A War Story
Korea 1950
Eugene Halverson
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| Eugene Halverson |
Our leaders believed that a communist lurked under every rock and bush, now it’s a Muslim in every bush. When Hitler waved his flag Germany marched and now America
The
FORGOTTEN WAR
Eugene Halverson
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| 47th Engineer Camouflage Battalion |
On June 25,
1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean
People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, our Secretary of State Dean
Acheson told President Truman stay out of it.
But by July, American troops had entered the war to fight this damn war. Yes,
a war, not a Police
Action In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives during
the war. We lost 27,000 troops and
82,000 injuries. They called it a
skirmish but it was a very vicious and bloody war that never settled anything the
Korea is still divided just waiting for another war.
In 1904 Korea
belonged to Russia, 1905 it belonged to Japan.
The Koreans now free of foreign domination expected to be free of Land Lords
too. But the United States quickly set
up a so-called Democratic goverment with the hated Dictator Syngman Rhee. He killed thousands of his own people in his
quest for power. Why would the people
fight for him or America? It was no
wonder his army seemed frightened, confused, and seemed inclined to flee. We messed up badly and the people hated our
guts.
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| Eugene back center |
Eventually America
knew there was never going to be a victory. But the killing went on, some ridges became
famous for the dead. An armistice was
signed in July 1953.
I got this letter one day that told me to
report to Fort Douglas, Utah. Well, I did and was soon sitting
on a train with about 120 other Utah boys heading to Fort Riley,
Kansas. Being bored I eventually went to sleep. We woke up the next
morning sitting in a side track in the middle of nowhere. There was
nothing to see anywhere. Hours later some army trucks showed up on the
horizon and gathered us up and took us to Fort Riley, Kansas.
Soon we were crossing the Republican River to a place called Marshall
Field with a small runway and a bunch of two story barracks. It was an old
abandoned Second World War training center.
It was now opened up as 47 Engineer
Camouflage Battalion at Fort Riley, Kansas.
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| Armenian Barbeque Reunion SLC |
We were issued
all the equipment we needed for Basic Training.
Then we learned what was needed to be a soldier and how to use
them. Most of the things were stupid,
just the army way. I
loved the shooting, in fact I was an expert marksman on the first try. I
put many bulls –eyes with my M1 at 500 Yards and done quite well at the other
yardages. The carbine was a bunch of junk. I did not really care
for the 30 caliber machine gun or the 50 BAR. It was quite interesting to
call in the artillery on the tanks, it took a little calculation and a little
redirection, then listen to the shells passing overhead. I also liked the
bazooka especially the aiming. I thought it was kind of dumb smelling the
tear gas just so we could appreciate the masks.
War games and hiking through the woods on
marches was fun. Fort Riley was an old Calvary outfit
and some officers still had horses there. I could not see the forest for
the trees, beautiful. It was just a primitive forest that went on for
miles. The trees were very high and little sunlight was able to reach the
ground. I was given the communication job and had to put on the spikes
and climb them to string wires. If you did not set the spikes deep enough
you went sliding on down leaving big gouges in the bark. I volunteered
because no one wanted to do it.
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| Home in Korea |
We built buildings and took a riggers rope
course, making rope bridges, towers, booms to lift and many other things.
Then one day we had the chance to put some of our learning to use. It was
late February and an ice jam and a great flood took out our big steel
bridge. So, we made this pontoon bridge out of fifty gallon barrels and it lasted until the next ice jam. Sometime later
a picture was sent to us showing just how bad the flood was, it covered the
whole valley above the windows of the barracks. I missed the last ice jam
and flood I was now in Korea.
One of classes told us that with an Atomic
Bomb Canon we could win the war with North Korea and on into Manchuria. Just fire the canon and the bomb would kill the
enemy then we run through the blast area and occupy what was left. Too bad for you if your Rontgen Meter told
you, you were dead or just glowed in the dark.
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| Eugene left--822 Engineer Aviation Battalion |
Before the floods came I was picked to
take some special camouflage training at Belvoir, Virginia this lasted
about six weeks and it was quite interesting and fun. First we
camouflaged trucks, guns, whatever large nets and then we went up in an
airplane to look. But what I remember looking at rolls of film taken by
air. If you just looked at it there was nothing to see but if you learned
to focus one eye on one picture and the other on the next in the roll, you could
see in three dimension and the trucks, tanks and buildings would show itself
Every weekend we were on a train to New
York. This was when I really got to know
DeBacker. He said he was a Bell-Hop in some big hotel in Kansas
City and I followed him everywhere. There was not anything that he
did not know and he was the best “Wheeler-Dealer” I have ever known. No
more beef, potatoes and gravy for you, he told me, it’s time you learned what normal
folk eat. From then on he ordered every cocktail, appetizer, meal,
drink and desert whenever we went out and I loved it. He took us to all
the monuments, historical sites including the Smithsonian Institute in
Washington DC. Weekends found us on
a train to New York, ate in fancy restaurants took tours on buses and rode
the subways. Those Catholic Cathedrals were really worth seeing. We
also celebrated New Year’s Eve with a million other people. New
York opened up their hearts to us. They stopped us on the side wake
to give us free tickets to the big Broadway Shows, baseball games and other
things. Then there was all the things our wheeler-dealer found for
us.
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| Eugene left front 822 Motor Pool |
When we got back to Kansas, DeBacker
said, come on, we are going to Alaska now, let’s sign up, so we
did. Four of us volunteered, the very first to head overseas. I
never found Dorothy’s yellow Brick
Road and never got to see
Riley’s Magical Forest again. I flew home in a four prop
plane and went over to see Dr. Coon to see what he could do for my front teeth
that were broken with a rifle barrel in a scuffle.
Then I was off to Camp Stoneman in California
where I spent almost a month seeing what there was to see in San
Francisco. We volunteered as runners and when we were done, usually an
hour or two we were free to go. Trolleys were fun and took us
everywhere. I quite fascinated with Chinatown, it was more like
magical world. We visited the Wharves. That was my first look at
the ocean and jelly fish. The Golden Gate Bridge was quite
spectacular.
They had no idea what to do with four
Camouflage Foremen in Alaska. One
day I was boarding a ship to Alaska with all my winter clothes. Then they closed the gate and sent us back to
Stoneman. Soon we were on a ship
to Korea.
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| DeBorge and friend |
The papers had a code word that said “Destination
Evil”. We knew what that meant soon we boarded a sad
looking ship called the Lt. Raymond
Beaudoin. As we neared Catalina Island the ocean was
alive with dolphins jumping all around us and flying fish flying so high they
landed on deck. Some sailors put some meat and chicken feathers on a rope
and waited for the sharks to take it. I was on vacation. This is
where I lived for the next twenty one days. I just disappeared. I only
went below to eat, I had nothing to do and liked it that way. DeBacker,
George and Moon volunteered to work in the kitchen “KP” to eat all this fancy
food. Navy Food that I ate was terrible. I still can see the slim
on the Sauerkraut and weenies, yuck.
I carried my own papers so I was my own
master and had no to report to. I was quite happy and had the run of the
ship. I loved the freedom. The ocean was warm and pleasant even far
out to sea and no land in sight. One night everyone was one deck watching
a movie, when we heard cries for help. Four people were on a raft and
their boat was sunk. Funny we did not run over them, no one had seen them
at the bridge. It was us who made them turn around and pick them
up. After dropping them off in Hawaii we sailed on by way of Philippines,
we may have steered clear of the typhoon its self but talk about a crazy
ocean. There were swells of at least a hundred feet high. On top
the propeller was spinning freely out of the water and at the bottom of
the bowl we could see nothing but water, the ocean was many times higher than
the ship. When my stomach began sloshing back and forth I cut down on
liquids and never got seasick.
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| 21 days to Korea |
We decided to catch a shark. We put a chicken with some feathers on a line
with a big hook. We never even got a
bite.
My KP friends with their full stomachs and
kitchen work paid dearly for their fancy food. I was one of the very few
who was not sick. Even the sailors got sick. They laid on the deck
like dead men and every so often they would get hosed down to get rid of the
smell.
The winds eventually quieted the ocean
smoothed so not even a ripple showed. This brought out many humongous
sharks carousing around in packs. Stranger yet were natives three to a
dugout two paddling and one standing out front with a spear to keep the sharks
away. There was no land in sight and I have often wondered how they found
their way home. All in all I quite enjoyed the twenty one days at sea but
I was thankful to be a soldier and not a sailor.
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| Rickshaw ride in Japan |
A few days later we sailed around the
southern tip of Japan and
landed in Sasebo, Japan. This was
quite close Nagasaki that got the second atom bomb. We spent a
short time here while receiving new orders. I wandered all over as there
was much to see, and island with ocean all around. I watched the Japanese
construction workers with their strange looking hand saws and other
tools. There was much to see and I loved it there but soon we were on
small narrow gauge train heading north. We stopped here and there along
to way. Some farmers tried to sell us some fruit and other tasty things
but some officer always chased them away, he said it would make us sick.
I wondered if it still contained radiation from the bombs. On the way we
passed right through Hiroshima. And
it was a mess everything was twisted broken and blacked. I still wonder
why it was necessary to kill so many innocent civilians when we had so many
other targets. There was much to see on our three hundred and fifty miles
train ride an air force base near Osaka.
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| Japan |
Hitch-Hiking now
the original four of us from Kansas were standing on the runway with our
orders in our hands. So, we asked some Fly Boy how we get to Pusan?
Go over there and ask, he said, there is always someone going there. I
walked over to a small building where a bunch of air force guys were talking
and said four of us are hitch-hiking to Pusan. One of them said he would
be happy to take us when he got ready. I tried to show him my orders and
he said he did not care about orders, just grab a parachutes and I’ll show you
all you need to know. He hooked my rip cord to a bar running down the
length of the plane. The chute would open automatically if we jumped out
the doors. Actually there was no door to open or close just large holes
in the side of the plane. Just like the paratroopers did when they
jumped. Sitting next to these holes one on each side gave me a front row
seat of Japan, the ocean and later Pusan where we landed.
The plane we boarded was a C-47.
Pusan city was one of Korea’s major
shipping ports and it was quite large. The poor had houses made of sticks
covered with mud and never painted. The mud was always the color of the
ground around them and were quite drab. The roofs was thatched of some
kind of grass.
A little later I could see large wealthy
mansions on a hill protected by all kinds’ barbed wire, trenches and all kinds
of guns and cannons pointed at us. They
were afraid of their own people.
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| Japan |
So, I asked a soldier what in the hell is
that. That is Pusan Hill and that is
where all the money goes. America pays big bucks every time a plan lands, a
ship docks or a soldier comes. Money and
guns put in to the wrong hands caused a rigged election gave them a terrible
dictator with absolute power. A master
is above any law, he can starve, kill, and torture. A serf is not human and is more like an
animal. No wonder the people hate our guts.
I loved the buildings roofs not only
protected residences from the elements but also had deeper meanings. For
example, the Buddhist curved their temple roofs because they believed that the
shape helped ward off evil spirits.
We continued our walk and found a mess
hall and ate. Someone there told us where to go and who to
see. We gave our orders to some clerk who put us on a narrow
gauge train heading to Taegu, usually called K2 and trucked to Company A of the
822nd Engineer Aviation Battalion.
DeBacker was put in Head Quarters.
Moon went to C Company and God only knows what happened to George after getting
some shots and was flopping around like a fish out of water.
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| DeBorge and Corbett |
Taegu Air Base referred to as K-2, is located within a river valley
between 2 major mountain chains. The Kumho River flows
through Taegu, this the river I took many pictures of women and children
bathing, washing in the polluted river. Rice patties are scattered throughout
the valley.
We did find the area where our Orders had sent us
and finally knew what the word SCARWAF on our papers meant.
Special Category Army Reassigned
With Air Force.
First I was
drafted by the Army, and now drafted out of the Army to the Airforce. I was United
States Air Force became a separate branch of service in 1947. But they had no Combat Engineers to their
buildings or airports. They then borrowed several of the army’s Engineer Heavy Equipment
Battalions. So, now I belonged to the Air Force for the remainder of my
service. I was now a RED HORSE.
Their capabilities are similar to those of the U.S. Navy Seabees and
U.S. Army heavy-construction Battalions.
I even got discharged from the Air Force
in Texas. I was sent to live in a tent to live with both AF and Army
personnel. They wore their Blues’ and I my Kakis’.
When I needed any clothing my camp cot and
two wool blanket were kaki. That’s all they gave me, no sheets or
pillows. Not much for a Korean winter,
So DeBorge took me down to the Black Market to buy sheets, pillow and a woven
Korean straw mattress. But I could not use it until I de-bugged it, I put it in the cold at night and in the sun
and hoped it was enough.
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| a river near our field |
I told Jim I needed drink of water and he
told me the water was not fit to drink. Take your pick pop or beer.
How could I drink a quart of either one? To prove his point he took me
over to this Lister bag full of water, pulled out a large knife and
cut it from top to bottom. Yuck, two inches of slim coated the whole bag
and hundreds of undissolved pills lay on the bottom. While I was thinking
it all over he took me back to the tent and introduced me as the bar tender
because I was not supposed drink all the booze away like the last one
did. I really did miss water and my coffee, it was made of the same
polluted water. Soon I was drinking the
beer and liking it too much. But there was nothing to do about
that. Polio killed two of our Battalion Commanders.
Our Motor Pool
Tent was a large tent used in the Second World War, in fact
it looked identical to those used in the First World War. Thanks to those
who came earlier wooden walls about five feet tall were built on a wooden floor
and the tent set over it. We even had a door with a window in it. A
sign over the door said “Motor Pool”. A small wood burning stove kept us
quite warm. Everything was kept neat and well-scrubbed by a
young Korean House Boy. Kim was only about 12 years old, they said
he could be a communist so they killed him.
He was just a frightened young boy chased south by the war.
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| Japanese Hanger--my welding shop |
Headquarters for Company A, 822 EAB was the
village school. It was here that I was
sent to see the Captain. The Captain was trained at West
Point and was very knowledgeable. The first officer I had ever met
who was worth his salt. Under his guidance our Company was out producing
all the other three companies in the Battalion. It seems like there were all
kinds of construction jobs available but I was not interested and told him
so. I told him that I can weld and repair machinery and he seemed to be
satisfied. I just hoped that I could cut the mustard, I was a boilermaker
who had done a little welding and did the best I could. I got a lot of
practice welding and I was able to show them some of my boilermaker
skills. I was soon given Staff Sergeant Stripes with its privileges and
money. I ran the welding shop and no one bothered me. My shop was
inside this “old Japanese hanger “,
it was big enough to hold the old propeller driven planes and built of
concrete. It oval in shape and was thick enough to withstand a
bomb.
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| young mother |
My overhead welding skills were never what
I wished but I got by. I failed my first overhead test I failed it was
welding a cast iron piece broken from a frame of a shovel. I knew I had
to use stainless steel and the bead had to be relieved of stress and I was
quite proud of how it was progressing when it just popped off.
Then there were various aluminum jobs that were brought in that were
doomed from the start but I tried. An argon gas is a must when
arc-welding and a fuel tank on a jet was quite thin.
I built a blacksmith forge out of some
bricks and plumbing that was soon copied to heat water for washing.
I had to work on anything that needed
welding or burning so I learned to start and operate every kind of machine the
army had. One day I asked for some spark plugs for my Hobart Welder and some
welding rod. Well there
were no stores or warehouses. A soldier who even looked like “Radar” on
Mash picked me up and off we went visiting other engineering battalions.
We traded a set of tires for four spark plugs and even traded for things we did
not need. This was my first trip through Taegu. Policemen
directed traffic with arms and whistle better than any lights ever could.
I was glad I was not driving, everyone was crazy. Trucks, belly scrapers,
bulldozers, graders were working day and night frantically extending the
runway. Then it would be covered with “Pierced Plank”. The plank
interlocked and made a smooth landing strip. In places where it could not
interlock I had to weld it in place.
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| washing clothes |
The work crews had moved on and I
was told where I was needed. I was always alone with my truck and welding
machine parked as far away as my welding cable could reach. I had
witnessed many airplane crashes so when I parked my truck and welding machine, I
would park as far away as my leads would reach. I surely would hate to kill
someone. But I did have many close calls. Some pilots would buzz
the field and on the next pass land butt many times the jets would be shot up
and coming in on a “wing and a prayer”. I was always ready to drop everything
and go rolling off the strip. I had to dive head first with my welding
mask on and hoped it was right direction. Time after time I watched them
land these crippled jets, some trying to land with one, two or no wheels.
They landed extra fast and hard hoping to shear the wheels off and slide in on
their bellies.
I welded was alone and welded into the
night at times to finish. One night someone began shooting at me. My gasoline Hobart Welding machine made to
much noise to hear any gun-fire. I had
no idea that DeBorge and some of my friends ran over to
me and began shooting at the gun flashes across the airfield. I kept welding until I was finished and went
home. I had idea what was happened and
everyone was laughing at me. I felt
cheated somehow.
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| Flying Box Car--C-119 |
Once in a while
a Flying Box Car (C-119s) would come in and land without warning. They flew slow weaving
from side to side, and very scary. Sometimes I had to drop everything
dive and roll off the field. I
always parked my truck as far off the field as my welding leads would reach anyway. One time I had a colonel come shouting at me
to get me and my truck out of here. I told him I had a job to do and for
him to go away. Just teach that stupid pilot how to fly and don’t bother
me.
One morning I got down to the Motor Pool
and no one was there. Everyone was running down to the air field so I
followed. I watched a jet was just taking off. All of a sudden there was a great bang and
the jets engine flamed out. The pilot immediately dropped his napalm
bombs and wing tanks and went skidding on its belly past the end of the runway
and out into the rice paddies. Five Jets
Crashed while taking off this morning.
Korea was the world’s first Jet War and there were fuel problems that
took a while to solve. The fuel became
so thick with the cold the jet simply ran out of fuel.
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| F-51D pressed back into service |
When one crashed on this end they would
taxi down to the other end to see if the next plane could make it up.
Some did, but some did not, and crashed at the other end. One time both
ends were littered with failures. We lost five planes that day.
There were other days like this but not as bad. The cold really had an
effect on take-off. Most of the time the pilots did not seem to get
hurt but I know some of them were killed.
It raised hell with planes and air strip. The wing tanks would
often explode and the rockets caused problems but the bombs would never explode
but if they collided with anything it made a hell of a mess. Just before
I got there a wing tank hit a bulldozer and a truck crew and killed them.
Flameouts were quite common until they got the right fuel mixture.
One afternoon the sirens went
off. Looking up I could see a jet approaching the field and then started climbing.
Then there was a great explosion and fire and then there was nothing to see.
Nothing at all was in the sky until suddenly a parachute opened and it seemed
like it took forever to get down, they told me he lived but was burned.
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| A Winter to fight |
One night a large plane that was in
trouble asked to land and was told to go away, permission deigned. The
next thing I knew it deliberately flew right into the mountain killing the crew
and 20 or 30 soldiers. DeBorge, Deisinroth, Moore and Gallanis made the
hike to see what happened.
One day just after dark our anti-aircraft
guns began shooting. What a sight that
was. The rockets’ red glare, the bombs
bursting in air and metal falling all over. What a display of fire power
and a grand sight to see but nothing was hit or seen, nor any word was ever
passed down the line for the scare.
The best display of firepower was when two soldiers got drunk
and found a bunker with a machinegun and a great deal of
ammunition. A rata, tat, tat was heard most of the day. The AP’s
(Air Police) were excited and ran around in jeeps. Eventually, the guns
quieted down and the AP’s captured the sleeping soldiers.
When I was still a corporal I pulled Guard
Duty. It was so dark black, I could not
even see my hand in front of my face. I expected everything it to be
quite, but this was when the village would come alive. People seemed to
be running here and there. Most of them were rolling barrels off the base
and home. Sometimes it got quit noisy but as long as nothing came my way
and they did not bother me I let them steal whatever they needed. I was told
to shoot in the air to scare them off. But they needed it more than we
did.
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| 5 o'clock Charlie and his bomb |
5
o’clock Charlie’s war. I never knew about him until I watched “Mash” on TV.
My brother, Lee was up north near Inchon
and we were telling war stories a while back and he kept telling me about this
black airplane that came in just before dark dropping bombs out the side of his
cockpit. He dropped bombs here and there but never with any accuracy. He seemed to harass them for a long time and
for some reason he just stopped.
I told Lee about almost being run over by
a black airplane
while out welding one night. He got interested asked me more about
it. When I told him it had no markings, just black. Then he called
me a dummy, that’s “5 o’clock Charlie”. He’s
loading up on your base and dropping bombs on us. Who knows? I liked the story anyhow.
We were working night and day on our
Airfield there were jobs for everyone. Trucks, bull dozers, crushers,
cranes, belly scrapers and other heavy equipment manned by army and air force
personal. As soon as drainage and base was laid across the valley Korean
laborers were laying what we called “Pierced
Planking” down for the final finish. Each succeeding piece
interlocked with the last. It was really called Marsden matting and was used during world war two to build
airfields on the islands on our march to Japan. Each piece was
10 feet long and 15 inches wide, the whole pattern was 3 wide by 39 long and
weighed 66 pounds.
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| friendly family |
Our field grew everyday but as it did the
planes were loaded heavier so it seems like we still had to short of a
runway. This work never stopped all during my year in Korea. There
always seemed to be shortages, problems, and expansions. At night I would
go out and weld the problem areas. The heavy traffic kicked up dust
and stones that were sucked into the jets motor and the pierce planking was
wearing out. The metal runways were replaced by concrete after I left and
I have no idea what it
is like now. In fact the whole 822 Battalion has been
disbanded.
A Puzzle to Solve
I
read the “Stars and Strips”, (an army
newspaper) praising us for saving the Koreans from Communism. Then why was there so much hate in the
villager’s eyes? Most of my friends
thought we were heroes but something was wrong.
I started to look for answers elsewhere, maybe the peasant farmers could
tell me. I wandered here and there walking through the village. I
found my walks quite fascinating I looked at their yards and houses, some had
walls separating the families. Everything was made of the same color rock
or walls of mud everything had the color of earth around them. The houses
are small with thatched roofs. The mountains have lost most of their
trees and fuel is scarce.
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| Retired farmer and genealogist |
They
built their cook-stoves so that the smoke passed under their floors before it
goes up the chimney. I watched them grow their rice with primitive tools. Planting each rice plant in a few inches of
water in a large shallow pond. Wondering
if they were able to even consume even a small part of their harvest. As
I walked through the village the people would disappear like ghosts, a look at
the eyes of those I did meet showed both fear and hate or maybe just
disappointment.
50
years ago Korea was ruled by kings and princes in a feudal system, serfs ruled
by masters. Japan defeated China and
Russia and by 1910 conquered Korea, the military ruled with an iron hand. The Japanese goal was to force the Koreans to
speak Japanese and to consider themselves Japanese even adopting Japanese names.
This all ended in 1945 when America won the war and the people were so grateful
and happy until America decided to bring back the old “Princes”. No one wanted them but Syngham Rhee was somehow elected. He came into power determined to crush any
opposition. He killed a half a
million of his own people.
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| killed in our village |
One
day we were told to turn in our rifles, that was alright with me and we did have
drunken soldiers. I think it was to make
sure that we did not interfere with the South Korean Soldiers who came to kill many of the people in my
village I really don’t know how many but we soon
had starving children eating our garbage.
I
remember Kim, he was a happy 12 year old house-boy, we loved him and he did a
good job. One day they carted him away
while we were working.
One day about a dozen prisoners came
marching by our field wearing chains around their hands and chains around their
feet. The little guys were madder than hell and I could not blame
them. With them were some great big Chinese soldiers who were almost seven
feet tall they looked like Punjab in little Orphan Anne, they all
walked around with a big smile looking like big teddy bears. They came
from the War where they had had their feet frozen, and blood was showing
through the bandages.
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| See-Saw |
The Turkish Soldiers I seen wore turbans and carried a
large curved scimitar. They looked mean and terrorized the enemy, they at
night they would silently leave the trenches and kill the enemy with their scimitars.
One morning the women of our village in an
act of rebellion stopped the digging and closed the roads. There was
a hill nearby that supplied the fill for our new airfield unfortunately it was
also an ancient
cemetery full of bodies. What a bunch of
idiots, no wonder the people hated us. Work was stopped until one
of the lord and masters down in Pusan found another part of the mountain for us
to dig on. I really think this act of rebellion was the reason Korean
troops were sent to kill half the people in our village.
At night the villagers came to kill us, at
daylight we killed them. We killed two million South Koreans and another
two million North Koreans. The Koreans who fought the Japanese were now fighting
us.
I talked to two Berkley College educated
Koreans. They told me the war will never be over until the people can own
their own land and be free, even if we have to wait a hundred years.
History tells us about wonderful cities or the wars but nothing about the
people.
Peter Brooks,
LA Times Complained bitterly and called the Koreans
ungrateful. There have always been anti-American riots in South
Korea. The statue of General MacArthur has to be guarded day and night so
the people will not tear it down. He just killed to many people,
more than necessary.
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| War |
R&R (Relaxation
& Recreation)
I went back to Japan twice,
DeBorg and I from A Company and about four from other 822 companies. We
met at the airfield hitching a ride. We found
a willing pilot and boarded a Gooney Bird bound for Tokyo. On the
plane we talked to some soldier who was so happy to be going back to some
wonderful place. “Do you want to go”, yes we did we had no idea where and
what to do. He was as good as DeBacker and a lot more enthusiastic.
He waved down a taxi and we all climbed in. It was so crowded, I was
lucky to even look out the window. The driver could not understand a word
we said, but the soldier pointed the way and he drove like a maniac away from
the city down many allies to the back part of town.
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| Japan |
We parked in front of a nice well
maintained two story building and just went in. The Madam welcomed us in
and given a room. I knew it was a Geisha House when we were called out to
meet a bunch of smiling young ladies. One of them came over and tried to
talk to me, she was a real cutie but I chickened out. You Christian Boy,
Cherry Boy. So, she went over to the next soldier. I thought maybe
the Madam would send me away but I was treated with great respect. I was
treated well, feed well and did most everything else and was left to sleep
alone. Whenever I would come near any of the girls they would curtsy and
smile, some would always call me Christian Boy. The Japanese like most
Asians thought sex was natural and not shameful. A man stayed young by
the girl giving her youth to him. I took pictures everywhere but not one
in the house, what a dummy.
Breakfasts were great, just like a fancy
hotel, eggs, bacon but rice instead of potatoes. After breakfast the boys
would wander into the shopping area and be gone until suppertime. The
food and drink was very expensive by their standards but it was just pennies to
us. Japanese rice beer was to best beer I had ever had, but it was very
powerful, 12 or 13 percent. Our steaks were very expensive and was cooked
to perfection as far as I was concerned. Those that wanted it well done
had to send it back two or three times and it still was not cooked enough for
them. The cook just knew she was destroying the meat and that was
that.
The people were poor and they had very few
cars and trucks. Most of them were three wheelers, some made during the
war and others were homemade. There were no lights or anything to regulate
traffic, they honked the horn and cut in and out of traffic, pretty scary.
We travelled a little by the rickshaws
but mostly walked here and there. It was fun and quite fast and
quite. Other than Nagasaki Japan rebuilt their cities quite
well. I did not see any bombed out areas. Shops were open for
business and people were out. I bought a few things to send back home but
mostly I looked and watched. There are still some things that I had no
idea what they were doing. I took a lot of pictures and done a lot of
walking. I can’t remember how I got to the city or home again, and even
how we got back to the airbase with my case of whiskey and my
possessions. The Captain asked me to bring the whiskey back to save the
drinkers/drunks from going blind with the Korean stuff. We hitched a ride
on another Gooney Bird home. I believe I could
have traveled all over Asia if I wanted too, no one ever
found us or
asked us anything.
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| Japan |
We
worked on the field day and night and it was dangerous. We had to watch
for planes taking off and landing. Many came home damaged and some did
not come home at all.
When
I first came to Taegu there were all kinds of old propeller driven air
craft, the Mustangs, Grumman, Tiger Cat, Corsairs, Douglas Skyraiders. Soon there were jets like F-80 Shooting
Stars, and the Sabre jet, later came the F-84’s and the F-86. The problem with
them was that our runways were to short and had to be lengthened in a
hurry. The Air Force had to overcome the
flame-outs caused by fuel problems. Cold
weather was a real problem. The Russian
Migs seemed to have a field day until our pilots got better planes and learned
the Migs weakness.
Another
R&R to Japan
and now I was hitch hiking back to Tokyo, no one I knew was able go.
I was even alone on the plane. If I knew how to find the Geisha House I
may have went back. But I got a room in a fancy hotel. It was clean
and neat, hot tubs showers good food. I got to see many of the things I
did not see before and took some pictures but missed getting a picture of
something I am still wondering about. It looked like a giant auger being
twisted by four giant men, round and round they went. I shopped and sent
presents home. I was glad the trip was over. Soon I was back
looking for a plane to Taegu again.
Time
passed and it was getting close to going home. I went down to the Black
Market and loaded up with some hot items. I put them and my presents in a
wooden box and banded it with the help of some Lieutenant and sent it away
but it never got home, the Navy lost or took it.
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| Korean House in village |
I remember one day when trucks began
arriving and parking on our airfield, people were soon setting up a stage and
setting out chairs. Bob
Hope and the Bunny Girls came and I made sure I
got there early enough to get a good seat. Some of my friends did not
like Bob Hope but I did. I thought he was funny and he put on a good
show. It lasted a couple hours and I loved it. I cannot remember
any of the jokes but I do remember the girls. Their costume was kind of
skimpy and the wiggle waggle showed of the bunny tail. They were
cute. The show lasted a few hours and I thought it was great.
One day a
Funeral came by and I thought it was parade or some kind
of a celebration. It seemed like a very festive occasion. Everyone was
happy. There was food and drink with talking and singing. Some were
even drunk. The dead person was being taken to the cemetery. It was
a Funeral procession supposed
to show the Gods or his village who was his friends and family. The
gathering of friends, family, drinking and eating would be something even I
would like.
The old is much revered in Korea and
even the master leaves him alone. His food and care is provided by his
family or village. He is now too old to work and is now a retired farmer
and is honored for it. He is and dressed in white. I have seen them dressed in black but I don’t
what that means. I have a picture of an
old man looking like he is recording his family’s history or even the village’s
history. I would have loved to talk to him.
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| Funeral |
America has always been
criticized for its war on civilians. We killed almost 3,000,000 South
Koreans in our drive to Seoul and beyond. The civilian deaths ranged
about 80%, twice as high as the war deaths in Europe. Then we let a
madman like, Sigmund Rhea kill another half a million rice farmers to show them
he had the power to do so.
Our first
mistake was to give all the land in Korea to make landlords of a few old
families when our occupation began. These 13 families
now owned all the land in Korea. Now we had the Master, (the rich) and
the Serf (he poor), the hated feudal system was put back in operation by
America. A great deal of money was given to finance this new
government.
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| Korea today |
Money was given for every plane that
landed every ship that docked, and every soldier that came. The unbridled
pursuit of wealth by the upper class through various privileges and their
conspicuous consumption fanned the feeling of relative poverty among the
ordinary people.
They told me, “The American Empire like other empires
will only last maybe 100 years, maybe more. Then we will fight again to
be free.
This anger was
further inflamed by a crisis in home ownership that worsened in the mid-1980s.
In a country as small as Korea, land is vital to power and wealth.
At first the Land lords (chaebols) owned
100% of the land in 1951. After riots and mass demonstrations in the late
1980s by the people, the chaebols were forced to sell some of the land to help ease the land market.
By 1985
over 6 million people were renting, squatting or homeless. The poorest
30% of the population have an average of two square meters per person and three
families per house. Estimates are that Seoul has 2 million squatters out of a total population of
9.6 million. Evictions for the 1988
Olympics, in the name of beautification, removed 3.5 million people
from 230 slums. This is why everything looked like
everyone was prosperous and happy. I was given the opportunity to visit Korea
with other veterans a few years ago but I was angry and missed my chance. I do regret it now.
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| Korea today |
Cheap labor and money created the
Capitalistic climate creating global multinationals with huge international
operations. The word "chaebol" means "business family" or
"monopoly" in Korean. The
chaebols have impeded development of small and medium-sized businesses in South
Korea, creating massive imbalances in the economy.
With so much power and money in business
land and rice lost importance. The
ownership problem also caused the mass migration to the cities and
factories. The Chaebols power over the people but he still held the
land. Now we have tenant farmers who rent the land, but care little about
the land or its future. This leads not
only to pollution but also to the eventual exhaustion and desolation of the
farmland.
They built beautiful cities and created
jobs and now we have a middle class
which is a good thing. The rapid growth
of industry has made Korea a show-case of democracy.
In my time there were very few buildings I
only knew of peasant farmers, and absentee
landlords. About 30 years later a civil war forced the wealthy
landlords to sell some of their land. But most of the farmers now are tenant farmers who rent the land from the
land lord and care nothing about the land.
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| fish for sale |
By PFC Marvin H. Petal
Special to Pacific Stars and Stripes Written: 21 June 1953
Few people ever get to read unit histories tucked away in some obscure locked box in the back reaches of a headquarters. For the most part they are formalized military reports written in the stilted language of documentation and they carry the ominous red stamp: SECRET.
The files of the aviation engineers are especially encased in a vault of security. Thus, the drama of war is seldom replayed. But once in a while the histories are read and the drama has a brief encore. Each unit history of the aviation engineers contains a statement of the outfit’s primary mission. Universally, it is the generalized, “to construct, maintain, camouflage, and defend field airdromes.”
The SCARWAF story is that and a lot more.
The SCARWAF story is that and a lot more.
The Army Information Digest places the beginning of the SCARWAF story in 1947 when the Air Force was established as a separate entity under the national security act. “The new Air Force had no engineering units and the old Army aviation engineers were left without a market for their specialty. The logical result was SCARWAF.”
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| Eugene welding pierced planking on Airfield |
A new Air Force program to utilize its own engineers may soon ring down the curtain on SCARWAF (Special Category Army With Air Force). Meanwhile, however, the drama has been played.
There is one unit history which tells of a battalion that came to Korea in the early stages of the campaign.
They stumbled onto a mine field in Wonsan harbor and wallowed helplessly as enemy bombers swung in low. Dogged before they had even started, they somehow got ashore and moved forward through enemy fire. The report was scribbled in longhand. In the infant action there was a powerful enemy. The weather. An airstrip is a temperamental thing and it won’t allow itself to be built unless conditions are just right. But the weather was never just right. When winter came the ground froze and balked and wouldn’t be turned by the giant blades of the bulldozers. And when the ground had finally been scraped the engineers couldn’t pour concrete in the below freezing weather. Improvising, they set control fires on the field and brought the ground up to concrete-pouring temperature.
They stumbled onto a mine field in Wonsan harbor and wallowed helplessly as enemy bombers swung in low. Dogged before they had even started, they somehow got ashore and moved forward through enemy fire. The report was scribbled in longhand. In the infant action there was a powerful enemy. The weather. An airstrip is a temperamental thing and it won’t allow itself to be built unless conditions are just right. But the weather was never just right. When winter came the ground froze and balked and wouldn’t be turned by the giant blades of the bulldozers. And when the ground had finally been scraped the engineers couldn’t pour concrete in the below freezing weather. Improvising, they set control fires on the field and brought the ground up to concrete-pouring temperature.
Often the field site was a frustrating horizon of mountains, swamps, and rice paddies. In one project the 1903rd Engineer Aviation Battalion moved more than ½ million truck loads of earth.
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| village children |
They had to set up rock quarries, asphalt plants, sand and gravel pits, rock crushing plants, and concrete supply centers. And there had to be the usual mess halls; fences, offices, motor pools, utilities shops, power plants, and latrines. All the while the men gave top priority to their mission and often slept in pup tents.
Of necessity, the early troops were thrown hastily into their jobs and many had not had time for thorough training. So, even as the building and fighting surged, there were on-the-job training programs in progress. Sometimes all the long weeks of work were in vain. As the enemy poured south over the hills, the airfields had to be hurriedly destroyed before withdrawal.
One outfit operating at a base near Pyongyang, the present capital, writes this in its unit history:
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| Korea today |
The swing of battle caused frequent problems. Just east of Yongchon, Company A of the 822 EAB met with the enemy who threw a barrage of mortar, high velocity and small arms fire. “Under fire for several hours,” the history reads, “the company was finally rescued by fighter aircraft that napalmed enemy positions. Friendly infantry also moved into the area and pushed back the enemy forces.” The 822nd received the Presidential Unit Citation. And the men received their share of Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts.
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| See-Saw--never to old |
Despite the pressure from the campaign many historians had a sense of humor. An excerpt from an 811th EAB report has it that “Company B returned from K-23 at the request of the Chinese.” Another outfit reported, “A company party was held Friday evening 23 March 1951 at which all personnel became pleasantly polluted.” Of morale. The 802nd EAB historian observed, “There was a prevalent feeling of doing an important and vital job.”
In one report of the parent 930th Engineer Aviation Group there is an entry which seems to sum up the SCARWAF story. One of the outfits was given 30 days in which to have an airstrip ready for action. The historian wrote:
“In unison with the clamoring of the equipment the men could be heard swearing, groaning, enduring the intense heat of the sun, and there in front of our eyes a miracle was taking place. Day after day the clamoring continued, the swearing increased, the sun burned hot on our bodies, the long hours dragged into days, the days into nights, and again the sun.
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| Bathing and washing clothes in the river |
“The strip was put into operation 9 days and F-51s began operating from the dirt runway. Immediately there was a marked change in the Korean conflict. With the Air Force entrenched close to their targets, the bombing attacks could be more than hit and run affairs. And thus the tide of battle was turned.”
And thus the aviation engineers have carried on in the tradition of “construct, maintain, camouflage, and defend field airdromes.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteMy dad served with the 822nd EAB in Korea from 1952-1953. He was at the airfield at K2 in Taegu. His name was Wyman Brazzell, but went by the nickname of Steve. I am making a shadow box in his honor. I was wondering if you knew what patches they wore at this time. I know he was authorized the SCARWAF patch, but I wondered if they wore a different shoulder patch on the other arm? Any help would be appreciated.
Smitty;
ReplyDeleteI have an original 822nd Japanese made patch from that unit.
They had an unofficial patch made!
ReplyDelete