Korea: Roa Remembers "The Forgotten War" - Reserve Officers Association

Carol A. Kelly

JANUARY & FEBRUARY 1951

After the beginning of hostilities in Korea, Reservists were called into extended active duty, and those of us who had been grounded in 1949 (because of a shortage of funds) were placed back on flight status," says Lt Col Julian A. Roadman, USAF (Ret.), of Florissant, Mo. He had been a U.S. Air Force captain in 1949, flying Military Air Transport Service (MATS) Atlantic Division routes as aircraft commander on Douglas Skymaster C-54 aircraft.

When the war began in Korea, "I was immediately placed on TDY to Kelly AFB, Texas, for transition training on the new Boeing C-97 Stratocruisers," he recalls.

In his account of Pacific Division MATS and transportation of casualties back to the States, Colonel Roadman writes:

"All MATS transport aircraft, both USAF and Navy, were put into service transporting military personnel and supplies westward to the war, and the MATS flights returned to the U.S. with war casualties. Those wounded in battle received initial medical care at front-line medical aid stations or MASH units.

"In the Chosin Reservoir area of North Korea, the 1st Marine Division was isolated when surrounded by an estimated six divisions of first-line Chinese troops. Enemy attacks at night, strong winds and below-zero temperatures resulted in many Marine deaths and men requiring urgent medical treatment.

"In a few days, Marine engineers managed to grade a rough 3,200-foot landing strip out of the frozen earth near the Chosin entrapment that could be used by Douglas C-47 Gooney Birds; quite often, the Chinese were taking pot shots at the construction crews.

"The USAF then flew out 4,689 casualties from that forward strip--30 men per flight. From Korea, thousands of battle casualties were flown across the Japan Sea in Douglas C-54 Skymaster aircraft to U.S. Navy and U.S. Army hospitals in Japan for primary medical treatment. The most serious patients were processed for air evacuation to hospitals in the United States, using pressurized USAF Boeing C-97 Stratocruisers and Lockheed C-121 Constellations, and U.S. Navy Douglas R6Ds, as well as unpressurized Douglas C-124 Globemaster aircraft."

Quoting from Clayton Knight's 1957 volume, Lifeline in the Sky: The Story of the U.S. Military Air Transport Service, Colonel Roadman cites the following: "During the [Korean] War, air evacuation of the MATS had flown out more than 62,000 men, or 95 percent of all the wounded, taking them to the comfort of American hospitals and families.... No evacuation plane so far has ever ditched."

"I was flying Boeing C-97s for Pacific Division MATS during this crisis," Roadman continues. "Each C-97 would be loaded with 60 patients on litters stacked up to five high. Most of the men that my ship carried were Marines suffering from severe frostbite of hands and feet. Their extremities had turned black and were uncovered, but the rest of their bodies were covered with wool blankets. At cruise altitude, the cabin temperature was maintained around 40 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce pain that the patients were experiencing in their frostbitten areas."

Colonel Roadman recalls one patient in particular on a flight out of Tokyo. He was "attached to his litter with four handcuffs, one on each wrist and one on each ankle, but there was no appearance of frostbite damage." When a conversation with the nurse determined that he was not sick or wounded and had no physical problems, but was "considered dangerous," then-Captain Roadman said he would not take responsibility "of a man in my ship who was hog-tied." After more exchanges between nurse and pilot, the handcuffs were finally removed and the flight proceeded.

En route to Midway, Captain Roadman was curious about the young man, the "dangerous patient" who "didn't appear old enough to have graduated from high school."

"I sent our spare flight engineer to bring him forward .... [to] sit in the empty co-pilot's seat. He politely sat down without saying anything....

"Finally, my curiosity got the better of me, so I asked my silent visitor why he had been restrained. He looked at me for some time, and finally said, 'Captain, they think that I am crazy, but I got out of Korea, didn't I?' He left me speechless.

"I've thought about that lad for years and wondered what happened to him. Then, and now, I thought that he was the wisest person on my ship."

Colonel Roadman continues his story of the air evacuations: "When Korean War casualties were transported to airfields within the contiguous 48 U.S. states, the MATS aircraft commanders were ordered to off-load their hospital ships only after dark, since the authorities in Washington wanted to suppress any hint to the public that might indicate that America was losing the Korean War.

"On one air evacuation flight, my ship was loaded with 49 New England litter patients en route from Travis AFB, Calif., to my home base, Westover AFB, Mass. Most of these men were frostbitten Marines from the 1st Division. We landed at Westover on Christmas Eve 1950. My squadron CQ had called my wife and given her the ETA for my ship and she was waiting on the ramp to greet me. However, there was no one else there--no ambulances, no medics, and no Red Cross representatives to care for my 49 patients. After I shut down the engines, my wife came aboard, and I went to base operations to alert them that there were men on my ship who needed immediate assistance.

"Although my wife was a trained nurse, she was alarmed to see the condition of my passengers. She said that one boy, whose hands and feet were bandaged, asked her to put her arms around him and then asked her to light a cigarette for him. She asked me to include mention of this sad occasion when I wrote this story, because she had spent the following day, Christmas, crying.

"I wrote a scathing report to my base commander relating the lack of service my charges had received when we arrived on his air base. I received a quick reply from him, and he promised to have ambulances, hospital personnel, Red Cross representatives and even his USAF band meet any subsequent air evacuation flights arriving on his base.

"I learned from a USAF nurse that on Christmas Day 1950, the Westover AFB Hospital was crammed with approximately 2,500 military casualties from the Korean War. It would be interesting to know how many more were patients in all the other military and naval hospitals on that day."

In other recollections for this issue of The Officer, ROA members continue with accounts of December 1950 in Korea: Operation Kiddy Car, loss of the first C-119, arrivals at Masan and Hamhung from Chosin; and arrival into Korea from the U.S. In their January/February 1951 stories, contributors describe dive-bombing a bridge near Pyongyang and engaging in hand-to-hand combat near Seoul.

December 1950

From North to South Korea

Via Operation Kiddy Car

Lt Col Grace E. Chicken, USAF (Ret.), of Port Charlotte, Fla., was a flight nurse with the 801st MAES, 315th Air Division, involved with the intra-Korean shuttle of wounded in C-46s and 47s from forward airstrips back to Army hospitals in South Korea or Japan.

In December 1950, the Air Force volunteered to move 1,000 orphans from North Korea to South Korea, in an undertaking dubbed Operation Kiddy Car. In a letter written home on 21 December 1950, Grace describes for her family the evacuation from Kimpo in North Korea--"where the ground is covered with snow" and the children were dying of exposure--to a little island on the southern tip of Korea.

"They are war orphans, probably from North and South Korea, cute little things but so pitiful. Their little hands were just like claws, and arms and legs so skinny. A few almost looked like skeletons, in fact.... Some of them were very scantily clad--no gloves or mittens, of course, and some had no stockings," she writes.

"Some Army chaplain engineered the whole thing. It is the result of all the charities in Korea and the United States. We (the U.S.) sent 16 planes (four-engine jobs)," she continues.

"The kids came from Inchon (about 32 miles) by Army trucks. There were approximately 80 workers; some food cooking utensils, washing equipment (tubs), etc., came in nine trucks. At Kimpo, we picked up Army rations and CARE packages (good ole USA) and loaded 14 of the planes. We had more kids on each plane than we had counted on, so two of the planes brought back patients.

"We had equipment tied down the centers of the planes, and around the sides were kids. They put rice mats on the floor and they sat on those. I had several big comforters, so I covered up most of my kids. I had 86; about 12 were babies probably ages 2 or 3. The rest ranged up to 8, maybe a few older. They were well-behaved kiddies, curious about a plane ride, but sat down when I told them to.... The trip took two hours.

"Everyone on the base came out to see the orphans.... The soldiers were so nice to the kids; helped carry them on the planes, played with them. One little boy became much attached to a soldier-cried when he was set down in the plane. Someone made the remark, 'No wonder we can't fight'....

"On the plane..., unless they went to sleep, they looked at me with their big eyes out of their strained little faces.... I'd have given half a month's salary for a lot of candy, crackers or something....

"On the island, there was no concrete runway. We landed our big planes on the grass, but there were no casualties....

"The kids had been without food all day. Air Evac was notified that they were coming, so the volunteer workers (wives of soldiers based here) were ready for them. They'd made a big pot of cocoa, sandwiches, cookies, doughnuts, and gave them chewing gum. I helped feed them; it was fun. Some of the older ones curtsied, and the women bowed to us, went over by the wall and prayed....

"After the women (Americans) saw them, they gathered up a room full of clothing.... One lady took one of the little boys home with her, cleaned him up, and gave him a pair of pressed long pants and a sweater. He was so proud of them; he just stood with his feet together, looking at the creases in his pants.

"I got home about 8 p.m. (having gotten up about 3:30 a.m.). Was just getting ready for bed when they called and wanted a nurse to go to Korea to bring back two emergency patients, so I pulled myself together and went. Crawled into bed about 3:30, exactly 24 hours after I left it. My meals for the day: breakfast of toast, coffee, and an orange; a sandwich and cocoa with the orphans; and a bowl of soup at home before my second trip."

Wonsan to Majondong, Hamhung to Hungnam

MAJ James L. Jackson, AUS (Ret.), of Seattle, Wash., was a master sergeant in operations and the fire direction center with 999th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. He continues his story of the 999th in action in Korea:

December 3, the 999th AFA moved back to Wonsan. We were returning from Sung-Ni and Yong Hang. We also had a fairly good schoolhouse to live in. We located just outside the Navy Corsairs Airfield and stayed in Wonsan about one and a half days. On the 4th, the 999th AFA Battalion was alerted to move to Tansang-Ni. We closed in on Tansang-Ni on the 5th.

On 6 December, the 999th AFA Battalion was alerted to move to Majondong. The entire battalion went on this unknown mission. By 7 December, the 999th closed in on the destination Majondong at 0530 hours. We did not occupy a gun position; we just waited for further orders from higher headquarters. The 999th waited at Majondong until the 11th.

The first 155 howitzer, M41 chassis, to fire a shell into the frozen Chosin Reservoir, in order to assist the withdrawal of the 1st Marine Division, was named "Bad Bastard from Benning." Sgt. Horace Reevis was the gun sergeant chief of that number-three base piece.

December 12, the 999th AFA Battalion departed Majondong and Pongha-Ri for Hamhung. On 13 December, the 999th arrived in Hamhung and remained there through the 18th. We shifted positions to include a place called Hungnam. We were cold and hungry when we moved into Hungnam. The city was ragged and filthy. One could see rubble for miles....

December 19-20, the 999th AFA Battalion was ordered to move the howitzers onto the beachhead. The beach was not too far away; we moved to Hungnam, code-name Pink Beach. We broke down rations and dug-in the guns as required--not too deeply. Sandbags were placed to an acceptable height. We also performed our routine operation of setting up our FDC, so we would be able to shoot as fast as possible when we were called upon to do so. This operation had to maintain a complete blackout. The men tried to find somewhere to get some rest.

December 21, we had ammo on hand by the thousands of rounds. Lieutenant Boyd had a hard time getting the ammo; however, we had it by the truckloads, waiting for the firing battalion to call for it when needed.

We did a lot of firing and many of the enemy troops were killed.... We did a lot of harassing and interdiction (H&I) firing that denied use of terrain and any chance of sleep.

In addition to our own H&I firing, we got requests for H&I fire from other light artillery battalions plus requests from 3rd Division Artillery Headquarters. I almost forgot to mention GEN Roland P. Shugg, 3rd Division Artillery Commander from Ft. Benning, Ga. He was the commander in Korea, and damn good.

December 22-24, the 999th AFA had two missions while on Pink Beach. One was to kill the enemy; the other was to cover the withdrawal of the infantry and other units that evacuated the Hungnam Beach. December 24, we were to evacuate the beach in LSTs to a port in South Korea.

On 21 December, we had fired about 70 tons of high explosives (HE); 22 December, we fired about 85 tons; and on the 23rd, we fired 90-95 tons of steel, or about 2,450-2,500 rounds of RE.

December 24, we were still firing our 155 howitzers. We were to move out of position, excluding the three howitzer batteries. We walked for about four miles so we could load on the LSTS. The 999th AFA Battalion was the last artillery unit to leave Hungnam Beach under the gunfire of the battleship Missouri's 16-inch guns....

December 25 saw us on the China Sea heading south. Two days later we landed at a port on the east coast of South Korea. We unloaded and traveled toward the west coast. We had our Christmas dinner the following day. (The U.S. Navy did not have Christmas dinner because the U.S. Army did not have dinner available to it.)

It was not too long before a paratrooper by the name of GEN Matthew B. Ridgway took command in Korea and the battle was on. This battle was known as "Ridgway Duels for Kore."

Approximately 20 December Yonpo Airfield, Northeast Korea

Lt Col John Haddox, USAF (Ret.), of Maryville, Tenn., was a private first class in the Air Force Reserve when called to serve with the 61st Troop Carrier, flying supplies into Korea and evacuating the wounded.

"Springfield man lets transport burn to escape capture by Chinese Reds," the headline proclaims. It summarizes a story from the Springfield (Tenn.) Herald of 22 December 1950, a copy of which was submitted by Colonel Haddox. The account tells of his plane, the Persian Queen, which he says was "the first C-119 lost in Korea." Crippled and abandoned at Yonpo Airfield, the plane "was condemned to burn to avoid capture by the Chinese Reds." Lt Randall Wood, the Springfield man, was copilot; Private First Class Haddox was the radioman.

An Associated Press article describes the event as follows:

"On the west side of the field, silhouetted against smoke from a flaming barracks, a C-119 transport awaited the torch.

"The aft cargo door was gone. The wind worried a few loose straps. Inside the plane were several barrels of gasoline and boxes of explosives. The wheels were drenched with gasoline.

"But up on the plane's nose, a blonde and buxom 'Persian Queen' smiled and beckoned as seductively as the day she was painted on the shining aluminum.

"Sgt. 1/c William P. Downs, Fort Wayne, Ala., in charge of an engineering detail destroying the disabled aircraft, eyed the Persian Queen with relish.

"'She's got a lot of gas in her. She's gonna burn awful pretty,' he said."

The plane was considered "one of ours" by those at Stewart Air Base, Smyrna, Tenn. "We had about all the C-119s there were in this country," a public information officer said at the time.

Colonel Haddox says he was across the field during the burning, looking for a way back to their base in Ashiya, Japan, where four of their C-119 squadrons were stationed. "I found transportation on another C-119," he recalls.

December 1950--May 1951 Korea to Japan to USA

LtCol E. H. Gleason Jr., USMCR (Ret.), of Shreveport, La., was a corporal with Baker Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, "through the Chosin Reservoir fight and back to Masan."

Disembarking at Masan, the division moved into an area around the city, where squad tents were set up. "It was like a very orderly tent city, with company streets in the battalion area," Colonel Gleason recalls.

"The battalion surgeon sent for me to check out my feet for frostbite damage. He was surprised when I told him I walked out with my platoon from the pass to Hamhung. He told me I was lucky not to lose any toes and that it was probably because I did walk out.

"We spent the next two weeks in camp getting replacements and equipment. Christmas came and we had turkey and all the trimmings."

Deciding that the men needed to get back in shape, "Captain Noren ordered the entire company out on a conditioning hike. While on the hike, we jumped three deer" and "most of the company began firing at them." Furious about the firing without orders, Captain Noren nevertheless "told several of the men to go and get the deer. He was even more upset when they returned with the deer," which had fallen in the dust cloud and broken its neck, "but had not been hit by any of the several thousand rounds fired."

"For the next several days, Captain Noren had the company out at dawn firing on a makeshift rifle range. There was not any more firing at anything on our hikes. It was quite embarrassing, with the rest of the battalion referring to us as the deer-slayers."

In early 1951, then-Corporal Gleason was transferred to battalion headquarters, where his "only job was to see that the other corporals in the S-I section did their jobs." For the next three months, he worked in the S-2 and S-3 sections with Lieutenant Join and Major Bridges.

"Shortly after the first of the year, the battalion moved north to the town of Uisong and set a defensive perimeter around the area. Company-size or larger patrols went out almost every day to eliminate remnants of the North Korean forces that had been bypassed by the Inchon landing....

"We had a separate tent for the S-1 section, and I was lucky in another way. I had two corporals, Lyman and Capito, who were regular Marines. They were the battalion mail clerks and they had to go to regimental headquarters every day to pick up our mail. Either on the way there or back, things seemed to leap out and cling to them--like 50-pound boxes of steaks, or pancake flour, or new socks and other items in great demand. Even Colonel Schmuck was impressed with the way the S-1 section was living, telling me that my corporals were the best scroungers that he had ever seen.

"The good times ended in early March as the battalion received orders to move north to push the CCF out of South Korea. We went up on the ridges and stayed there as we attacked to the north. All of our supplies were packed up to us by South Koreans on A frames. We had two meals a day. We were in constant contact with the enemy for over 50 days. Each night, one tent was put up for the 2 and 3 Section use. We received some light artillery fire on some nights. We had a forward air control team assigned to us, headed by a Lieutenant Young. Somehow, he managed to get a bottle of bourbon from his squadron every day. He and I were the only people who would sleep in the tent because of the possible artillery fire from the enemy. The lieutenant would sleep on a cot and I was in my sleeping bag on the ground. Each night, he would come in with a little leftover bourbon for me. The deal was that if we received any fire I would push his cot over with my feet....

"On 1 April, the battalion sergeant major told me to pack my gear, that I was on orders to Japan for shipment back to the USA for OCS... But it was no [April Fool] joke, and a few hours later I was on my way to Japan with about 200 other meritorious NCOs from the entire division. We were sent to Otsu, Japan, and quartered in barracks that had been for Japanese marines. We were in Japan for 35 days and those of us who passed the examining board were flown to the USA."

In a concluding salute, Colonel Gleason adds: "The officers in the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division, were and are first-class."

August-December 1950

USA to Korea

LTC Herman C. Schultz, USAR (Ret.), of Green Lake, Wis., was a master sergeant, S-2, with the 10th AAA Group at Ft. Lewis, Wash., when the Korean War broke out.

"The group and attached units left CONUS 6 August 1950 on the General Black. This in itself was a hair-raiser long to be remembered by all aboard," Colonel Schultz recalls.

"The typhoon mentioned in previous stories was only the beginning. The ship lost power--'almost' maximum roll experienced. Tie-downs snapped, sending vehicles and railings into the deep. The mess hall was a disaster area with food and personnel all over. I was in the pilot house operating the decoder for the ship's captain and the ship was being towed by a sea-going tug."

The group arrived in Yokohama on 24 August; Pusan on 11 September; and Taegu 14 September, assigned to act "as division artillery for the First Republic of Korea (ROK) Division."

"I assumed control of the EM in the fire direction center, normally under control of a captain. The majors and captains were with the division as liaison officers," Colonel Schultz writes. "The FDC moved 31 times, arriving at the farthest move forward to Unsan on 25 October, then back to Seoul by 2 December."

On 21 December, the group returned to Taegu and to the antiaircraft missions.

Then-Sergeant Schultz was discharged 21 February 1951; commissioned second lieutenant, AUS, 22 February 1951; promoted to first lieutenant 7 September 1951; and assigned 18 November as executive officer, A Battery, 76th AW Battalion at Inchon, returning to CONUS 20 January 1952. For the period 17 September-2 November 1950, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

January or February 1951 East of Pyongyang

LTC Edward J. LaClare, USAR (Ret.), of Vienna, Va., submits a story recounted by his father, Col. Edward F. LaClare, USAF (Ret.), who was commanding an F-80 squadron on Okinawa when the Korean War broke out. Col Edward F. writes:

I flew 23 missions in Korea in the F-80, was promoted to colonel and transferred to the 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing at Munsan, where I flew 20 missions in the P-51s, which we then called the "Spain Can." The P-51 was an outstanding fighter in WWII, but was obsolete in Korea. When I was strafing in the F-80, I would keep the airspeed around 400 mph and not worry much about the flak. But I felt vulnerable in the P-51 (officially called the F-51 then), when I would see 185 on the airspeed indicator and think of what just one bullet would do to the cooling system of that liquid-cooled engine. I picked up three more clusters to the Air Medal before my tour was cut short, and I was sent back to the States to attend War College.

One of the missions I recall very vividly was in Korea just after I joined the 18th as deputy wing commander and a very new full colonel. Under those circumstances, one doesn't go down to fly a mission and say, "I'm a full colonel, and I'm going to lead." Rather, one sits back until he has gained the confidence of those he is to fly with, and then waits to be assigned to lead. As I had flown jets for about three years, I was a bit rusty in a prop fighter. I flew around the traffic pattern a few times and proclaimed myself combat-ready. After a couple of uneventful missions attacking ground targets, I went down to fly one morning and found that I was assigned to fly on a major's wing....

I was somewhat surprised when just the two of us were briefed to dive-bomb a bridge about 30 miles east of Pyongyang, each of us carrying two 500-pound bombs. Since a bridge is a very difficult target to hit from the air, I thought that this mission was little more than a futile gesture....

When we got to the target, the leader called me and said he was going in on the target. We were at 8,000 feet, just as the book says for a dive-bomb run. I pulled off to watch what happened and he scored a couple of really close misses.

Well, I knew I was under the gun as the new boy on the block and a new colonel--and that whatever I did was going to be the topic of discussion in the squadron. I called the leader and told him that I was going to drop one bomb at a time; that way I'd get two shots at the bridge. With some misgivings, I rolled over at 8,000 feet and dived on the target, but as I hadn't dive-bombed in a single-engine prop-driven airplane for several years, I forgot to lead with the left rudder. On the instrument panel, the ball was way over on one side of its race; the needle was way over on the other side; I couldn't get the gun-sight anywhere near the bridge; and of course I was losing altitude rapidly.

I speculated briefly whether it would look worse to pull out and start all over again or whether I should punch one off even though I didn't have any idea where it would hit. Relying on my one-eighth Irish ancestry for luck, I took a chance and punched it off. I pulled up and said to myself, "Please, God, let that bomb land somewhere near the river."

I banked to the left and looked down when, to my astonishment, the center span of the bridge dropped right into the river. I couldn't have done better if I had been able to lay the bomb down on the bridge. But I wasn't going to let my leader know that it was pure luck. I called him on the radio and said in a very flat voice, "Red leader, I've got another bomb left. Do you have any more bridges?" He replied that there was another bridge about 30 miles up the river.

So, we went up there and, at 8,000 feet, I rolled over (by that time I was getting the feel of the airplane better), had the ball centered, the needle centered and the gun-sight exactly where I wanted it. I punched my remaining bomb off and just missed the bridge. In a very disgusted voice, I said to my leader, "Aw, hell, there goes my average for today." I never did tell anyone that, when I dropped the first bomb, about the only thing I was sure of was that it was going down, not up. Not long after that, I was leading missions.

7 February-June 1951

Near Seoul

CPT Winston A. Williams, USAR (Ret.), of Oakland, Calif., was a second lieutenant when he landed at Inchon around 30 October 1950. He served with the 25th Infantry Division, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion, Company A, as 2nd Platoon leader, joining the unit in its withdrawal approximately 40 miles from the Yalu River.

"On the night of 7 February 1951, about 0200, an enemy force of approximately 200 counter-attacked our position, with my platoon command post being overrun. There I received my first wound. I was evacuated to Taejon, Korea, to a MASH, where I recovered from hand-grenade blast fragments and the hand-to-hand encounter," Captain Williams recalls.

An account of the 25th Infantry Division in Korea describes Lieutenant Williams' action as follows: "Williams himself downed the first two enemy soldiers with his 45, and clubbed another to death with his rifle butt."

The 25th's account also describes the actions of Lieutenant Williams' platoon sergeant, Clarence J. Paul of New Orleans, La., who was almost totally blinded by an enemy concussion grenade that exploded in the platoon command post area: "[He] madly lashed out with his rifle butt ... in the hand-to-hand encounter with the Chinese." Sergeant Paul would later comment: "Except for the fact my eyes hurt pretty bad, it wasn't so different from other night fighting. Sometimes it gets so dark, you can't see anyway. Then you have to rely on instinct to get to the enemy."

Continuing his story, Captain Williams writes: "Sergeant Paul was evacuated to a hospital unknown. Pvt. William N. Reese Jr. of Philadelphia, Pa., was killed in action beside me.

"The platoon fought fiercely and gallantly. When day came, 21 enemy bodies were counted with two in my command post. We never knew how many enemy wounded in action there were. We could see evidence where they dragged some away. After my wounds healed, I returned to my unit. In my platoon, we had two killed and seven WIAs, including myself.

"On 4 June, while attacking a hill with my platoon, I was hit by an enemy machine-gun bullet and was evacuated via air ambulance to the 382nd General Hospital in Osaka, Japan. There I was presented with my second Purple Heart. I returned to Korea and to my unit after being hospitalized for about three months. There we made night and daylight patrols and limited objective attacks into enemy territory.

"In late December 1951, I rotated, arriving in the United States 7 January 1952."

KOREAN WAR CHRONOLOGY

January 1-15

Third Phase CCF (Chinese Communist Forces) Offensive: 500,000 enemy troops push U.N. forces 50 miles south of the 38th Parallel and recapture Seoul.

January 15

Operation Wolfhound. Reconnaissance by reinforced Regimental Combat Team (RCT) re-establishes contact with enemy near Osan.

January 25

Eighth and Republic of Korea armies take offensive. Operation Thunderbolt begins, with advance north toward Han River by I and IX Corps. February 1 Battle of the Twin Tunnels. The 23rd Infantry Regiment (2nd Infantry Division), French Battalion and 347th Field Artillery Battalion confront several CCF regiments, killing at least 1,300 Chinese.

February 5

Operation Roundup. Advance by U.S. X Corps begins on eastern flank.

February 13-15

Battle of Chipyong-ni. First mass assault by CCF: 18,000 troops. CCF offensive contained by 23rd Regiment (2nd Infantry Division), French Battalion, 1st Ranger Company, 37th Field Artillery Battalion, and Battery B of the 82nd Anti-aircraft Artillery Battalion.

February 16, 1951 to July 27, 1953

Siege of Wonsan. Task Force 95 (U.N. Blockade and Escort Force) blockades Wonsan Harbor. An unprecedented 861-day naval operation, it is the longest effective siege of a port in U.S. Navy history.

February 21

Operation Killer. A general advance begins by U.S. IX and X Corps.

February 28

Operation Ripper. Begins in central and eastern zones with advance across the Han by IX and X Corps.

Sources: The Korean War by Matthew B. Ridgway;

Homepage, 50th Anniversary of the Korean War Committee--http://korea50.army.mil/

COPYRIGHT 2001 Reserve Officers Association of the United States
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group