. On the way there, I was very sick from all I had eaten
and drank.
Our job included chaining down the heavy equipment to ready them for the trip, and to keep watch over them
during the journey. Two rows of two and a half ton trucks were chained down on either side of the hold, and
two rows of tanks were between the trucks. On the way back from Vieaques, all the ships stopped in various ports
for shore leave. My ship stopped at Saint Thomas of the Virgin Islands, but I was not allowed ashore as
punishment for going AWOL on Vieaques. Leaving Saint Thomas and heading for Charleston, South Carolina, we
were caught in a bad storm. The ship moved in several directions at the same time, slamming into waves and causing
the tanks to move around. (Just to give you an idea of how rough the sea was that day, when the entire stern
of the ship was covered by sea water, bags of potatoes on a platform about twelve feet up over the deck floated
away. An open porthole window in the galley acted like a fire hose, allowing sea water to come through it.)
We had to go down into the hold area and dart from safe place to safe place, jumping out of the way and
climbing up on other trucks or tanks to avoid being crushed to death as the tanks were free of their chains and
moving in all directions. This was one of the most dangerous jobs I ever had. We grabbed new chains, hooks,
and turn buckles and finally got the tanks chained down. All the chains and equipment were greasy, so we
were a mess covered in grease from head to toes. The ship did not have the capacity to change enough sea water to
fresh water beyond drinking and cooking needs, so the showers were cold sea water. If the Sailors had any
sea water soap, they did not share it with us, and regular soap does not work in salt water, so we never got
completely clean until back in Fort Benning.
Back to Memoir Contents
War Breaks Out
Upon returning to Fort Benning, I continued in the supply room until June 20, 1950. I had decided to stay
in supply and wanted to attend a Quartermaster Supply School, but I was told I did not have enough time left in
the service. So I decided, "What the heck. I will take a short and reenlist for three years." A
"short" is a short discharge of one minute, and reenlistment right away. I did that on June 20 and the
Korean War started on June 25, 1950. I reenlisted because I wanted to go to school. I guess in the
back of my mind, I might have been thinking of making a career out of the Army. Had I not reenlisted like I
did, I would have been given the "Truman Year" extension of my enlistment like a lot of guys did receive.
There was no schooling during the short discharge, as it only lasted a minute or two. I was immediately
enlisted again in the Army. The schooling that I went to after being reenlisted only lasted about six weeks
because I was needed back at Fort Benning to help load the equipment and leave with my unit for eventual service
in Korea. I went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to the school. It was to be ten weeks, I think.
When I got back to Fort Benning, I returned amidst the packing of the equipment of the Division. It was a
hard job loading the entire Division's equipment, as the Division had been gutted of nearly all of the men who
were sent to Korea early on in the war, leaving us with about 2,000 guys in what remained of my Division.
After that was completed, we were loaded on a troop train and left Fort Benning, headed to Camp Stoneman,
California, sometime around August 15, 1950. My total time at Fort Benning was from just after January 1,
1949 to about August 15, 1950--a total of about twenty months. While at Fort Benning, I was promoted from
the rank of recruit to Private and then later to Private First Class. While in Korea in 1951, I was promoted
to Corporal, which was the rank that I stayed at until my discharge on June 20, 1952.
I was as surprised as much as the next guy when the Korean War started, and I wondered where Korea was. I
(we) knew of Japan, China, and Pacific Islands where Americans were stationed, but not Korea. Being Gung Ho
about going to war never entered my mind that I can remember. I was focused on heading off to quartermaster
school and had no idea that in a short time I would be recalled to Fort Benning to head off for Korea. I did
learn in time that I would be heading back to Fort Benning and Korea, and told my parents who lived in Marion,
Illinois (which was not too far away). They were able to visit me for a day at Fort Knox before I left to
return to Fort Benning.
I had been dating a girl in Columbus, George (location of Fort Benning) off and on, and was writing off and on
to a girl in my hometown. It was nothing serious with either one as far as I was concerned, but later I
learned that the one from my hometown (I wrote her from Japan and Korea) was serious and thought that I was
serious.
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Mobilizing
To personally prepare to leave only consisted of writing my parents and the girl back home. They were
concerned naturally, as the only information I had at the time was that I was headed for Korea. Only later
did I find out that I was going to Japan first. There was no concern with preparing myself mentally, as in
those days, when you were told something, that was it. No discussions or such.
The Division equipment we loaded was everything from all the rifles, pistols, machine guns, and other weapons
of an infantryman to tanks, cannons, trucks, jeeps, and other mobile equipment, to picks, shovels, and earth
moving equipment of the Engineers to clothing and other necessary items. In other words, every piece of
equipment issued to a Division. Our equipment was in good shape, having been mostly in use since World War
II. Our maintenance schedules were kept up to date. The Third Division was a bit of a "show division"
and we were well equipped. Finances for the military, especially the Army, had been cut quite a bit after
World War II as the extensive use of the Navy and Air Force and the use of and continued testing of nuclear
weapons had lulled the public and Congress into thinking that the foot soldier was obsolete. Little did they
know!
It was an interesting trip by troop train from Fort Benning, Georgia to Camp Stoneman, California. Being
summer, we were wearing "Sun Tans" khaki clothing. The troop took over a week and extra clothing was in our
duffle bags in baggage cars. We could not wash more than our face and brush our teeth, which was great
training for later in Korea and going months at a time without a bath. In the troop train, we were low
priority traffic versus military equipment heading West to be loaded on ships and sent to Korea. Every time
during day time that we were sent on a side track to allow other traffic to go through, we were herded off the
train and exercised, working up a sweat and adding to our overall aroma that developed on the trip. Meals
consisted of guys lugging pots of food from a baggage car converted to a kitchen and serving us in our seats.
The train was almost always moving all the time and rocking and leaning on curves, so there was also constant
spillage of food on our clothes, too. The train route we took was a southern route and the only geographic
feature I can remember was traveling past the Great Salt Flats in Utah at night under a bright full moon.
It looked like snow as far as I could see. Altogether it was an experience. Not "bad", but something
that I have to look back on every once in a while and smile at what was happening.
The Division's equipment had traveled on freight trains and arrived in California before we did. It went
directly to docks and was loaded on ships for transport. I am not sure if it went to Japan for storage for
us until we would need it sent to Korea. After loading the equipment, I never saw any again until I was in
Korea. A friend who was in the 703rd Ordnance Company told me that he and others rode as "guards" on the
freight trains, living in the caboose with the train crews as the trains traveled West. When we soldiers
arrived, we were kept busy for several days being processed with shots, a new one called "JAP-B", and getting the
complete series of shots all over again as the Army was not taking a chance that we were missing any shots.
We also were processed where all paperwork on us was brought up to date.
As I think back on it, we were living in a vacuum to a degree. We had very little information as to what
was going on in the world and in Korea. We hardly had seen a newspaper and none of us had a radio of any
kind. The real transistor small radios had not been developed. I had a radio while back in Fort
Benning, as we would listen to it at night while in the barracks, especially to country music. A patent
medicine named Hadacol was popular and sponsored a lot of the programs we listened to. There was a song
composed about it called, "Hadacol Boogie." If you ever get a chance to hear it, please listen to it.
The local Columbus radio had a disc jockey who put on a stuttering voice when saying a show sponsor's name.
For example, the "Power Packed Heat and Light Company" became "pow pow power pac pac packed he he heat and li li
light company." One of the guys in the company and I had forgotten who it was until the mini reunion in
Canada last month of guys I took basic training with. When a discussion was taking place, several of us did a spur
of the moment singing commercial for Royal Crown Cola. The commercial went "Royal Crown Cola - Red and
Yellow Bottle - Tastiest Drink in Town - Pick up a Frosty Bottle of Royal Crown Cola." A friend of another
guy who worked at the radio station remembered that the stutter was named Stanley.
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Trip to Japan
Going on, we really did not have much information on what was happening in Korea. At the time we arrived
in Camp Stoneman, the North Koreans had pushed the South Korean and U.N. forces into the Pusan Perimeter, but I
cannot remember hearing anything about the situation. I spent around a week in Camp Stoneman after traveling
from Fort Benning, mostly being processed with things like getting shots (one was the JAP-B). We were
restricted to base, but as usual, quite a few managed to slip off base. I did not try to do that.
From Camp Stoneman we road ferry boats to the San Francisco harbor, Port of San Francisco. There, the
Salvation Army was on the docks giving us all a free coffee and doughnut while we waited to get on the ship.
After everyone was boarded, we sailed from San Francisco, California, headed for, we thought, Korea. We left on
August 31, 1950, I believe. (My birthday is September 2 and I celebrated my 20th birthday at sea.) Our
last sight of home (the USA) was the Golden Gate Bridge.
We learned later that we were going to Japan first to finish training American GI's and to give some training
to South Koreans who were being gathered up to be trained and mixed in with the U.N. troops. As it turned
out, my Third Infantry Division ended up having the greatest number of Korean soldiers intermingled with
Americans.
The ship that took me to Japan was the General Darby. I heard it had been named for one of the Ranger
Groups that had fought in World War II called "Darby's Rangers." I am not sure if the story was true.
The ship was a "General Class" troop transport. It was much larger in size than most other troop transport
ships. Size-wise, it was like a civilian cruise ship. An uncle through marriage rode on the Queen
Elizabeth from the USA to England in World War II. That ship is tied up in Long Beach, California, as a
tourist attraction. It was next to the Howard Hughes airplane, the "Spruce Goose," which was moved a few
days ago to Oregon, I think.
The ship had two engines and two screws (propellers - wheels) versus others that had one engine and screw.
The accommodations still were spartan. We slept on canvas that was laced to a steel tubing frame, and these
were mounted six bunks high and side by side. The toilet was a long tank with boards across it that you sat
on. Sea water was pumped into one end and flowed out the other end.
Hand-drawn sketch of Bunks
(Click picture for a larger view) |
Hand-drawn sketch of the toilets
(Click picture for a larger view) |
Being a General Class, it had a bit larger crew of sailors and a larger ship's PX. This trip I wrangled a
job in the PX. We sold items across the counter and stocked pop and candy vending machines in various
locations on the ship. We had a funny (to us) incident happen in the PX. In addition to all the male military
personnel, there was an unknown number of female military personnel onboard, too. They were Women's Army
Corps WACs and nurses. They lived in the same area of the ship that officers lived in, and pretty well
stayed there. An Army Captain came to the counter and quietly asked for a box of sanitary napkins for one of
the females. A buddy working with me reached to a shelf and got the box and kind of slammed it down on the
counter. In a loud voice he said, "Here you are, Captain. Your box of Kotex." The Captain got
red in the face and quickly paid and left. It was one of the ways we enlisted could get our licks in without
getting in trouble. (There is another sanitary napkin story coming later on in the Korea segment of my
memoir.)
We had around 2,000 military personnel onboard, I think. As far as I know, we did not have any cargo.
Almost the whole amount were from our Division, in fact, near the whole Division. It had been cannibalized
for replacements being sent to Korea in the early days of the war. Two guys I later ended up working with
for over 35 years were in the Seventh Regiment of the Division. They were in Fort Devans, Massachusetts.
They were sent to Korea to a different area. They were on the western side of North Korea, while I was on
the eastern side.
A funny story with them was that they were friends from grade school. They started work at Inland Steel
Company together on the same day, and then enlisted in the Army on the same day and left Inland. They took
basic training together and ended up in Fort Devans together. (One was in the 7th Regiment, the other in
Engineers.) They lost track of each other until in North Korea. The infantry one (Hank) was marching
on the road. When he looked to the side, he was Mike working on the road. Small world at times.
A friend of us both, Norman Strickbine, told me that as he was withdrawing from the west side of the Chosin
Reservoir, he glanced up at a guy on top of a tank shooting a 50 caliber machine gun to hold off the Chinese.
He was surprised to see one of the Sergeants who gave us our basic training back in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
We were in a typhoon on the way to Japan, but it didn't have a name. The naming of typhoons, hurricanes
and other storms had not started back then. The ship was large so we rode reasonably smooth, yet when waves
were right both of the screws came out of the water when the bow went down hard. This freed the screws of
the job of pushing against the water so that they speeded up in their spinning, causing the ship to vibrate and
shake from end to end. When walking below decks, you needed to keep close to something you could grab hold
of and hang on when the ship rolled or shook. On stairs you always had to hold on to the railings, and on
top deck you stayed away from the railing and close to the walls of the ship as a wrong move near the railing
could put a person over the side of the ship.
Entertainment was near non-existent on the ship. We did have a library where we could get books to read.
There were also some nights when movies were shown on the deck. And, there was the usual BS that went on
endlessly. I knew several guys onboard ship as we all were from the Division Headquarters Company. Two
of the guys I knew the longest in my Army service were among them. They were Bill Sigerseth and Herman
Bauersachs, who were from the platoon I had taken basic training with in Fort Sill.
There was nothing "eventful" that I can remember from the trip beyond circling. While we were on our way
to Japan, the Inchon Landing took place on September 15, 1950. We learned of the landing from a shipboard
newspaper in an explanation as to why the ship was sailing in giant circles. I am not sure if we started the
circling a day before the landing or exactly when, but it was only a few more days' sailing until we arrived in
Japan. The thought was that if the landing had gone bad, there was a ship in a day or two's sailing distance with
2000 plus GI's on board who could be shoved into the invasion as additional manpower. Plus, at the time we
sailed in circles for three days, there was a typhoon in the Pacific and we were in the outer fringes of the
winds. Those were three rough days of sea sick guys. Being shown movies on trench foot and gut wounds
these three days, with the ship pitching and rolling from the force of the waves and wind, didn't help matters.
I never got sick on any ship trip of the eight times I was on a ship, but I did get queasy one of those days.
I always got up early in the morning and tried to have a job onboard ship. This way, I got treated a bit
better and was assured of getting fed early, too. On one morning I slept late, and got caught having to
clean up the compartment and then had to watch films of things like gut wounds with intestines hanging out and
trench foot where it showed breaking off toes that had turned completely black. Finally I was free to go top
side. Down in the compartment of the ship below the water line, the movement was very minimal, but on
reaching top side the ship was pitching side to side and front to stern quite a bit. I finally got to light
up my first cigarette of the day and inhaled in deep. Wow! Things started to spin around a bit and
bile tried to make it up to my mouth. After a few minutes it cleared, and that was as close as I ever came
to being sick.
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Training Koreans
The ship docked in the Kokura, which was, at that time, a medium port city. It was on the southern island
of Kyushu. I traveled by Japanese train across the country to Beppu, Japan. It was hard to sit in the
train seats, as they were built for the shorter Japanese people, and it was a strange sight to look out the train
windows at Japanese women working in the field and not wearing any clothing above the waist.
Then we were transported by truck to the top of a mountain named Mori, where there was an old Japanese army
camp. We were in the back end of open dump trucks, and the tail gate on the truck was closed. The wind that
we were still getting from the typhoon was so hard that we were sitting on the truck bed in several inches of
water, and still wearing suntan clothes. After getting set up at the army base, we were then given South
Koreans who had recently been "drafted" to train and integrate with our ranks. We stayed there for a length
of time--near a month, I think.
Our job was to help train Koreans to integrate them into the U.S. Army. This was sometimes very funny,
other times very sad, with a range of emotions in between. These poor guys usually were "drafted" while walking
along a street or road. A truck going by carrying South Korean army troops would stop and force the person
onboard the truck, and then drive on and grab other guys. They were loaded on rust bucket ships in Korea and
sailed to Japan. The weather in September was still bad. That month is a time of storms in the Asian
area of the world. The draftees were sea sick and scared. As I think back, I have to give them great
credit for having survived the great experiment.
The following concerns only what I could observe in my own area. We set the Koreans up in the same
quarters we lived. We were in "buildings" with wood frame floors and sides and covered with tent canvas
tops. I was in supply and had a hard time finding Army clothing for Koreans due to the fact that most were
much smaller than Americans. The supply of small-sized clothing was limited. I could not get full mess
gear for them. They had only a canteen cup with a large spoon. I also had a hard time keeping their
tents supplied with batteries for lights. They were so frightened that they tried to leave lights on all
night long.
While at the mountaintop base, we slipped away and visited a house of ill repute in a town on the mountainside.
Japan was still trying to recover from World War II, and it was reflected in the prices that were charged.
Usually instead of money there was a barter system where we exchanged things like soap and blankets for services.
Our mess set up was that the mess Sergeant blew one blast on a whistle and the GI's walked to the chow line and
went through, getting food and then eating it. After all GI's were out of the mess tent, the Sergeant blew
two blasts on the whistle and it was time for the Koreans to eat. They ran, not walked. The ground was
slick as it rained nearly every day. If a person in front slipped and fell, he was run over by those behind
him. The Korean put what food, no matter what it was, in the canteen cup and covered it with as much sugar
as they could. Then they repeated the process. Following eating, the majority then went behind the
tent and threw up as the American food was too rich for them. That was part of the reason why they were so
hungry all the time. Also, our mess Sergeant had been a prisoner of Korean Marines who fought for Japan in
World War II. He had no love for Koreans, so he was probably skipping on their rations. Also, if he caught
one bending over, he would drop kick the guy as hard as he could. I do not like the memory, but it was of
the times and we believed it was just due for what the Sergeant had suffered at the hands of Koreans.
An aside story about the mess hall is that the Commanding General's secretary (we called him "Mary" because he
was a very slight homosexual guy)--was not required to ever serve any KP time or such. But once when it was
time for the Koreans to eat breakfast, Mary stayed in the mess hall and got in the serving line. He was
wearing an olive drab (OD) shirt with an OD sweater over it. He put an orange in each shirt pocket and
pulled the sweater down again. As the Koreans filed through the line, they were elbowing each other and
snickering at the sight of what looked like a GI with a pair of breasts. The story made the rounds of the
company in short order and we all had a great laugh.
The mess hall was also the place where movies were shown. When "Captains Courageous" was shown, the
heroine was named "Kim." A great percent of Koreans are "Kim" also. When the name was spoken, the
Koreans were started to hear a familiar name. I was interviewed a day or two later by a reporter from a
national news agency and told him this story. I also told him about finding it hard to secure clothing and
combat boots for the Koreans due to their size. They were smaller than Americans, but their feet were wider
than the usual American feet, and I did have trouble getting them clothes and shoes. The reporter sent a
story back to the States and it was printed in papers all across the USA.
When the Koreans arrived, they had no idea of military life and had to receive the basics like attention,
formation, marching, etc. The Koreans had been occupied by Japan for many years, and most Koreans understood
Japanese quite well. So with Japanese interpreters, we muddled along. Minus the interpreters, we got
by with "Pidgin English" and gestures. One time I had to take a crew of Koreans to a supply facility to pick
up a few squad-sized tents. I didn't have an interpreter, so had to show them with gestures what I wanted
done. Each tent weighed about 300 pounds and I needed them picked up and put in the back of a truck.
They caught on quick, but I was surprised when I figured out by the sound of their voice and gestures that a
different soldier appointed himself as the boss on each tent lift. I noticed that the average Korean seemed weaker
in upper body and arm strength, but once a load was placed on the "A-frame" that they used to carry things on, he
could carry the world on his back.
During this trip I remember one Korean rubbing first my white skin and then rubbing the black of the sole on
his boot, and asking why there was a difference in color between white soldiers and black soldiers. It
dawned on me that most had never seen a black person. I am not sure why they were segregated from us, but in
Japan the Koreans lived in tents by themselves. Once in Korea, I never saw a tent that was occupied by just
Koreans only. There were tents of GI's only, but this depended on the duty of the occupants and not
segregation. The language barrier fell before the culture barrier, as we both were so very different from
one another.
On this same trip, I also had my first and last experience of driving a truck with right side steering wheel
and on the right side of the road. What gave me a fit in driving was that, as I tried to shift gears, I
tried to use my right hand. I kept banging my knuckles, as the gear shift lever was on the left side.
Although I was one of the American troops to train Koreans, I do not think that much of the training I had had
in basic training was of any help to me in Korea. The only two things that stood out from basic training
that seemed to be of any help in Korea were that (1) I had trained in what was called an Intelligence and
Reconnaissance (I&R) platoon and I learned to read maps and could find my way around when driving in Korea.
And (2) I learned the tip for detecting camouflaged positions--to look to see if the thing you are looking at has
any completely straight lines, as nothing in nature ever is perfectly straight. My basic training was a
short training of peace time, and I never received any kind of advanced training, so that none of my basic
training really ever was of any use to me during the Korean War.
While we were at the mountaintop camp, a friend I had known for over a year confessed to me his age. He
was only sixteen years old, and we had just been told that we would leave in a couple of days for the port city
where we had arrived in Japan to board ship to head for Korea. The concern bothering him was his age and as
to whether or not he should tell our Company Commander his real age. So I told him to turn himself in and he
was taken away from our Company right away and I guess sent back home.
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Arriving in Korea
After we finished the training in Japan, we boarded a ship at Beppu, and sailed to Wonson, North Korea. I
am not totally sure of the dates, but I think I went ashore in Wonsan in the second week in October, 1950.
It was morning, and the memory that stays the most with me is that, while the ship was at anchor in the harbor and
we were waiting for landing craft to take us ashore, there was an emergency. The ship's sirens were
activated (just like in the movies -- WHOOP, WHOOP, WHOOP), and over the ship's intercom came the message, "Stand
by for collision." This was repeated several times. Then a voice said, "The ship approaching on the
Starboard Bow has lost steering. Stand by for collision." This, too, was repeated several times.
All of us Army personnel were kind of shook up as we had never heard this kind of message before. I was
especially concerned as I did not have a life preserver on. I can't swim and the water had to be ice cold.
In a few minutes, the voice on the intercom reported that the oncoming ship had recovered steering and the
emergency was over. Meanwhile, I could tell that this was a war zone even from the deck of the transport
ship. I could hear the sounds of artillery being fired and exploding on shore.
We then boarded the landing craft and completed our trip ashore. On landing, the damage and destruction
was quite obvious to sight. I remember that most everything--the buildings, etc.-- were destroyed or damaged in
some way from the previous fighting and shelling that had happened before I went ashore. It was also obvious
that we were in a war zone from the amount of equipment and supplies that was on the dock area and elsewhere
nearby. After arriving ashore, I could hear small arms and machine gun fire faintly from quite a distance
away. There passed through my mind a thought of "what kind of a mess am I in now?" It was a shock to
the system to leave Japan, arrive in Korea, and realize that I was now in a combat zone, even though not in a
front line company. This was in the Fall and I did not notice a smell that I later noticed in 1951 when the
weather warmed up. The smell came from the Koreans' use of human waste as fertilizer. There were some
Korean people hanging around the port area when I went ashore. Whether they were of South or North Korean
origin, I did not know.
I was already in an established unit upon arrival in Korea. I had no squad or platoon assignment because
my company was Headquarters & Headquarters Company of the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division. I rode in a 2
1/2 ton truck with supply room equipment to the company area. It was a building inside a walled compound
that had been the main police headquarters of the city of Wonsan.
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Stepping in It
I am not sure the first time that I saw an "enemy" in Korea. I had been in Wonsan for perhaps two weeks
when there was an announcement that an attack on our location was expected for that evening or night. A few
other guys and I were assigned to a location (sort of a listening post) outside of the walled compound.
While there, we heard strange sounds and jumped out of hiding with rifles pointing to confront an old Korean man
(a Papa-san) leading an ox pulling a cart. I guess we scared him quite a bit and we, not knowing what else
to do but to point our rifles at him, herded him inside the compound. A guy was sent to summon our Company
Commander and in the meantime, the ox had a bowel movement on the ground. Our Company Commander, who was a
"nasty nice type" of a person, arrived in a few minutes. Wouldn't you know it, he stepped in the bowel
movement on the ground. He went ballistic on us and chewed us out to a fare-the-well. He had us remove
the old man, ox, and ox cart and send them on their way. He sent us back to continue our listening and
watching. We didn't laugh at him to his face at the time it happened, but afterward it was funny to think
about our commander stepping in ox poop.
About a week to ten days later, I was with a group of guys, being lead by the Lieutenant who was in charge of
the supply room section of the company. We captured around 16 or 17 Koreans who had been sending messages by
blinking lights from a hill near our compound to some hills several miles across a valley like area. We
brought these Koreans back to the compound and after some early questioning, one guy was singled out. I was
told to take him inside the building and hold and guard him inside our company orderly room. Shortly
thereafter, the Company Commander arrived in the orderly room and asked me why I had this Korean in the room,
especially since there were tactical maps covering the walls. I told him that I was doing what I was told to
do by the Lieutenant, but the Commander was not happy with the answer. I got a good chewing out and was told
to take the Korean back outside. Later we transported the Korean to a South Korean Counter Intelligence
Agency (CIA) unit, where it was determined that he was a North Korean soldier. The poor guy had kept his
enlistment papers on him, as well as orders promoting him to a PFC rank. He was smacked around by the CIC
because of his stupidity. I never found out what happened to him after we left him with the South Koreans.
But with him being dressed in civilian clothing and not in uniform, he was probably judged to be a spy and
executed. These two incidents were both times of great tension and heart pounding for me.
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First Dead
The first dead enemy I saw was between Wonsan and Hamhung, North Korea. I was driving an open Jeep and he
was laying there (at least his remains from the waist/chest area up, including his head) on the roadway. The
rest of him had been smashed flat by tanks, trucks, and Jeeps like I was driving when they passed over it. I
was sickened for a few moments, but was busy and did not have time to dwell on what I had seen. Later I
thought about it some more, but was not too moved as I considered it a consequence of war. I am not sure if
he was the enemy of if he was a South Korean. Later, as I was walking across a field, I stumbled and near fell
when I tripped over a foot and lower leg of a Korean (South or North?) sticking out of a shallow grave. By
this time I did not give a second thought to it.
The first dead American(s) I saw were in Hamhung, North Korea. Just outside the area where I was, there
was a Marine Graves Registration team set up. They had several tents set up and the dead Marines were
stacked inside the four corners of the tents. They were arranged lying on the ground three bodies long ways.
Atop them were three more bodies lying crosswise, and atop them were three more bodies lying long ways. The
bodies were being processed for burial at this facility.
The next dead American I saw was a guy from my company who died in the building where the company had been
living when the building burned. He had been on guard duty and had just been relieved when he discovered the
building on fire. While waking up the guys in the building, he ended up becoming trapped in a room with bars
across the window. He burned to death. Following the fire burning itself out and the discovery that he
was missing, we looked through the rubble and found what was left of him. I will tell more about this fire
later in this memoir.
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New in the Zone
My basic training had been quite minimal back in 1948, and what training I did get was being a scout ahead of
the rest of the troops. I had training in amphibious landings, but I did not land on an enemy-occupied shore
when I landed in Wonsan. Being from the "rear area", there was not that much that applied to my previous
training. But our Commanding General believed in keeping his Headquarters as close to the front lines as he
could get it, so we were under attack by enemy troops very often. We mostly worked a day type of a job in
the motor pool, the supply room, and other type jobs, and then spent part of most every night doing guard duty
around the company area.
The weather when I first entered Wonsan was still Fall and kind of a mild one at that. That is
interesting considering the extent that the temperature dropped to later on. The clothing I had at the time
was adequate for the temperature at that time. As it got colder later into November, I could notice that the
clothing was not adequate, but it was all I had so I had to make do. I wore two sets of long underwear under
the fatigues that I wore day in and day out. I also wore a field jacket coat that had a detachable hood.
The gloves were leather outer shell with cloth (I think it was wool) liner. Both had openings on the right
fore finger that allowed the finger to be free of the glove for use on a rifle trigger.
At first the only boots I had were the regular combat boot style. At some later date I was issued the
"Mickey Mouse" type of boot that had rubber soles a couple of inches up and leather uppers sewed to the rubber
lowers. These came with several pair of ski socks. I was to wear two pair of the ski socks at a time
while the other pairs were to be under clothing to keep them warm and dry them out. These boots later were a
source of great disagreement due to the rubber lowers. A person's feet did sweat when moving a lot, but when
not moving, the boot became quite cold. A lot of trench foot and frozen feet during the Korean War were
believed to be caused by the boots.
During my first weeks in Korea, I was in the Wonsan area. It was a port city on mostly flat level land.
The flat land extended out a few miles to where it was ringed on three sides by hilly, but not very high,
mountains. While I was in Wonsan, my unit lived in the former police headquarters. I don't know if it
was the police station for just a city or a larger area (like we have counties and states). But it was quite
a large building inside a walled enclosure.
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On to Hamhung
From Wonsan we moved north to a city whose name I cannot remember. We stayed overnight due to the fact
that the road continuing north was controlled by the North Korean Army. We returned the next day to Wonsan,
where we found out that the rest of the company still in Wonsan had heard that our group had been ambushed and
wiped out. This trip was through hilly to mountain-sized features. After staying at Wonsan for several
days, we headed north again after the road was reopened. We went through the same hilly to mountain terrain
until we reached Hamhung, North Korea. There, the company lived in a two-story former school building,
sharing it with the Headquarters of the Division Artillery units. My quarters were in a tent outside the
building that housed the supplies of the supply room. the Hamhung area was flat land with mountains to the
north and west. In the mountains to the north was the actual location of the Chosin Reservoir. The
winter weather started to get really cold and the temperature ended up dropping to lows of 30 to 40 degrees below
zero.
Our building in Hamhung was on a slight rise above the surrounding area. Up until this time there was no
reason for concern for having any kind of a foxhole or trench, as the fighting had been some distance away.
One night the building caught fire for an unknown reason and the wooden floors, which must have been dried out and
were treated with something like linseed oil to hold down dust, caused the fire to burn harder and quicker.
One of my friends (mentioned earlier) was killed in the fire.
Due to the fire, the guys living in the building lost much of their clothing. In order to have shelter,
they had to walk about a mile and a half to a building that had been used as a mess hall. One guy who was on
the second floor had stripped down to shorts and undershirt and was sleeping in a sleeping bag. When
awakened, he jumped out of the second story window dressed as he was. He stood up and then hit the ground
running. The funny thing was that he was not hurt at all. A few guys who had salvaged a few clothes
passed them out to that guy and others who needed the clothes. It was kind of a surprise later to find out
that, even though all the guys walked half clothed in around 15 or so degrees below zero weather, not one person
to my knowledge got even so much as a cold. It was a serious situation, but some humor was found watching
Korean firefighters leaving the scene so fast after the bazooka ammunition started to ignite and explode.
Equipping the guys with what was left of the items in the supply room wiped out the supply room for the rest of my
time in North Korea, as well as my job as the supply clerk, so this left me with no job during the rest of my time
in North Korea before evacuation.
Due to me living in the tent, I had been mad at the time that the guys living in the building had been able to
take a kind of spit bath and get decently warm. I was assigned to guarding what was left of the burned
building. It was a fairly bright moonlit night with quite a bit of snow on the ground, too. The area
where I was stationed was in front of the remains of the building. They were still burning in some areas and
glowing from the embers in other areas. This was my first real fear time as I was framed against both the
moonlit snow and the burning embers of the building. The thought ran through my mind that the fire had
attracted enemy soldiers to see what was happening. We had been told that there was a great problem
developing with North Korean soldiers wearing civilian clothing to hide in the lines of civilian refugees who were
passing through our lines in a steady stream of humans desperate to flee from the fighting and escape being
trapped in the areas controlled by the troops of the North Korean regime. I could "feel" the rifle sights of
the enemy centered on me, and I tried to become as small as I could.
While standing guard, I tried to stay in as much shadow as I could, but there weren't many shadowed areas under
the moonlight. There was some vegetation around the area, but not much. There was no reason at this
time for any kind of a fox hole or trench, and besides, it would have been impossible to dig one due to the
temperatures freezing the ground concrete hard. I carried with me an M-1 rifle. I could feel the hair on the
back of my neck standing up as well as I could "feel" a cross hairs or "V" sight of a rifle pointed right at me
from behind vegetation across the compound area. That was a long remainder of a night, and one of the most
scary times I experienced while I was in Korea.
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November/December 1950
We were very mobile, moving up to Hamhung, then to Hungnam, North Korea on the east coast between November 1,
1950 and December 23, 1950, when I was evacuated to a ship off shore of Hungnam called the USS Bayfield APA #33.
About two weeks prior to boarding the ship, my company had ceased to exist because nearly everyone had been sent
out to ships for transport to Pusan. During that time, some others and I survived by raiding train cars
scrounging for food rations and making do. At night we slept in a cave-like space that we had created with
sacks of rice in a bombed out warehouse. We shared our body heat in order to survive in below zero
temperatures without any heat source until it was our turn to be evacuated from Hungnam by ship. During this
time, I found a Jeep to drive and drove northwest until I saw a sign saying, "Beyond this point you are under
enemy observation." I turned back to Hungnam and waited for a ship. We had time to watch the coming
and going around us. We saw Korean civilians so desperate to leave that they packed around 14,000 people on
board a merchant ship that normally carried only freight. There was no place for the people except in the
cargo holds, where they were packed in.
I don't remember having water, although I know I must have had some during those two weeks. The cold was
very bad--well below zero--and I cannot remember liquid water. The Army always had large canvas bags called
lister (?) bags that were filled with water, and purification tables were used in the water to purify it for
drinking. With it being that cold, the water would have froze in the bags, so now I wonder what I did have
to drink during that time.
When I boarded the ship on December 23, I had my first full meal and water and coffee in about two weeks, and
the first bath that I had had in about two months. On December 24, while standing on the deck of the ship, I
saw a large explosion on shore. I later learned that it was a stack of artillery shells that was blown up to
keep the Chinese from capturing them.
I worked on the ship's garbage detail. We gathered garbage from all the areas of the ship that was not
the duty of the ship's sailors to gather. My job was burning trash in a fire brick-lined incinerator.
Knowing that excess ammunition was in the trash--thrown there by the guys who had it left on them when they
evacuated Hungnam--we took fun in throwing in the trash and getting the door shut before the ammunition started to
explode. Once, a hand grenade in the trash exploded and busted some of the bricks in the incinerator.
The Navy got mad, but we thought it was fun. A friend of mine stumbled in one of the ship's corridors and
hit the trigger on a Russian burp gun that he was keeping as a souvenir, firing off all 72 rounds. We stood
stock still as the bullets ricocheted around us without hitting one of us. We quickly scattered out of the
area, and the guy tossed his trophy overboard so that we would not be caught with it. The Navy got mad again
over this damage, because they had to repair the damage to wiring, pipes, and paint done by the bullets.
A fun trick on troops ships was catching someone sitting on the toilet, deep into thought and not watching what
was going on around him. The toilets were a long, rectangular trough open on the top with wooden boards
across the opening every so many inches along the tank. These boards were for sitting on when having a bowel
movement. The troughs had a slight slope in them from end to end, and sea water ran in constantly at the
high end to a drain at the low end to carry away the waste and paper. Our fun was in making a raft out
cardboard and placing on it wadded up toilet paper, lighting the paper, and placing the raft into the current of
sea water to float it under the guy sitting on the trough, singeing the hair around the rectum.
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North to South/South to North
After about a week trip on the ship, we went ashore again in Pusan, South Korea, and we started moving north
again. I had no specific duties for several weeks due to the constant moving north by convoy. We moved
every few days for about three to four months, traveling through various small villages and towns in two and a
half ton trucks. It was around 10 to 20 degrees below zero, and we had no covering or canvas top on the
truck to break the wind, so it was very cold. We usually huddled two guys together and covered ourselves
with shelter halves and blankets. Day after day we loaded on the trucks and rode in the convoy north,
stopping around 3:00-4:00 p.m. to put up tents for the night to sleep in. It was quite a challenge to put up
these tents because it was so cold it was hard to spread out the tent and attach the ropes. All we had were
wooden pegs to drive into the ground, and the ground was like concrete.
A couple of days, as the convoy paused and we were in a small town, a couple of guys got out and scrounged up
something to drink, like the Korean rice wine and once something like brandy. This we drank to try and keep
warm and obliterate time spent riding on the trucks. It also added to the problems of putting up the tents
and trying to drive the tent stakes in while we were hung over. We were not very good at getting the job
done.
We went through Chinju, Kwangju, Chonju and Taejon, and then on to Seoul and beyond north of Uijongbu. At
one time the Division traveled to East Central Korea to Chungpong, then back to the West Central area and Seoul.
Uijongbu was the farthest north we went, then in October of 1951 we headed south again to Seoul. The
Division was in several operations along the way, including those with the names Wolfhound, Thunderbolt,
Exploitation, and Task Forces Myers, Tony, and Fisher. We participated in Operation Ripper, Tomahawk, T.F.
Growdon, and Operation Pile Driver, to name a few. The Division was involved in many battles, at times
pushing the enemy back to the north, and then ourselves being pushed back to the south. We were on the
western side of Korea and then were pulled out. In a day and night drive, we rejoined the battles on the
east central regions of South Korea, then back to the western area.
During the time frame that the Division traveled to East Central Korea, two things stand out in my memory.
Two guys on guard duty were playing Russian Roulette and the gun went off. The guy was holding the pistol at
an angle and the bullet went under the skin, but not through the skull, and around to the rear and exited.
Both were court martialed for "attempted destruction of government property" and sentenced to Company Punishment,
where they were to dig a hole six feet wide and six feet deep. The temperatures were still below freezing
and the ground was frozen as hard as cement. We were moving a lot, so they never did complete the digging of
the hole until it had warmed up a couple months later.
Sometime around the time we entered Seoul, we found a brewery with beer still in a vat. Lots of people
were coming with various things to get beer in. When someone climbed to the top of the vat to look in, he
found a dead Chinese soldier floating in the vat. As far as I ever knew, no one was sick from the beer.
Our Commanding General was Robert H. Soule, who had no love for the Chinese due to having been kept on house
arrest in the late 1940s when stationed in China after World War II. As we approached the city of Seoul, he
sent a message that was dropped by a spotter airplane over Chinese lines. In the message he stated that he
planned to occupy Seoul on a certain date and intended to use a certain building as his headquarters. He
wanted the Chinese to have the heat on in the building and electricity and running water working. The
Chinese completely destroyed that building as a result of the message.
The main thing I remember about Uijongbu was that the Engineers had put up a sign reading, "This is Uijongbu."
Someone had crossed out the "is" and wrote "was" so it read, "This Was Uijongbu." The latter was pretty much
accurate as there was very little left standing over five feet high in the town.
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Division Headquarters
I was in the Division Headquarters Company and we were a little ways behind the actual front lines. We
had a platoon of the Company called the Defense Platoon whose job was to secure the outer edges of the Division
Headquarters area. They were augmented by a platoon named the "Honor Guard Platoon." They were guys
recruited from front line units who were kind of spit and polish guys. During the daytime they were used as
Honor Guards for VIPs and such. Also, there was the use of other members of the Company--like the motor
pool, and these drivers, mechanics, and parts clerk (me) also did nighttime guard duties surrounding the area.
We were busy during the daylight hours with "daytime jobs", and then did our share of the nighttime guard duties.
This made it quite tiring, as we got very little sleep during the night doing our two hours on and four hours off
shifts.
It became a common practice to carry a hand grenade with us on guard duty. We held the handle on the
grenade and pulled out the pin, throwing it away from us in the dark so we could not find it. Then we did
our tour of guard duty holding this grenade and passing it on to the guy who relieved us. No one ever fell
asleep that I know of while doing the guard duty in this manner.
I was never in a direct firefight with an enemy, only being shot at various times during enemy attacks in the
company compound areas and a few times while driving alone in my Jeep back and forth to the Ordnance Company
getting supplies for the motor pool. Those latter times, I put the gas pedal to the metal and drove as fast
as I could to get away from whoever was shooting at me. I never was involved in hand to hand combat, and I
never was wounded. I remember being particular scared in February when we were north and west of Pusan.
There was a full moon shining as near bright as daylight, and there was a couple of feet of white snow on the
ground. Again, I was alone walking guard around a bunch of tents. Like I had done at Hungnam, I tried
to be as small as I could, and slipped from shadow to shadow.
One other time of great fear for me, I was driving my Jeep alone at night, heading to the Division's Ordnance
Company for badly needed spare parts for the Company's vehicles. I was driving without headlights, using the
blackout lights on a narrow dirt road crossing a mountain. While rounding a curve with a drop of several
hundred feet a few feet to my left, I was fired on by someone with an automatic weapon of some kind.
Since I was not in a line company, we didn't get tank support like they did. I remember one incident,
however, of tank support/help. Sometime in August of 1951, during the monsoon season, there was a report
that the Chinese had obtained napalm and we were to be bombed with it. As to where the Chinese would have
gotten both the napalms or the planes to drop it with, or the ability to fly over us since we owned the skies over
Korea was never explained. Anyway, there were several tanks equipped with bulldozer blades on them sent to the
Division Headquarters area. They scooped out large holes in the ground for all the tents of the
Headquarters, including the tents that we slept in. What good this would have been or really how bad it
would have been was quite a great subject for discussions for a long time. These holes were a danger,
especially at night. Not only could they be stumbled into, but the bigger danger they posed came one night
when a monsoon rain hit us and flooded all the holes. As far as I can remember, everyone escaped out of the
holes alive, but it could have been real bad, either from the flooding or if we had been bombed with the napalm,
it would have just flowed down into the holes and burned everything and everyone.
During the time I was in Korea, I only knew two men who were killed. One was the guy who was trapped in
the burning building in Hamhung and died. The other guy was a pilot of a light aircraft. I only knew
him slightly through his crew chief, who was a good buddy of mine. The pilot's airplane was shot down and it
was believed he survived the crash, but was tortured and then executed. I don't remember his name or the
state he was from, but I remember that they pinned his Lieutenant bars through the skin of his forehead.
There was a lot of concern over being captured. The concern began when some of the guys who were taken
prisoner by the North Koreans in the early days of the war managed to escape and told of what the enemy was doing
to POW's. Then some who were taken prisoner by the Chinese managed to escape, and we learned about the
mental aspects of the Chinese treatment of the POWs. This scared the average guys.
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You Do It
Sometime in 1951 when I was pinned down in a foxhole/trench one night, two things happened that still stand out
in my mind. The guy next to me reached into a pocket of his field jacket to pull out a letter to re-read,
and found that the letter had been cut in half from a bullet that had gone through his jacket without touching
him. A few moments later as we were being attacked again, the Lieutenant called out to me, "Kendall, stick
your head up and see if you can see where the firing is coming from." I answered, "F--- you, Sir. If
you want to see where they are, stick your own head up!" I did not get in trouble for my answer to him, but
in a short time I was transferred from the supply room to the motor pool section of the company. I continued
in this job until I left North Korea on October 24, 1951. The reason I know this date is that my mother
saved all the letters I wrote while in the Army and later gave them to me. I found that date in one of my
letters to her.
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Transfer to Motor Pool
After being transferred from Company supply to the Company motor pool, I was the parts clerk and driver for the
Motor Officer. My role in all of this was my usual job in going to the Division's 703rd Ordnance Company for
parts for the vehicles, stripping needed but good parts off of vehicles I found on the trip that had been wrecked
or blown up, and driving the Motor Officer in the lead vehicles of the convoys as the Division moved from place to
place.
I had my own Jeep to drive to the 703rd Ordnance Company for parts, as well as a tool box of tools to use to
strip parts off when I found a wrecked vehicle. During one of these trips to 703rd Ordnance, my left knee
was sticking out the side of the Jeep body, and froze from the cold and wind on it. When I arrived at the
703rd, I tried to get out of the Jeep, but since the knee would not bend, I fell to the ground. A couple of
guys saw me and picked me up. They helped me to an open fire in a barrel, where I managed to warm my knee up
enough to get it to move again.
We continued north as the Chinese were pushed north, and were on the move a lot. Our Division stayed
towards the western side of the Korean peninsula, but one time we were pulled back and then made an end run to the
east and around to the middle of the peninsula to stem the breakthrough that the Chinese had made in that area.
I remember that on this trip I was driving the motor pool officer and some other officer who had bummed a ride
with us as we made our way up over a mountain pass. We ran into tanks that were moving in the opposite
direction. The tanks had to maneuver so that one tread was on the road and the other up on the side of the
mountain. To get through, our trucks had to scrape their sides against the tanks. The trucks that had
dual tires on the rear wheels had the outer tire of the dual setup not on the road, but hanging over the side in
open air over a several hundred feet drop off.
Our Jeep led the convoy in a pull back (we didn't use the word "retreat"), with air bursts of enemy artillery
exploding over head and showering us with shrapnel. Meanwhile, line companies were firing at the Chinese
from the side of the road to hold the road open for the Company to get through. A Lieutenant who was the
Motor Officer was my immediate supervisor. When we came under fire, I was wearing just a soft hat and air
bursts of artillery started exploding over our heads. I remember trying to feel behind my seat for my steel
helmet so I could put it on. The Lieutenant told me to keep my eyes and mind on the road and he would get my
helmet for me. I also remember him being very shaken after we drove through a field safely and a two and a
half ton truck behind us was destroyed by a land mine it drove over. Either our Jeep was not heavy enough to
set off the mine, or the truck was heaver or wider and hit the land mine. The driver of the other truck was
not hurt.
I continued driving and then my right front wheel fell off. The officer who had bummed the ride walked up
to see what happened to the truck behind us, and then saw my Jeep sitting there minus the right front wheel.
He was quite shocked and kept mumbling about all the mountain roads we had covered that day, only to have the
wheel fall off while on level ground.
I can't say what the quality of his or other officer's leadership in a direct confrontation with the enemy
would have been because these officers were not involved in leading soldiers in front line combat type of service.
We soldiers just took who or what we were given as officers and tried to exist with them as we tried to exist and
survive the war.
During this time, in addition to the "daytime" type of jobs in keeping the Company's vehicles running, I helped
along with all the rest in taking turns at night as guards around the perimeter of the Company's area where we
lived. My role was just as a member of the Company to keep it functioning. I did nothing heroic.
Since I was in the Third Infantry Division Headquarters Company, the only persons of the other national forces
serving in Korea that were with the Company were the liaison officers and enlisted personnel of the various
forces. It was interesting to stand in the chow line and hear several different languages being spoken at
the same time. I do have some memories of other nationalities I met in Korea.
The Turks were said to be hard fighters who did not like to waste ammunition, so most kills were by a single
bullet to the forehead. They liked to make bayonet charges, and forever were sharpening their knives and
bayonets. They would nick their arms with the knife or bayonet to draw blood before putting it away. I
also remember that during my time in Korea, the South Korean troops had a very bad reputation of withdrawing as
soon as any attack was started on their lines. The Belgium troops were happy when they were attached to the
Third Infantry Division, as the Belgium people remembered fondly the Third Division's role in freeing them from
the Germans in World War II. English officers were very haughty. An English Major assigned as a
liaison officer had several enlisted men with him and they had to stand guard outside his tent, even though the
Division Headquarters Company's Defense Platoon, along with assigned other members of the Company, provided
security around the entire area. There were some problems associated with different languages and usage of
various words in a language by the people of that language group.
I had little contact with the enemy. The North Koreans I helped capture in Wonsan were mostly young, and
the only other time I was close to more than one at a time was when I was close to a group of around eight or ten
Chinese prisoners, and they were all young also. A couple of times I saw other prisoners--Chinese
officers--and they were mostly older. I would say they were in their thirties. As to being good
fighters, I have no personal knowledge of this. I was told that when the Chinese attacked, it was in waves
of soldiers. The first couple of ranks were armed with Russian 9mm burp guns and a canister of 72 rounds of
ammunition. Ranks after these were armed sort of catch as catch can--some with old bolt action rifles, some
with pitchforks, and others with no weapon at all. The Chinese officers used both psychological means and
chemical means to get their men to attack. An attack was usually preceded by blowing of bugles and beating
on drums and wash tubs, accompanied also by dancing around bon fires. A captured Chinese officer brought
into our area for medical attention had a leather bag like school children's book bags back in the 1930s and 40s.
In the bag were various drugs like opium that the officers gave to the soldiers. I was told that the Chinese
did not seem to care how many of their own troops were killed in these kinds of attacks.
At Division Headquarters we generally did not need fire support, but on a few occasions when Chinese were
nearing the Headquarters or protecting the evacuation route, we were provided with some artillery support and fast
firing weapons like the Quad 50's which were used to turn back the attacking forces. The occasional attacks
that did reach into our area were mostly during the nighttime. There was also in 1951 nighttime "attacks" by
an old bi-wing airplane with its engine slightly out of tune. It was a harassing factor that caused an "air
raid" alert, where we had to spend time in trenches when we otherwise would have been sleeping. The pilot
carried a few mortar shells and hand grenades that he dropped out of the airplane. We were instructed to not
shoot at the airplane, which we were sure we could hit, as it would give away our exact position and pinpoint us
for mortar or artillery attacks. We also could not strike a match or use a lighter to light a cigarette at
these times. Yet we also knew that with the ebb and flow of "civilians" who came through, our position was
always known by the enemy anyway.
One night there was a big fire fight a short distance away. A lot of spen |
