Calvin Williams
Photo by David Cline
As part of the research for Korea: The Unfinished War, American RadioWorks conducted almost 100 interviews with veterans and historians. We've made those interviews available here. Rough transcripts accompany each interview - but these are incomplete, and often paraphrase the speaker. The authoritative source should be seen as the audio recording, not the transcription. You can listen to and/or read the interviews -but please DO NOT QUOTE from the transcript.
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Calvin Williams interviewed by David Cline
Houston, Texas
January 13, 2003
{David Cline:} David Cline for American Radioworks on Jan 13th, 2003. Tell me who you are.
{Calvin Williams:} Calvin Williams, age 70. I live in Houston, Texas.
{DC:} What unit did you serve with?
{CW:} United States Marine Corps. Went to Korea around July of 1950 with 1st Marine Division. Was approximately 19.
{DC:} Just out of high school?
{CW:} Had a little bit of college. Before the war started I enlisted in the Marine Corps for a three-year term. Ended up serving four.
{DC:} Didn’t know you would be going to war?
{CW:} Didn’t know. Did volunteer from the 2nd Division to go over to the 1st Division when the war broke out. Needless to say I was accepted and headed to San Diego.
{DC:} Why did you want to go?
{CW:} Esprit de corps. With a group of fellows who had already been transferred and I did not want to be left behind.
{DC:} Shipped out from San Diego?
{CW:} San Diego, correct and went to Japan and regrouped there before going aboard ship to Korea.
{DC:} When did you arrive in Korea?
{CW:} Arrived about June or July. We went into the Inchon Invasion – whatever month that was.
{DC:} Can you remember your first impressions of the country?
{CW:} Was like any country. Always fascinating to a young person going in. Wasn’t as developed as I’m sure it is today. Lot of dusty roads and most of our activities were confined to our own units. So as far as seeing the countryside, which was hilly terrain, it looked like any country to me.
{DC:} When you landed what happened next?
{CW:} When we went into Inchon, we didn’t hit too much opposition and we immediately went into Seoul and were there for a few months before we were pulled back and went aboard ship and went around to Wonsan. From Wonsan, we proceeded to go north and I volunteered for a trip going to the Manchurian boarder, which was where I came engaged with the enemy and ended up getting captured on one of those trips.
{DC:} What was it like to fight up there?
{CW:} Very hard because when we were captured, we were in a convoy of approximately 500 United Nations groups and so forth. I recall like yesterday, I looked in front of our convoy. First we put our vehicle in the middle of the convoy because it looked good and strong. Tanks in the front and tanks in the back. I remember looking at the vehicle in the back of us and it had a bunch of British Marines and behind there, a bunch of Turkish Marines. We had the 31st Army Regiment. I recall more or less admiring the convoy – no one could touch us, we’re strong. All the vehicles sitting with 50 caliber machine guns on them. Course all the guys were pretty heavily armed. We experienced some small arms fire, but got out and defended our positions, our road and continued to move forward.
{DC:} This was what month?
{CW:} This was November. We were all in summer gear more or less. We weren’t prepared for extreme weather in the north of Korea.
{DC:} So your equipment -
{CW:} Was not what we needed at all.
{DC:} What about arms?
{CW:} Weapons worked, yes. Course that was something you were always taking care of. In combat and not in combat, always checking equipment and keeping it maintained. So the cold weather had very little effect on us in terms of arms.
{DC:} What weapon did you have?
{CW:} M-1. At the time, when you get into heavy situations I often thought, the M-1 – man I wish this was something larger. Like firing a bee bee gun at night when in combat and you’re surrounded by mortars and heavy weapons firing against you. When I was captured, our lead tank was knocked out. I remember the Chinese ambushed from the […] into our lead tank. We made an attempt to turn, but the vehicles in the rear were knocked out. We were caught in a cross-fire. It was well planned. We had 500 people, servicemen in the convoy and next morning after fighting maybe 100 survived; we had a lot of wounded. The Chinese did agree, when we surrendered, to allow the wounded to be evacuated, which we always thought a lot of. Next morning after we surrendered they allowed us to put them on some vehicles and get them out of the area.
{DC:} You weren’t wounded?
{CW:} I wasn’t wounded. I came out of extremely heavy firefight without a scratch. We found out later while we were prisoners of war, while the convoy was actually under attack, the word came down from the higher echelon and the Chinese volunteers – really the first time they penetrated into the north of Korea – to attempt to take some prisoners. We were fortunate that order came down because by morning we were sitting ducks. All of us were very low on ammunition. We had been zeroed in by mortar fire from surrounding mountains. So we were sitting ducks. Very little chance to do anything but surrender at that time. We took a rough count and vote of all the guys and everyone pretty much agreed that if they would evacuate our wounded we would surrender to them.
We had a major by the name of John MacLachlan (sp?) with us and he was highest ranking officer at the time with us. Forty-five years later I was going a reunion in North Carolina and went through Savannah and knew that the major had lived there. I contacted his home and he came to the phone and I said, “Major MacLachlan.” He said, “Yes, Calvin, but it’s General MacLachlan.” [laugh] He had made a career of the Marine Corps and advanced.
{DC:} He had survived.
{CW:} What made me think of him – I got bulletin the other day that he had passed away.
{DC:} That was hell of fire fight then.
{CW:} Very heavy. We lost a lot of men that night.
{DC:} Did you stay with your vehicles or did you dig in?
{CW:} We were close to our vehicles. We managed to set up a perimeter in some ditches in between – in my particular situation, I was in a ditch bordered by a railroad track and the road we were on was probably one of the few routes into the group we were going to meet who were still on the Manchurian boarder. Later we found out as they retreated back from the Manchurian border, they came through the area where we had been ambushed and one of the fellows that I knew up on the border found my helmet. I had taken it off after we had surrendered and it had my initials on it. He came back and reported me killed in action. So for a long time, the Marine Corps and my family did not know for sure what had happened.
So under the circumstances we were listed as missing in action. Later in communist prison camp, they took a picture of us, one of the first groups of prisoners taken over there. And my picture came out in a Chinese newspaper saying we were on a march going north to one of the prison camps and I was identified as a prisoner of war. It got back to the U.S. military some way and they were able to identify a few of us in that picture.
{DC:} And they were able to let your family know?
{CW:} My family actually identified me for the Marine Corps. The Corps sent the picture to my parents and they were able to identify me.
{DC:} That must have been a relief.
{CW:} That was a relief to them, yes.
{DC:} So tell me about what happens when you’re taken prisoner – initial encounter?
{CW:} The initial encounter was kind of surprising because even at that point – the front-line troops probably because of their instructions to try and take prisoners were friendly and cordial to us. I had - here I am standing on bodies of Chinese we had killed and had them come up and once we had put our weapons down, shake hands with us. This was very unusual experience. After that we were later turned over and it became a different situation. At one point we were turned over to the North Koreans and they were more brutal and mean to all the prisoners. There were no signs of compassion or anything in that standing. Later when we got back with the Chinese, the situation began to mellow a bit. Most of these men, 18, 19, 20 years of age and we immediately realized when we were around the Chinese soldiers that they were very seasoned combat troops and they were pretty hard nosed the whole way through. They were older men in most cases.
As we moved north, that’s when the heavy weather hit us and we lost a lot of people. We had a trip – I forget how many hundreds of miles – walking over mountainous terrain and in some cases, it got 20 below zero. So we lost a lot of our troops to the weather.
{DC:} About 100 of you started out?
{CW:} When we left after we were taken prisoner, I would assume there was about 100 of us remaining alive.
{DC:} Where did they take you initially?
{CW:} We headed out to where we don’t know – towards the Manchurian border. We lost a lot of our group along the way that couldn’t keep up. We don’t know what happened to them; we feel like some were shot or left to die on the road. There was no way to carry them and they weren’t bringing stragglers. This was a life or death march. To make it a point to stay up with the Chinese guards.
I remember one night I was tired when we were moving north. I was tired, sleepy I was cold and I could almost walk with my eyes closed and get some sleep. But at one point we stopped and thought thank goodness, we’re going to get a break, we’re going to stop. But they came up and switched guards and we continued walking to our destination. Before we got there most of us had blood in our boots, our feet were torn up because when we did get a break what was in our boots – the blood – would freeze. At one point I was afraid I wouldn’t make it and I picked a destination a few hundred yards ahead of us and told one of the fellows, when I get there, I’m going to try and duck out. There was a bridge and said maybe I can get under the bridge. As fate would have it, we got to the bridge, the group stopped and we stayed for about 3 days in one place which gave us all a break, to warm up.
{DC:} Did they feed you?
{CW:} We had a little rice. We didn’t have much to eat. I did have a watch on and one night one came up – a little boy came up and had a handful of corn and I gave him my watch for the toasted corn which we shared and ate. It wasn’t much but it was a lot of food at the time to us.
After 3 or 4 days there, it turned out we were not far from our destination. At the time, the Chinese did not have what you picture as a typical prison camp for us. So they put us into little Korean community and we stayed in room, a hut with a Korean family. We had maybe 18 men in one room 10 by 15 or less. So kinda had to keep your humor up, it was kind of a joke. When we tried to sleep at night, when one fellow wanted to turn over the whole group had to turn over. Very crowded conditions. We spent our time in this situation for 5 maybe 6 months. We found out the reason they wanted to take prisoners at that time was they wanted to indoctrinate American troops toward communism and their way of life.
{DC:} Were they successful?
{CW:} Very little cases were they successful. We were herded into what we called the “Big House” and Russians would give talks. Had translators who would translate. Chinese would give talks in Chinese and they would have a translator. And here we were sitting in freezing weather with no heat trying to listen and grasp what they were saying. As far as converting anyone to anything else, it was difficult conditions to entice them in the slightest way.
When we finally got out of the prison camp, of the war in general was over. I found out one of the British groups stayed behind with the communists. But I will always feel that the British were strong and excellent fighters and strong people. They were the type to say let’s pull straws for a volunteer so one man can stay back and see what will go on with the other prisoners detained for one reason or another. Later this particular British Marine got out of there and returned to England. But I will always say because I knew the fellow who stayed behind and I saw him one day in the camp and he was exercising and I asked him what he was doing. And he says, “I’m planning to get in shape so I can escape.” So he was not one to stay behind unless he had a good reason.
{DC:} How many POWs in that camp?
{CW:} We really don’t know. I had access to see most of our group at one time or another and I would say around 75 to 100 in that initial area.
{DC:} On the initial march, you lost some of the 100 that started?
{CW:} I would say we lost 10 or 20 perhaps on our move north.
{DC:} Did that camp get a name?
{CW:} To this day, I don’t think we ever really had a name. Later some of the guys that were with me – we escaped out of the camp by being sent to the front-lines. After some time we were considered to be a what they called a (goo-so-yen) a Chinese […] and on several occasions they would tell us that we were going to the front-lines to meet new prisoners that we’re bringing north. And we want you to explain the conditions. We could communicate pretty good through broken Chinese to know what they wanted and expected of us.
On one of these trips we were caught in artillery barrage, so the Chinese guards took off and we took off and managed to keep going once we got away. And once we got away, later we were able to signal the observation plane that was directing the artillery to the front-lines. And they sent a tank in and we were able to ride out on the tank and that was our means of getting out of the prison camp.
At the time we had one lieutenant who said, “Let’s look like Marines.” There was 19 of us. We kinda looked at each other and said, “Well we’ve been this long with the guy – let’s go along with him.” He had us stand at attention and when the tank rolled in, it had a gunner on the top. He said, I really didn’t know what you all were – we didn’t know why we were coming in here. We were in Chinese uniforms they had given us for the cold weather, had long hair and beard and kinda strange looking group. He said, if any of you had moved one inch, we would have shot you all. So it turned out what the lieutenant said turned out good for us although it probably wasn’t intended that way.
{DC:} How many were you?
{CW:} There were 19 of us.
{DC:} All Marines?
{CW:} All Marines and one Japanese Neisi, which was an interpreter, captured with us. He was in the Army. Really 18 Marines.
{DC:} How long were you a POW?
{CW:} We were up there approximately 6 months, maybe longer.
{DC:} Did you have enough to eat in the camp?
{CW:} No not really. Myself, I retain my weight pretty good, I lost 40 or 50 pounds. Basically diet was sorghum. On Lunar New Year, or actually Christmas day, they gave us white rice and what they called pork […] would have little chunks of meat in it. Which pork was too rich for us and made a lot of us sick, but the white rice was welcome. And occasionally we would get white rice. Basic diet was white rice and sorghum.
{DC:} At Christmas how did you feel?
{CW:} Part of the indoctrination they gave us was to demoralize you. We were given Christmas cards which basically stated, “Here you are 5,000 miles from home, freezing and starving to death while your family is enjoying a warm turkey dinner – and just on and on – and we do wish you a merry Christmas, the Chinese Volunteer army.” So basically – they did give us a few pieces of hard candy. It was recognizing that we did celebrate Christmas, they did do that, give us the Christmas cards which I still have one here with me. I saved it because at no time did I think that I wouldn’t get out of there. From day one we planned to escape some way. We planned several but they didn’t materialize and probably best they didn’t because of the cold conditions that we weren’t prepared for. You didn’t last very long it that outdoor cold weather.
We lost a lot of our guys to sickness – dysentery was a big problem. Course when some would die, you just never knew. We had one fellow with us, an Army guy and they were having us work carrying pretty heavy loads, food supplies of rice. We would walk 15 or 20 miles and have to carry it, we had to cut logs. We had one fellow who complained of hurting real bad, well we were all hurting at the time, we were trying to encourage him to keep moving, but he complained of stomach pains and nothing we could do. Finally we got the guards to put him on a sled, we were on a march at the time and we walked all night and the next morning he was dead when they took him off the sled. They ran out and injected a needle into him but. Looking back on it, we had to assume he had ruptured his appendix which there was no way, not even the Chinese could do anything cause they didn’t have any medical care. So we buried him and that was it. It’s a regret that you couldn’t do anything for him personally.
{DC:} They allowed you to bury your dead?
{CW:} We buried him up north and gave the location to our government so hopefully the body was retrieved. We have no idea. I’m sure the markings were removed.
{DC:} The hut where you were stayed the same?
{CW:} Yes, the hut we were in. Actually was very unique. It was heated because a Korean family lived on the other side of it. We had sympathy for the Korean families because they were more or less removed from their own houses and they were all crammed into one room. It was a two-room hut – they had one room and we had one room. But they kept it heated, which heated our side as well. The heating system was building a fire underneath it; they were mud huts and the heat would circulate through the floor. This had advantages and disadvantages because we all had lice very bad and the heat would cause the lice to move. Many days were spent picking lice off each other. I remember looking someone and I reached over to remove the white string on his t-shirt and it was not a string, it began to move. It was a row of lice circling him and looked like he had on a necklace. We spent a lot of time killing lice.
{DC:} What was the perimeter of the camp?
{CW:} Probably about 4 or 5 houses in our little group. Probably about size of a football field; they were spread out. They had a place called the Big House and when the Chinese wanted to sport an occasion, that’s where we would go. Lectures or talks or whatever. The Chinese guards over all at the prison camp were a pretty good group. Lot of them, I felt, were forced into the war. I had one lieutenant I referred to as Lieutenant Pan - I had him sign my Christmas card that I saved. He and I were talking – he was educated in the U.S., his family were bankers, they had a farm, but when the communists took over China they lost the farm and he became a Chinese solder. Very nice, very kind and very gentle individual and we were fortunate that we had that.
After we escaped from the camp, some of the guys – several people attempted escape, one group attempted and got to a river and two were able to cross it and one couldn’t swim and he was recaptured and they brought him back to the camp and they had actually killed a couple of the guards in their escape, but he was fortunate to blame it on the others who got away and not any harsh punishment. When we did escape, some of the guys four years after the Korean War, the guys that lived through it – a lot of them didn’t – said their punishment got pretty severe and the restrictions got severe. They would dig holes and put them in them and they couldn’t stand up or squat down, just bend their knees and leave them there for 4 or 5 days at a time. Hot in the summer and cold in the winter and they would get this punishment.
One of my friends he told me he reached the point that he would tell the guard, “Just shoot me.” They would tell him to do something and he would refuse to do it hoping they would shoot him, hoping to get out of the misery. But when he got out as an exchange, as a release after the war, he came to see me a few times and I could tell he was having a much harder time than I did ‘cause I wasn’t there as long. He was having a hard time shaking the war. He said he couldn’t accept the daily life he was going through, the responsibilities he was confronted with. One of the fellows I was up there with, had a letter from him while he was in the prison camp – he’s committed suicide. So the stress was strong and everlasting.
Situation you don’t forget. I can think of episodes and it was like it was yesterday. For a young man 18 or 19, it was so much stress on an individual that it’s hard to cope with. Fortunately for myself and others in the Marine Corps, I think our training paid off and the comradeship was good. And it gave us something to go on that a lot of fellows didn’t have. Faith was important factor. Prayer was not shut off. Gave me strength to live through it and plan an escape. Became a challenge. Don’t think I could have lived the four years that some of those guys had gone through. Physically I don’t think I would have been up to it. Mentally I think I could have handled it. Health wise it was a situation that I just admire everyone who had the endurance to pull through that.
{DC:} In that initial column you were in and other units – were there other internationals in the camp with you?
{CW:} Yes, the British Marines. Some Turkish Marines. And a few from the 31st Army Regiment. We were separated from most of these guys but we did see them occasionally like the one British Marine that stayed behind, seeing him exercise and get in shape to escape when the weather got warm. These guys were very brave men. Turkish soldiers were brave. Everybody was. Heavy, heavy combat. Never let down. The combat became almost man-to-man, which we were outnumbered so much it was unreal.
Next day after we were their prisoners, we were amazed to see how many Chinese were around us that we never realized as our convoy moved forward. And we were okay as we moved forward in the daylight, but as it became night, we just weren’t prepared for the night fighting that we were thrown against.
In our camp one day in our camp on the Manchurian border, we had a pilot brought in who had been shot down. And to this day, I wish I knew who he was because he was on his last mission as a pilot. He had flown his last mission and they were circling to go back and he told us that he told this other guys that he wanted to take one last look so he could tell Korea goodbye and that one last look, he got hit. The plane caught fire and he rolled it and bailed out. When he came in he was burned very badly and could barely see because his face was burned and his eyes were singed and he would have to tilt his head to get a peak out of the bottom of this eyes. Whatever became of him I don’t know, they separated us. I’ve often wondered what did happen to him. We had hoped to get his name and address so we could pass it on whereas in my case, we were able to notify a lot of families and the government and Marine Corps what was going on.
{DC:} When you got out you were able to tell people?
{CW:} Yes, there were four of us and we were called to Washington and from aerial photography we were able to locate the prison camps and the houses we were in and the routes we were taken. We were able to spot where we had been and hopefully prevent some of these men from being killed from our own fire. Because if the camps weren’t marked, so often the fighters would come over and be strafing due to the fact that they would see Chinese soldiers out there which were our guards. So they would come on strafing runs and one of biggest fears was getting hit or by bombing runs. Biggest nightmare.
One night we on a truck, they were moving us. A plane drops in and fires a rocket at us and overshot us 20 or 30 feet and hit a cornfield. And we were all shattered with corn, but it didn’t hit any of us. We in situations in the mud huts that a plane would come in low strafing and the vibration of the guns would shake the roof and mud off the building and fall on us. These were scary times. And it would happen often. We were able to tell them man you guys were given us fits under here.
{DC:} Would they send you on work runs frequently?
{CW:} Pretty regularly, that was our survival. Any time we moved we would carry our food supply which could be heavy. Mainly they were long sacks draped around your neck filled with sorghum or rice and you would carry them. Or chop wood was another chore. One night we had taken shelter and some of the Chinese frontline troops were in a big culvert going under a road and we were starving and had almost reached the point of, well so what. But I found a Chinese soldier with a sack of beef jerky and all night long I would slip beef jerky out of his pack hoping that at no time would he see it. Fortunately the next day they moved out and left us behind with our guards.
{DC:} This was before you were in the camp?
{CW:} This was while we were in the camp and we were moving on our way to meet up with some of the wounded guys, prisoners.
{DC:} So you would go out and come back?
{CW:} And come back. And that was bad situation because we were going down to no-man’s-land and due to the cold weather they would give us some of their gear and that gave us the appearance of possibly Chinese or enemy or unknown. So they put us in a bad situation when we had to go on these missions.
I remember one time I was standing on a side of a hill and our guard was comfortable and let us stay around. But I strayed a bit too far and here comes a Chinese soldier returning to headquarters or someplace and for a while I thought he was going to shoot me, but I was able to get across to him that I was a (goo-su-yen) in broken Chinese. He looked at me strangely and walked away. He didn’t know who I was with, what I was or what I had come from. But I was just looking for food, some military outfit had been there and buried their trash and I was digging up their trash to see if they left any kind of rations in there. Hunger was a problem so we would scrounge anything. Our Korean family that we stayed with had a little dog named (sooner) and I said, sooner or later, we’re going to eat sooner. And I believe if we had a chance anyone would have made a good meal of that poor little dog.
{DC:} Tell me about your feeling when that tank rolled up to your group and you knew you were out of there.
{CW:} Our first impulse was to make a mad dash and jump on it, but I told you the story of the Lieutenant making us stand and wait for it. The soldiers on there, just a reunion. They gave us cigarettes, they gave us chocolate bars. Anything they had that they could provide, they did it. The name of the tank I came out on was “Double Trouble” and I wish I had a name of the crew on there because one of them took our picture and later sent it to me sitting on the tank with all of our group. I still have that picture with me. Just a special occasion. I remember sitting on the tank riding out and I had a little bowl the Chinese had give me, a little porcelain bowl that I remember throwing away. I don’t know why I threw it away, it was a great little souvenir. But I remember thinking I’m through eating out of this bowl and throwing it into the dust the tank was throwing up.
{DC:} At this point you hadn’t shaved?
{CW:} Not in quite a while. We had long hair and beards. Hadn’t shaved. Once we got away from the Chinese and before we were spotted by our troops, we had a couple of days hiding out in caves and I remember watching these guys I was with and we had some big stones because some Chinese were retreating and we were afraid they would come into our caves so we had big stones. They would shot us immediately because we were in no man’s land. We were prepared to stone them and kill them if they found us. Fortunately we were not found.
One night we were in a rice paddy and here’s 19 of us sprawled out in a rice paddy and the Chinese were walking maybe 20 or 30 yards of us. Everyone just froze and we could hear them talk. One group sat down near us but picked up and headed on away. They were on a little dirt road and we were moving through the rice paddies themselves. None of us were armed other than rocks and sticks.
{DC:} Did they keep the officers separate?
{CW:} Yes, they did. In fact officers were kept separate save for one lieutenant that ended up with us when we were moving south. He was only one I recall seeing for any lengthy period of time. The others, John MacLachlan – he was kept separate and became real war hero while he was up there I understand, encouraging the troops in the camp and helping them where he could.
{DC:} Can you tell about when the North Koreans were your guards?
{CW:} When we were moving north, a hard part of our capture because we were captured by the Chinese and they turned us over to the North Koreans. They were pretty brutal – you didn’t lag or you were going to get shot. They marched us through a Korean village and we were spit on and hit with sticks and clubs whether it was encouraged we don’t know. Was brutal treatment until we got to final destination and I think that’s why we lost a lot of our troops along the way who were lagging or showed signs of weakness. What became of them we don’t know. When we got north, they would come into the camp and call 2 or 3 names and we all said, call our name we would love to go thinking they were being sent home. These guys were never heard from again. Always had my suspicions that they were taken into Russia or someplace into China. When in Washington we checked and to this day we never known what became of those called out or the reason they were called out. So we’ve always had suspicions if they were still prisoners up there and if so, what did they want with them.
{DC:} Did the rest of the prisoners stay in the camp for the rest of the war?
{CW:} Most of them, in general, did. Think they later built camps, more of a regular camp. One of the fellows who had been to see me. When I got out I went to see his family. I thought he would be dead. I had gotten a letter from one in the prison camp and he made the statement that he hadn’t seen my old friend in some time, his code for saying he was dead. I went to see his family to give them some encouragement. And when I walked up the front porch, I was in my Marine uniform and Kirby and I resembled each other. And I’ll never forget, his sister said, It’s john at the front door and my heart just sunk. I just encouraged them and told them how he was the last time I saw him which was in good shape. Fortunately he came out in the end of the war in the prison release. He was my main source of finding out treatment after I got out. If you could get out, you got out. But it did hurt some left behind because they did get harsher treatment I’m sure. More guards than we had. One of these things in war you take advantage when you can. Think that’s understood.
Saw program on how they train now on what to do and think that’s good, because for us it was learn as you go. Now they are conditioning the guys mentally and physically. Even the government is learning.
With the pilot we brought in - when we told our story about him we were able to hopefully help what to do when the pilots are shot down. They even thought at one time to give them to barter their way out which we disagreed with because they don’t have to barter.
The scary thing for myself was under those circumstances – we were sent over there for one purpose – to kill the enemy and all of sudden the enemy has you. And they have one purpose – to kill you. Anyway you look at it, you’re at their mercy. On the other hand, before we were captured, we had prisoners and they were at our mercy. That’s one of the codes of war. You try to give consideration to prisoners. That’s not always the case on both sides. Sometimes you give them harder treatment than you should. In combat, guys turn cold, turn hard. A life other than your own fellows can’t mean too much to you or else you’re not going to pull the trigger. But once you’re in that situation. Like our guards, the Chinese – they were kind-hearted people at times. They were considerate. You always have one or two that were better – you always had a couple who were mean. Fortunately for the American group, we always had the sense of humor in the worst. Looking at the guards, it didn’t take us long to realize as long as we smiled, to the ones who didn’t speak English, they would smile back and say “thank you” and say “yes, yes.” We could look at them and let them know what we thought whether it was, “egghead” because as long as we smiled, of course the rest of our group could like it. If they knew you were angry, they would get angry and mean as well.
{DC:} What names did you have for them?
{CW:} We had “egghead,” “bowl-neck.” We had names for all our guards. Some like Lieutenant Pan we actually called Lieutenant Pan. I think he realized that’s not the way you pronounced it, but that’s the way we said it and he would respond to it. But he was always good to us. But if they had a guard who had just come from the front-lines, he was usually one of the mean ones. It was the ones who had been in the camp for a long time – we would get to know them and them us. I remember arm-wrestling with one of my guards one day. We were sitting there and the sun was shining. He puts his arm up and we were arm-wrestling which I thought was a little funny, sense of humor on his part.
{DC:} Who won?
{CW:} You know I don’t know. I better say, I let him win. ‘Cause I’d be on the short end if I didn’t. Interesting thing, stayed in my mind. I was talking with Lieutenant Pan one day, questioning him on his background - that’s how I found out he was a banker and I looked down on his shoe and on the bottom of his shoe, it was a canvas shoe, it had, “U-S-A”. Supplies that got to them somehow. They were wearing shoes made for the U.S. Army. I asked him about his shoes and he said it was issue. I wanted to find out if they had overrun some place and gotten supplies. But he said it was issue and I kinda think it was cause it looked to me.
Overall, at that time the American soldier was well trained. All in the camp conducted themselves very well and strongly and knew how to play the game. We went through a lot of interrogation and indoctrination. I found that so much that they asked you, they already knew. But as enlisted man, we could always claim, we don’t know. When we all got together, give him your name and serial number and then you don’t know anything. You were just sent there and you don’t know anything. That was the way it was handled. Lot of brainwash.
One Army guy, they asked him why he was shooting at the Chinese and he said, “If you at the bottom of the hill and there’s Chinese at the top of the hill shooting at you, you shoot back” and that was the way we explained ourselves through it.
{DC:} Were they calm interrogating you?
{CW:} Calm. Very much so. The people interrogating us were very experienced. I had one case, I had Russian interrogators with the Chinese which was always still a surprise to me because the Chinese came in as volunteers, it was not China as a country. This was a legal loophole of the united nations to keep China out of the war. So all the Chinese were enlisted as volunteers. But they had a large volunteer army, I’ll say that. Lot of the volunteers were volunteered not of their own accord.
I was reading magazine where my picture was in it, the Chinese newspaper where I was identified and it was telling the atrocities committed by American troops against Korean and Chinese people – like putting prisoners in the ditch and driving over them with tanks. Heavy propaganda that they would give to their troops.
{DC:} Did they give you other material to read other than the cards?
{CW:} No the cards were only propaganda material I remember getting. In our camp, they would give us a lecture and sometimes ask us to write a comment on what was said at the lecture and they had a camp paper that they put out – it made some of the best cigarette papers because sometimes we could get a hold of some tobacco from the Koreans and we would use this paper.
The little things in the camp that were devastating that we take for granted. Like toilet tissue. All of sudden your in this situation, ten men in a hut and 9 out of 10 had dysentery and became joke of going to bathroom and ducking. But it was not a joke – guys were dying of this. When they gave us cold weather gear, we would pull the cotton out of the uniforms and use it in place of toilet paper. We made a joke out of it because we said we hoped summertime got there before we used all the cotton of this cold weather gear. Major problem major disease. There was no sanitation to speak of.
One time they brought in a bucket of warm water in this hut and we all tried to bathe in this bucket of water. One guy would bathe and you would skim off the trash and dirt and another guy would rinse off. Still helped. So sanitation was big factor. Cold weather. Could kill. Fillings in my teeth froze one time and I couldn’t talk for a week. Asked the dentist later and he said yes, your fillings could freeze and would give you splitting headache.
{DC:} When you did get out where did you go then?
{CW:} Once we got out we went to South Korea and Pusan and went aboard a hospital ship where they kept us under observation for quite a while. Before the hospital ship, we had the pleasure of meeting a commandant of the Marine Corps who visited with us and put our picture on the cover of the Leatherneck with him. I was sent home and stayed home for 10 days and the four of us ended up in Washington and we pin pointed our camp and gave who had died and not died. After that I got extended at convenience of the government another year in the Marine Corps and went back to Camp Lejeune before being discharged.
{DC:} You owed them a year?
{CW:} They kept me an extra year, but as much as I disliked staying an extra year, when I got my discharge and drove through the gates of the camp for last time, it was a sinking feeling. You were departing from a tradition you had for four years, leaving close friends you had been around the world with. Normally an enlisted man is not saluted but the guard at the gate knew I was leaving for the last time and gave me a big salute. I will say to this day, you see another Marine and it’s esprit de corp.
Have to tell this. Name of Morrie Estes from San Antonio, Texas. He escaped with me and went to Washington. Looked for him and recently with the internet, contacted a Marine organization and asked about him. Group in Colorado Springs knew exactly where he was – said he used to be in their group and that he was in San Antonio, Texas. Sent me his address and phone number. So I was able to visit with him in the past year. Had a wonderful time. Had two others who came to see me who were in the camp. Hope to track others down. Lifetime experience that you hope no one goes through. Feel fortunate. Sympathy goes to those who didn’t make it. When it’s your fellow service member, it always hurts. Comes back to haunt you.
{DC:} Are you surprised to see North Korea back in the news?
{CW:} Does and doesn’t. After being up there and the harshness of the North Korean guards, it doesn’t surprise me. Given we had a treaty, it does surprise me. Sure it’s just the leadership. Sure the people are good people. Where we stayed most of our confinement, the family tried to slip food over to us. One time I did sneak out from under the guards, we didn’t get very far and the North Koreans actually hid us when our own guards came looking for us. They hid us in a little fireplace with out a fire that they let us crawl inside, putting their own lives in jeopardy. The guards actually came into the hut within feet and they never once told them where we were. When we headed out of there, we motioned that we were headed back to our compound, so we did and they gave us some homemade candy to take with us. So they were just people. Strictly leadership that is edging to war. Think the people could probably yank that border down and live in peace. Be productive and be an asset to the world.
{DC:} How has the war experienced changed you – have difficulty talking about it?
{CW:} I didn’t for a long time. I’ve suffered – I’m under watch at the VA for post-traumatic stress disorder. They treat you, take care of you and give you medication. I think I’ve been a strong person. My spiritual life gives me depth – makes you realize that there’s more to it. Protects you. Sometimes you get sad. Waiting for you I was looking over these things I haven’t look at for 20 years, my Christmas cards, read a letter from friend who committed suicide. Look and think what could I have done for those guys who didn’t have that inner strength to hold on. And not let it get them down. Give the VA credit for helping veterans.
I came back and was fortunate to go to college. One friend I was looking at his picture today – he was a gunner. He went to college and I remember looking at his baby face and thinking if anyone knew how many people he’s killed they would never believe it. You see fellows like that and you know he didn’t just walk away and forget. I watched the bombing of England on TV last night and you realize these guys have gone through. You learn to live with it. You think you’ll be able to watch someone get killed and not feel it but that’s not the case. You think you’re going to be a hard person. You get back and that compassion comes back in and you don’t lose that.
End
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