CHAPTER SUMMARIES
1. Korea: The Place, The War
Korea—as a peninsula surrounded by great powers (China, Russia and Japan)—has suffered 900 invasions in its history. It was occupied or fought over throughout the twentieth century and partitioned at the 38th parallel at the end of WWII. After the Soviets set up a communist military state in the North and the U.S. established a republic in the South, the two Koreas glared at each other across the 38th parallel, and their soldiers clashed at the border. For most of 1949, Kim Il Sung, the North Korean dictator, sought Stalin’s authorization to invade South Korea. Finally, in early 1950, Stalin agreed, sent military advisors to Pyongyang and provided tanks, aircraft, and massive logistic support. On June 25, 1950, Kim attacked. The Cold War turned hot at the fault line of the 38th parallel.
Almost immediately, the U.S. decided to intervene with air and naval forces, and U.S. ground troops were sent from Japan a few days later. Fifteen other nations joined with the U.S. under the banner of the UN. The war lasted for three years, with fighting savage and intense and casualties high. Korea triggered a sharp reversal of America’s attitude toward containment of Soviet expansion in the Far East and toward military preparedness for the Cold War generally. We have maintained a large contingent of troops in Korea since the armistice fifty years ago, and there are 37,000 American troops in South Korea today as another Korean crisis threatens.
2. Quantico, The Basic School
I had been commissioned in the Marine Corps shortly before the Korean War broke out, and I was ordered to The Basic School (TBS) at Quantico, the sprawling Marine Base south of Washington, D.C. Our first commanding officer was Colonel David M. Shoup, who had won the Medal of Honor in the Marine landing on Tarawa in 1943, and who would become Commandant of the Marine Corps. Shoup was a strong personality, direct, intelligent, somewhat quirky—and, unaccountably, a poet. His poetry, of uneven quality, was all about Tarawa. We heard much of it during his two-hour lectures each Saturday morning.
Two of our class were killed and several others critically wounded in a mortar accident shortly before our TBS graduation in early March 1951. Some 50 of us, out of the 356 who had started, received orders to Camp Pendleton in California, “for d beyond the seas.” That meant Korea. We were at Pendleton for a couple of weeks, including a week of cold weather training in the nearby mountains. In mid-April we boarded the troopship Menifee for transport to Pusan, Korea.
3. Across the Pacific, USS Menifee
Menifee is APA 202, just out of moth balls, clean as a whistle, loaded with Marines bound for Korea. We are young and old, officer and enlisted, some regulars but mostly reserves. I’m in a troop officer compartment on the main deck. From the Broadway Pier, San Diego, we go first to North Island to load ammo. Then, heading across the Pacific, we read, play bridge, write letters, field-strip weapons, fire handguns off the fantail at tin cans and cardboard boxes thrown overboard. When we pass the International Date Line, we lose April 23 entirely. A DJ on ship’s radio plays “Slow Boat to China”; we’d all heard it before, just never thought we’d be on one. Terrifically rough seas cause massive food spill in mess hall. We hear reports of Red offensive in Korea, before Menifee lands at Kobe, Japan. Our first liberty at the Oriental Hotel and the O Club. Oliver and Marsh have adventures in a bordello exchanging scrip. We get regimental assignments—mine to 1st Marines, as I’d requested, because of Chesty Puller. But he’s been promoted to BGen and is no longer there. We’re to arrive Pusan the following night.
4. Arrival Korea
Shortly after midnight, we slide through the murky waters of Pusan Harbor to tie up at the dock. Wharves lighted by single incandescent bulb. Smells of rotting wood, centuries old, and the misnamed “honey carts” carrying night soil. Reveille at 0200. We load on trucks to move through driving rain to Army assembly depot to spend a day in tents there. Reveille again at 0200. We’re trucked to airfield K-1 for short flight to Hoengsong. There I see Peaches Hamilton, my nemesis from plebe year at the Academy. Back on trucks again for last ride north, through Massacre Valley, we see our first bomb craters, napalm-scarred slopes, slit trenches, fox holes. I arrive 1stBn, 1stMarines, 1stMarDiv. Good address, I think. Long climb up mountain to Baker Company on No-Name Line. I get 60mm mortar section.
Next day Chesty Puller and General Almond land by helicopter. All night in bunker where wireman struck by lightening. At dawn, bloody impact of Army artillery short rounds in 2nd platoon. Next night, gooks probe, I catch shrapnel.
Bigfoot Brown takes over as CO, 1st Marines. I go out on first company-size recon patrol. Next day, entire 8th Army jumps off in attack. I move up with mortars to support Ed Dibble’s 3rd platoon, watch Bartholomew (Dibble’s celebrated squad leader) fire into bunkers and throw grenades.
5. Eddie LeBaron Hits the Line
Powerful Chinese offensive – over-extended – finally splinters and cracks. Eighth Army counterattacks across entire front. Marines now face North Koreans, less well-trained but tougher. Willie Hammond, black squad leader from Winona, MS, shouts an order: “Git those muthuh fuckin’ muthuh fuckuhs!”
Eddie LeBaron— youngest and best-known of our class, Little All-American Quarterback at College of the Pacific— may have been the first Marine officer ever to go into combat without ever having fired a rifle on the range. May 29, at the Hwachon Reservoir, Eddie starts out with the 60mm mortars, fires rocket launcher at fortified bunkers. When two of Baker-7’s platoon leaders are hit, Eddie takes over rifle platoon. He attacks along narrow ridge, is hit in shoulder, knocked down the hill. He scrambles back up and leads platoon over the top; despite coming in late and being wounded, an impressive performance.
6. Joe Reed Takes His First Hill
On June 3, 1951, 3rdBn 1stMarines, is to jump off in its sector. Troops know this because chaplain has just said Mass on the hood of a jeep (stolen from Army, serial no. 1234567). On approach march, State flags and Stars and Bars snapping in the wind from the antennas of control jeeps.
On hill, in the attack, Joe Reed starts with the machinegun platoon. Company commander and one platoon leader are hit and carried out. Joe is ordered to take over rifle platoon, leading the attack. The artillery FO is hit and evacuated. Company fires 60mm mortars through the trees (risking air bursts) for fire support to advance. They fix bayonets and charge. Joe sees small branches with helmet underneath rising, pumps a 30-round magazine into it. Turns out to be NK major. When their grenades start coming back, they hold for two seconds and throw. It works. After 60 percent casualties, they finally get the hill. Marine artillery rings their precarious perch with fire as they pass an uneasy night.
7. Baker Company in the Attack, May 30-June 9
Oran-ni, 1st Marines in reserve. I saw nothing exceptional there. But Murphy, assaulted by “millions of lustfully fornicating frogs,” called it Frog Town. We capture scores of Chinese horses and mules with packsaddles; my mortar section gets a gray and a bay. Night of June 3, my first wedding anniversary, I sleep sitting up against a tree, in the rain. The Hwachon Reservoir is now behind and below us. Baker Company’s change of command: Jim Cowan takes over as company commander, I get the 1st platoon.
June 9, Baker to attack enemy positions on the next two ridges, the second is mine. We clear NK machine gun nest on the way, but are stopped cold on main approach. I try reverse slope and start up. Our line raked by automatic weapons fire. Half the squad hit; squad leader, riddled across chest, falls at my feet. I hold the rest there and return to main approach. When gook defensive fires seem to lessen, we charge. The Marine I kick at the start takes off like a shot, leads the charge. All automatic weapons on full automatic, we blast our way up and over the position. Helicopters come into the draw behind to take out our wounded. My introduction to the platoon shortened to a few hours. Bernie Hletko, the Marine I kicked, is a hero.
8. Bill Rockey Attacks
Bigfoot Brown says we don’t have the high ground, so regiment attacks to the North. Bill Rockey, son of distinguished Marine Corps general, comes under fire. An inauspicious start: Bill yells, “Follow me!” and promptly jackknifes into a foxhole. Platoon runner helps him out of hole and hands him his helmet. Later, runner hurls grenade that rolls back down between them, nearly gets them both. It gets worse: Rockey’ s helmet creased by bullet; blanket roll riddled on his back, chinstrap shot off. General Whaling, ADC, there to watch the show. With airstrike by Corsairs dropping napalm and firing rockets, Bill’s platoon takes the hill – with only a single Marine KIA.
9. Walter Murphy Moves up Hill 676
Easy Company, 1st Marines, clings to its position on the ridgeline it has just captured. Its wounded are on the ground in a horseshoe-shaped area below. NKs that come in for an early morning probe are repulsed, but 4.2” mortar rounds fired in defense fall short. The result is bloody: forty Marines, including the battalion commander, are hit and evacuated. On ground inside the horseshoe, wounded horses, bucking, rearing and screaming, are shot to protect wounded Marines from further injury. Easy Company heads up on the approaches to Hill 676 with Murphy’s platoon at the point. This is it. No more Chinese language records, no more frogs. Now just angry gooks ordered to hold to the death. They have interlocking fields of fire, deep bunkers layered with heavy timbers, slit trenches, camouflaged fighting holes. For Murph, a lot goes wrong: close air support doesn’t get there, our tanks are masked by a hill, 75 recoilless rifles run out of ammo at the critical moment. But yobos hauling ammo up and carrying wounded back down are superb. They suffer 200 casualties in this one day.
The last fifty yards for Murphy are a steep rise. His platoon fixes bayonets. One squad leader cracks; a key machinegunner folds up and leaves. But rest of platoon fights like ferocious wildcats. Another squad leader keeps coming back again and again after being hit; at the end of the day, medics pick twenty-three pieces of shrapnel out of him. Charles Abrell carries grenade into machinegun nest to knock it out; then his body tumbles down at Murphy’s feet. He is later awarded Medal of Honor.
Finally, Murphy’s platoon gains a perch on one of Hill 676’s three peaks. But they are separated from the rest of the company and running out of ammo. With darkness coming, the yobo train arrives, its leader muttering about the “hucking gooks” (couldn’t say f’s). Then Bill Rockey, gray-faced and determined, arrives with his platoon to pass through Murphy and continue the attack.
10. Rockey, When the Clouds Opened Up
Bill Rockey’s platoon, designated for the final assault, comes through Murph and the few men he has left—a scene of death and desolation. Ahead lies a deep saddle with a steep ascent to the highest peak on Hill 676. The enemy has a perfect field of fire that the advancing Marines must cross. Despite repeated calls for an air strike, airplanes don’t show. Now Marines’ call is URGENT, daylight fading fast. Rockey’s men lay out brilliant air panels and wait. Then – just as they start out – the battalion radio crackles: HOLD UP! The clouds part and two Corsairs drop through the hole, loaded with everything, 500 pound bombs, 50 caliber machine guns blazing and napalm.
With the strike over, Rockey and his men, bayonets fixed, head down into the saddle. The remaining gooks exact a bloody toll of Marines as they fight to the death. One of Rockey’s men jumps into a hole with four NK’s, shoots three and strangles the fourth. With that, they’ve taken the highest peak on Hill 676. It’s been a long day.
11. Hill 676, Recap and Afterward
After the battle, Murph’s men play their favorite game: Roll the Gook. They prepare enemy dead to roll down the hill (head down between knees) and push them off on count of three; the Marine whose gook rolls farthest wins. Murphy rationalizes this as better than killing or torturing prisoners. Battalion Commander says the assault on Hill 676 is “the most difficult since Inchon.” Bigfoot Brown (who’s seen it all) says it’s the toughest fighting he’s ever seen. During June 1951, 1st Marines suffered more casualties than they had at Chosin Reservoir.
Murphy and Rockey were highly decorated for their actions on Hill 676, Murphy’s DSC the top decoration received by any living member of our class. June 10 is considered the day that broke North Korea’s back. After that, they don’t all stay to die. The 1st Marines line moves to high ground on the north, called the Brown Line (for Bigfoot), later officially the modified Kansas Line
.
12. Attack and On Line, June 10-July 6
Artillery is Boffo! Devastatingly accurate. Tex Lawrence and I climb a mountain in a two-platoon attack. But heavy artillery destroys the gook position before our eyes; we take it without firing a shot. Ten miles north of the Hwachon Reservoir, my platoon has the Tactical Air Control Party and all forward observers to support the 3rdBn attack. We’re on the highest vantage point, a front row seat at the war. Letter from Whizzer, my friend at Yale, asks do I know what I’m fighting for? Ridiculous. Fritz Muer, most experienced officer in our class, is killed disarming a booby trap. Bigfoot’s message to us, his regiment. Great! The long patrol; dumb. My all-day trip to X Corps to get replacement boots. Song: “Mortar Shells Are Breaking up That Old Gang of Mine.”
Division says Inchon men don’t have to go out on patrols, too close to rotation. The Inchon men in my platoon come to me; they want to go on every patrol as long as they’re here. Wow! USO show on the 4th of July, Jack Benny, et al. Our new battalion commander arrives. My platoon on line, another mountain peak. With FO’s, etc. attached, I now have 111 Marines.
13. Charlie Cooper, Hill 907 and After
Charlie has rifle platoon in Baker Company, 5th Marines, high spirited, called Baker Bandits. Battalion Commander picks Charlie to lead assault on Hill 907, towering peak that dominates large area. Murderous defensive fires from reinforced bunkers and gun emplacements. Near crest, Charlie calls for air strike, marks target by hurling WP grenade. Two Air Force F-80’s come in time to incinerate NK counterattack, but Charlie is critically wounded by machine gun fire. Has emergency surgery at field hospital, later further surgery on hospital ship Repose at Pusan. Then on special hospital plane with five other patients, all critical and on IV’s, to be flown to Navy hospital, Yokosuka, Japan. Plane crashes near Army General Hospital, Kyushu, Japan. It’s a close call, but Charlie recovers to serve thirty-five years in Marine Corps.
14. Aggressive Patrolling, July 7-17
As the truce talks start at Kaesong, we are no longer attacking. From positions on the Kansas Line, we run patrols out to the front to Patrol Objectives #1 and #4. Baker Company’s first patrol reaches #1 easily but is ambushed on the way to #4, farther out. They have six casualties, including one KIA. For the next week, most patrols are hit, casualties every day. We mix it up with squad patrols, night patrols, night ambushes.
On the last day I watch with binoculars as Ike Cronin’s 3rd platoon gets to #4. Objective has been sown with shoe mines overnight. I see one Marine after another seemingly lifted up only to fall back on the ground. I take out my platoon – with all the battalion’s corpsmen, stretchers and blood plasma – to bring them back. They have two KIA, and ten single or double amputees. The rescue takes hours, under heavy mortar attack on the way back.
We’re relieved on line by an Army unit the next day. Regimental order cautions inter-service protocol: Marines forbidden to make “dog-like sounds” when dogfaces arrive. We try to enforce. But still . . . a few barks.
15. Division in Reserve, July 18-September 10
After 150 consecutive days on line, 1stMarDiv goes into corps reserve near Hongchon, just south of the 38th parallel. It’s cushy, but it’s a drag. Joe Reed and I visit Bobby Scott, Army pfc., and the 1stSgt he works for back at X Corps. They are rear echelon pogues, in the rear with the gear, but they have everything. We drink Canadian Club and grapefruit juice, enjoy steaks grilled on ammo rods. After the 1stSgt retires to tent he shares with a young Korean girl, we continue drinking with Bobby. Then Bobby, somewhat wobbly, insists on driving us back to our area in torrential rain. About 0230 his jeep stalls in the swollen river. Then he passes out. We manage to get him back in his jeep, on the road, pointed south, and somehow we get across the river.
Later my first and second platoon sergeants leave on rotation. I get J.J. Morrow, superb Marine sergeant, from Tex Lawrence as replacement. Dick Kitchen, new company commander, arrives as does the new company XO, John Cabell Breckinridge, III, called Breck.
The CO of another battalion is expressive after leading 1,400 men to the top of the wrong mountain in withering heat: “Jesus Christ! The wrong fucking hill!” In reserve, with ex-Wiffenpoof as company commander, we sing “I Don’t Want to Join the Army,” and other war songs. Otherwise, reserve insufferable, unbearably hot, humid and boring. On last day there, Kitchen, Breckinridge and I float ten miles down the Hongchon Gang on air mattresses. Back to war.
16. Parks
He was sixteen, a five-foot Korean boy in oversize dungarees, when he joined us. First with the mortar section, then with me in the platoon, Parks learned quickly to do whatever was needed. Properly outfitted, his appearance was outstanding. And he always moved toward the action, did whatever the Marines did. When I went to the battalion staff he came along, qualified as an interpreter and finally got on a payroll. Later he went back on line with another rifle battalion. Then I heard he’d been wounded, was worn out. His last letter to me ended: “I really hope that God will bless you everlasting adorned with glorious and you might have lovely your life. I’ll always pray for all your all family. Good luck forever.” Parks.
17. LeBaron at the Punch Bowl
In early September, when the 1stMarDiv left reserve for the Punch Bowl, 7th Marines led off. Eddie LeBaron, by then a veteran platoon leader, wounded, decorated, idolized by his men. His company was close enough to watch the enemy’s heavy buildup on Hill 673. At one point Eddie’s platoon was supposed to land by helicopter at the gook’s CP, but plan cancelled. When Eddie did lead his platoon in the attack, they had to cross a mine field. Finally, with the support of artillery, they were able to take Hill 673 with heavy casualties, including one of Eddie’s riflemen, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
18. Joe Reed, Take It “If Not in Friendly Hands”
On September 20, Joe’s company was to relieve ROK units northeast of the Punch Bowl. Relief is usually an orderly procedure, but here the order provided that How Company take “such offensive action as might be necessary” in case Hill 854 not completely secured. Of course, it wasn’t. The ROK’s did have the summit. But there were angry belligerent gooks screaming all over the rest of the hill. So the ROK’s laid a minefield around the summit and buttoned up, waiting to be relieved. The captain Joe was relieving only shrugged when asked for a sketch of the minefield, and Joe saw that some persuasion was needed. The point of a bayonet worked. With the sketch, Joe got his platoon through the minefield, but the company commander was killed and the company had heavy losses. They held up overnight, got rest of the objective the next day. As it turned out, Hill 854 was definitely “not in friendly hands”; relief of lines was a battle royal, a blood bath.
19. The Punch Bowl and Followup, September 11-30
The Punch Bowl, a volcanic crater twenty miles north of the 38th parallel, is ringed by granite ridges that dominate the land for miles around. We move up through Marine bodies stacked along both sides of the trail. Gook artillery fire is heavy and almost continuous; we dive into shell holes to avoid it. Unnerving. The 2ndBn, just ahead of us, has two posthumous Medals of Honor in a 48-hour period. The second, Cpl. Joe Vittori, dies in the closing minutes of climactic battle with 200 enemy bodies piled up in front of his position. Our battalion commander is critically wounded. Baker Company takes Hill 749 after the company commander, Dick Kitchen, uses two air strikes in his debut.
Marines in the platoon come to see me about Tilt. They say he's dogging it on work details (clearing fields of fire and laying out barbed wire). I've never heard of anything like this and I'd like not to be involved. Then Tilt comes to see me.
We relieve ROK companies on line after midnight. At first light, we see ROK in adjoining hole has body of another ROK in hole with him. Live ROK, ready to leave, takes entrenching tool and whacks head off companion’s body, swings head over his shoulder, and marches off. I have second session with Tilt.
Combat patrol: kill or capture; Hill 467 to our front. We go down cliff face, cross stream, climb silently onto objective. With advantage of surprise, we move fast through position, capture eight NK’s, kill all the rest, search twenty bodies for papers, captured weapons. Gooks mortar us from adjoining hill, but we get back with only scratch casualties. I almost shoot myself in foot, literally. Another session with Tilt. These are the sun-filled days of late September. Life on the line is idyllic.
20. October is an Active Month, and Sad
Enemy, back on Hill 467, fire on us. Four Corsairs blow up enemy position. During scary all-nighter on line, I marvel at the cool of Cpl. Bartholmew, star squad leader recently awarded DSC. Just before first light, Breck, heading back to set up reserve area, stops at my hole to chat. About an hour later, we come upon his body on the trail. He’s been killed in an ambush a half-mile behind the line. We spend all day scouring the area, find nothing.
Reserve. Late at night, Bartholmew waits for me in the darkness. Can I help him get out? I can. He’s gone the next day. I leave platoon to become S-2, battalion intelligence officer. Breck’s death leads to strict enforcement of officer rotation. We carry out guerrilla sweep, lose two helicopters. Col. Gorman, former S-2, sees stereo without glasses. Our loudspeaker appeal gets its first prisoner.
21. Jim Marsh Outlasts Us All
If this were a game of Last Man Standing, Jimmie would be winning hands down. Now, after six months in George Company, he’s still going strong. Getting hit several times only confirmed his view that “those sons-a-bitches can’t kill me.” He leads his platoon into a firefight on patrol in effort to get prisoners. After the fight he has casualties, but no prisoners. He calls out to NK’s in Korean to surrender. Some do. Next day he goes out again to destroy NK weapons and blow up bunkers. This is late October; he just doesn’t stop.
22. November, December and the Windup
With division bugler, we develop technique for rat-fucking. Bugler blows assembly call through loudspeaker; when gooks assemble, division to fire rockets or artillery on them. Started as a gag, now may become operational. Jim Marsh finally leaves George Company to take over regimental tank platoon. The way he does it, he may be more exposed there than in a rifle platoon. Clem Vaughan gets rural Virginia newspaper each week. We gather for his weekly readings with straight face. Hilarious. With Kitchen et al., I go to reunion of Quantico’s Junior School. Classmates, mostly ex-college football players, huge but friendly, fortunately. Col. Gorman restless and ill tempered in reserve, chews out company officers. Kitchen leaves for Pearl Harbor on rotation.
Back on line, battalion is plagued by accidental discharges. Finally, Joe Reed, Bill Rockey and I leave Korea, New Year’s Eve. To Osaka, Japan, on LST; then to San Francisco on General Weigel. Read paperbacks and sleep for seventeen days, plowing through wintry seas of north Pacific. End of the Korean assignment.
23. Musings
The term “musings” is defined as : “thoughts, especially when aimless and unsystematic.”
Infantry combat is an insular experience; combatants are isolated from the rest of the universe. Time exists only in the present: you need a wristwatch, but not a calendar. The entire world is limited to what you can actually see, before your eyes or on your map. You have direct contact with only a few others, but the bonds with them can be very strong. For us, our outside communication was severely limited, our needs few and very simple. In that kind of war, small differences can have enormous consequences, like who lives or dies and who wins the war. Close calls are everyday stuff: usually exhilarating, but every human being has limits.
All agree that young Marines perform superbly in extreme danger and under pressure. Why? A stab at an answer: In part, the culture. The officer-enlisted relationship, everyone who goes out comes back, etc. In part, the legends. The characters are real, and like the members of The Old Brigade, “they all face danger with a smile.” They talk in clipped ironic phrases that ring through the years. And this culture carries through to the present, as in General Hagee’s Passage of Command Ceremony, or General Mattis’s message to his troops heading into Iraq. That’s why young Marines go up the hill.
24. Afterword
For us the war was over at the start of 1952, but for the 8th Army that remained the war continued for nineteen months. The lines never changed, but there were fierce clashes at outposts and on patrol as well as pitched battles at places with names like Old Baldy, Porkchop, The Hook, Carson, Vegas, Reno and Boulder City.
The Korean War destroyed the Truman Administration and became the major issue in the Presidential Campaign of 1952. Ike promised he would go to Korea, and he did, immediately after the election. The truce that ended the war, in late July 1953, left American Army commanders embittered and the American public disappointed. But, a generation later, if the U.S. could have gotten a similar result in Vietnam, it “would have been a cause for national self-congratulation.”
Much of America wanted only to forget the war. But for those who fought there, it was unforgettable – and formative. The Korean war experience profoundly affected our lives. Some of the effects are discussed in the Afterword section, tracking the post-Korea lives of twenty-one Marines – fifteen officers and six enlisted men – whose experiences are recounted in the earlier chapters of the book. They live or have lived in more than a dozen States, and they’ve been active in a variety of careers. One (Shoup) was Commandant of the Marine Corps. Another (Puller), the most famous Marine. The others have served across a broad spectrum of business and professional life. Tom Brokaw’s veterans of World War II, good as they were, are not necessarily the greatest generation. Some of these Marines did all right too.