LEHI VETERANS OF THE KOREAN WAR1950-53

Wayne AdamsDonald Earl AllbeeBlaine P. AndersonDean AsayJack A. AsayHoward J. AustinJohn M. BallReldon E. BarnesClinton J. BarnesFreeman J. BarnesBurlin D. BatesKent Eugene BeckTrevor H. BeckPaul C. BennettRichard L. BennettWallace N. BerryPhillip D. BlackBruce BoneFred M. BrockbankFerrin D. BrownMerrill C. BrownMorris M. BrownRay Dean BrownEph. L. BryantKenneth J. BryantAlvin B. CelcerKerlin Earl ChiltonMarta L. Chilton WACHarold E. ChristensenSherman N ChristoffersonEarl Glen ClarkCecil G. ColledgeDean ColledgePaul B. Comer

Richard L. CooperCraig CrabbKirkham CrabbNevin Lee CrabbDarrell F. DeanEarl Craig DortonLa Drue DortonJames Merle EvansWilliam H. EvansCharles T. FeatherstoneEdmund Dalt FowlerSherman R. Fox*Jamew Edward GaisfordMerlin GaisfordRichard W. GilchristRalph John GoatesBobbie D. GrahmnStanley P. GrantJames R. GrayDon Wesley GreenGlen GurneyRichard Keith GurneyPaul HansonMelvin C. HartshornRalph E. HartshornArvo Victor HavillaCharles Eugene HawsPaul Lehi HawsWallace L. HebertsonEarl N. HicksShirley C. HicksCarlos HickmanDavid Rex HolmesVon D. HolmsteadChad HoopesHarold Weston  IversMervin L. JohansonJohnny E. JohnsonMilo E. Johnson

David J. JonesDonald M. JonesJohn KolanJoseph R. LambertLeo Hartwell LoveridgeJoseph Lee McOmieNeil H. ManningCharles E. MercerJ. Sterling MerrillRoger Glen MeyersDarwin D. MitchellRobert L MortonGlen L. ParkerJerry G. PeckKarl M. PeckCloyd Ronald PenrodKay Afton PetersonLyle Van PetersonMax Wayne PetersonDean Keith PowellDale Herbert PriceRex Thomas PriceStanley Gill PriceRay H. RobinsonGilbert A. RoundyGlenn B. RoundyLester Leffler RussonLa Mar M. ScownNorman Marvin SimsKenneth Blaine SingletonVon W. SorensonCharles R. SouthwickEdward L. SouthwickNevin Ray SouthwickDon Clive Street Darhl Leland TingeyRoland R. TurnerFon Junior WarburtonDan Martin Warden

Vee A WarneskiA. Paul WebbEdwin D. WebbKeith Stanley WebbR. Dean WelchHarold Ray WestringBoyd WilkinNile G. WilkinWayman L. Winslow

Merlin Gaisford as interviewed by Judy Hansen The Military – Basic Training I got a letter that said I had been chosen and invited to Fort Douglas and I better show up. I went there for a physical and then went home for six months. They called again but the second time I didn’t come back. I was in the Army! They threw me on a train and sent me to San Francisco. From San Francisco they put me on a truck and sent me about 50 miles south of San Francisco to Fort Ord an Army base on the Monterey Bay in California. Although there is no longer an army base there I guess on April 29, 2012 President Obama signed a proclamation designating a 14,651-acre portion of the former post as the Fort Ord National Monument. I was there only two days. They gave us all clothes and put us on another truck and sent us to Camp Roberts. Camp Roberts is located in central California, on both sides of the Salinas River in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties. I took basic training there. Basic training was 16 weeks. We never marched at Camp Roberts, we always ran. After eight weeks they took half the guys and sent them to Seattle then they filled the camp up again with men from the Midwest. I finished the last 8 weeks. On the sixteenth week of training they sent us 40 miles north to a place called Fort Hunter Liggett. They had these amphitheaters with logs set up to sit on. They would give us lessons in these amphitheaters. Once we were all sitting on these logs and all of a sudden up jumped a guy, then shortly after another man would jump up, and another. Pretty soon everyone had jumped up. We had warmed those logs up that we were sitting on enough to make fourteen huge California rattlers active that were sleeping in them. Nobody got bit but these huge diamond back rattlers were three and four feet long. We didn’t stay there, we moved on. After they were through with us at Fort Hunter Liggett we had to walk back to Camp Roberts. That was our 40 mile hike. Basic training was finished and I came home for a week. Then Joann moved down to Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County California to be with me. After eight weeks in California with my wife I shipped overseas and JoAnn went back to Utah. Going to War I was assigned to the 49th Field artillery service battery, 489 field artillery battalion. I went to Camp Stoneman in Pittsburg, California where we caught a ferry to San Francisco and then we got on the SS DI Sulton which was a dependent carrier. That means it was a ship that carried the dependent members of family members. There were about 600 of us Army guys, 100 Marines, 100 sailors, and 1000 dependents on that ship. The Marines had to do all the guard duty, the sailors had to clean up all the puke, and I didn’t have to do nothing. I was just on a cruise. It was a big ship and it moved fast, 23 knots 24 hours a day. It never slowed down. It took us nine days to get to Japan where we stayed for about two days.

We then got on a ship called SS Bolow that took us from Japan up to Korea. The water was still and just as smooth as glass. The ship was like an old tub and it would sit there and rock from side to side. It didn’t have any ballast in it so it would just sit there and roll back and forth all the way across. We went into Pusan the port city of South Korea. We got on a train and went north a few miles and the destruction was evident. All the bridges were blown and hundreds of trucks were wrecked. We were on that train for a day and a half. I remember going through one great big tunnel. We got off and they scattered all of us out into different divisions. I went to the 2nd infantry division with quite a few of the other guys. I didn’t know where I was 90% of the time but I know we were up above Chorwon close to where they made movie ‘Porkchop hill.’ We were right off the side of what was known as the Iron Triangle near White Horse Mountain. We stayed there on the front line until about the 10th of July and then they loaded a bunch of us up and took us further east to Kumsong city, which was a piece of ground that went out from the front lines about 7 miles, and had us join the 187 airborne regimental combat team that had went in there by truck. There were about 150,000 Chinese and about 100,000 of them were right there. They attacked a place on the line where there was a bunch of Koreans. It is just too horrific to describe the scene but it was one of utter destruction. They just slaughtered them Koreans. They put us in there to stop the massacre. It was a pretty big battle and I get emotional just thinking about what happened there. The Koreans, they just boogied out and headed south. We never did get the 7 miles back. We had a least three or four thousand troops and the Chinese killed 307 of us and left about 1500 wounded. I think around 20 or so of those killed were in the 187th. This battle went on for three or four days and ended about the 13 or 14 of July. We had the 187th, two regiments from the 3rd division, and then one regiment from the 45th. Each regiment had about 3000 so there were about six or eight thousand there. Even when the battle was over the Chinese kept shelling us night and day until the end of the war. The war ended about 20 days later on the 27th of July 1953. The Korean War lasted two years and one month but I was only there for the last two months. Being at War They always say you never hear the round that kills ya. I was standing there one night and I heard this soft, “pfft” and some dirt flew over and hit me up the side of the head. I didn’t think nothin’ of it because nothin’ went off. The next day when it got light about four feet from my head was this big ol’ 122 millimeter mortar shell1. There it was - just stuck in the top of my bunker. It sat in our bunker for 5 or 6 days till the end of the war. Had it gone off it would have blown the top half of me right off, thank heavens it was a dud. We had a lot of shoot-outs every night because that is when the enemy would come and attack us. What little we slept was usually in the day. I was really tired all the time. Normally I would be up ½ the night on watch while my partner would try to sleep and then my partner would watch the other ½ of the night while I slept. I’d lay down right by the side of my partner in the trench. We were at the bottom of this big hill and when it would rain all the rain would roll down and end up in our trench. We had a sand bag that we used to hold our head up out of the water so we wouldn’t drown while we were sleeping. If someone was coming then my partner would kick me pretty hard to walk me up. I’d do the same to him. Even when the rain stopped and things would dry up we were stuck in the mud. I never had a watch the whole time I was in Korea. I don’t think there were many watches there so I didn’t know if I was standing there four hours a night or until it was almost daylight. I know I didn’t get much sleep while I was there. The next day we would start this all over again.

1 The mortar shell was over 5 inches in diameter and about 2 feet long.

It was just about the end of the war, but of course we didn’t know that. We had a tank that was right to the side of us in this little valley. It would come up at night so we had more fire-power. For some reason he had to go back to the rear. They sent a jeep up with a 105 recoilless rifle2 on it. It was the first time anyone had come up to where we were. They went down into a little bunker to eat some C-rations. I decided I would go and talk with them and see what the scuttle-butt from the rear was. When we got down there I crawled up in this pear pit3 on the bunker so I could keep my eye out on the front line to make sure no one would come. We ate the C-rations and the guys in the jeep decided to leave so they got up and walked out. I got up and my feet had just hit the ground when I heard this shell coming in. Now after you’ve been in war a while you can tell where these shells are going to hit by their sound. I knew this shell was going to hit right where I was. Time for me just stopped and I calmly said to myself, “They got ya Merly.” Then I dove for the door in the bunker and that shell went off. The concussion of it bounced me off the wall and blew me out of the trench. My whole shoulder felt like it had been hit with a sledge hammer. My ear was bleeding and my nose was bleeding. A piece of that shell must have bounced off a log or something and hit me, it didn’t go through my flak vest4 but it sure hurt5. In my little 20-year-old mind I thought someone was sitting over there with a great big set of B C Scopes looking out to see if he had done any damage so I jumped up and climbed on top of the bunker and I gave them the finger for only about three seconds because of all the snipers that were out there. I knew if I stayed up there very long one of them would blow my head off. I dove back down in the trench and thought, ‘Well Merly you might just have made your second mistake today.’ I said to my new partner, “I got a hunch that me and you should walk up the trench a ways.” He came with me and when we got up about 50 – 75 yards to the next bunch of guys all hell broke loose. The enemy must have dumped 25 rounds right on top of that bunker we had just left. I guess they saw the finger and got the message. My partner probably had it figured I was probably the smartest soldier in the town. We went back to the rear about 20 miles to the 38th parallel6 and we started digging fortifications. We dug and dug and dug and after two or three weeks of that they came and told us we were only there temporarily and gave us a choice of either going back to Japan with the 187th or staying in Korea. You had to figure out how many points you had because if you went back to Japan you would be there until your two years was up. If you stayed in Korea you might get out a month or two earlier and then the Army would turn you loose. I decided I’d stay in Korea because I didn’t want to go and jump out of airplanes with the 187th airborne. So they sent me to the 625 field artillery battalion. I thought I had died and went to heaven. On a typical day with the 187 we got up at 4 o’clock, done a few things, then went and done Army PT exercises for ½ hour, after that a ½ hour run, then we’d have breakfast, and after breakfast we would go and dig for 10 hours. When we got back from digging we take a swim in the river to wash off. If you really felt like it you could buy two beers, which is all they would let anyone have, then to bed only to start over with the same routine the next morning. When I went to the 625 they took me into see the Captain and the Sargent was there. The Sargent said, “Smitty, you go get Gaisford a bunk and show him where he will sleep and the rest of you guys go back

2 According to Wikipedia recoilless rifles are capable of firing artillery-type shells at a range and velocity

comparable to that of a normal light cannon, although they are typically used to fire larger shells at lower velocities and ranges. 3 A pear pit is a window on a bunker.

4 A bullet proof vest.

5 I never received a purple heart for this and there is really no one that could verify the incident as a witness.

6 The 38

th parallel is significant because it divides North and South Korea.

on that detail you were on this morning.” I thought, “Geez, another chicken-shit outfit.” We went and got my bed and we went down by the creek and the Sargent came over and said, “Do you drink beer?” I said, ‘Once in a while” so the sergeant said, “Here, have one.” All these guys sent out on these details were all sitting there drinking beer. That is where the detail was. They all had a rake, shovel, or something but they just sat around drinking beer. That is basically the way things went for the next eight months. We had trucks and could go buy whatever we wanted. I thought I died and went to heaven. We made a move and went over by Chorwon . There was a big rock out where we were going to put everything up. Around it was a bunch of little snakes. They were really small but very deadly. They were vipers. We killed all that we could find. One of the guys in our unit was attacked by a viper when he was in his pup tent. He didn’t know what was on him and struck at it but the viper struck back several times. He almost lost his arm. After about two weeks, we had a 2nd Lieutenant from Logan, Utah who gave me a job digging a trench to put communication wires in. I got serious and started digging just like when I was in the infantry. The Lieutenant came out and said, “Can you drive a truck?” I said, “Yea” so he said, “Let’s go for a ride.” He took me down the road for about two miles and then had me turn around a go back. They made a truck driver out of me and that is where I stayed for the rest of my time over in Korea. A month after that this Lieutenant and two other guys went up on the line to an observation point and were killed when their Coleman lantern blew up in the bunker they were in. Going Home They came and told us the outfit was going home. The 2nd Division was going to come in and take the outfit over. This was the 2nd time I was in the 2nd Division. I was there two days and they sent me home. We went back down to Puson and caught a ship, the SS Black. We left Puson about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The next morning I was sitting in my little bunk that was stacked four bunks high. They had about 3500 G.I’s on this ship. I was getting ready to put my shoes on and KABOOM. The big old ship just gave a big jerk and my shoes went flying up the other end of the room. We hit something. I figured we hit the bottom of the ocean. So up the stairs I go as the water-tight doors were closing behind me. The only way I could go was up. I got up on the main deck in no time and looked over the side and saw another ship – a Chinese National freighter loaded with 4.2 mortar shells – which had smacked into us. We were so lucky it didn’t go off. This ship’s front was smashed at least 20 feet – their front was just gone. We had a big hole in our side but it was high enough it was mostly above water so it didn’t hurt us too bad. It was a good thing the sea was calm. We escorted the ship into Sasebo, Japan then we just sit there for about ten days while they put a new side on our ship. Then we came on home. It was about May 1954. It took us over 30 days to get to the United States. We came into San Francisco. They put me on an airplane and flew me up to Seattle to Fort Lewis, Washington and then I went home. After a month I went back to Fort Lewis and stayed there until I got out. While I was in Fort Lewis here come the 2nd Division again and they took over. I was in the 2nd Division for the 3rd time but it was only for about a week then I went home. They kept me one day extra ‘for the good of the service.’ I’m still mad about that. Two years and one day. I was discharge the 4th of December 1954. They even have that on my discharge that I was detained one day for the good of the service. Military was eight years and so I had to spend six more years in inactive reserve. They never called me.

George "Farren" Pace as interviewed by Judy Hansen

November 2014

I was bom in Provo on May 6* 1932 to George Roland Pace and Elsie Marie Otterson. M y family was large. There was Donna, Juanita, Larry, Delilah, Betty, Dorothy (who died at birth) and myself I went to school in Eureka until I was eleven then we moved to 422 North 500 West in Lehi; just above the tracks. We moved our home here from Eureka. They ended up moving half o f that town out o f there. I attended school in Lehi from the 6'̂ '̂ grade to the 11"^ grade 1 got a double promotion so I was a year ahead of the kids my age. M y mother died in 1948 when 1 was 16 and my dad remarried. He had moved to 325 East 4"̂ Street in American Fork so I went to live with him. When I was a Senior I ended up graduating from American Fork High after l iving there seven months. After I graduated I moved back to Lehi in a sheep camp on Mendenhall's Ranch near Saratoga for about a year and a hal f

1 moved to Dugway and work at Dugway Proving Grounds as a laborer. M y buddy out there, Stan Black from Delta talked me into joining the Navy. I wasn't even thinking about joining but Stan told me we could go in and see the world. On December 23, 1950 I quit Dugway and that same day we went to Salt Lake. Stan decided to go talk to his cousin who was a bellhop in the Hotel Utah and while he was gone I went to the recruiters, processed, and got all signed in. They took us through some kind o f physical where three out of four men were rejected. I didn't think I would make it because I was this skinny little kid that only weighed around 150 pounds; but I got in. Stan came back and told me he had changed his mind. He didn't j o in and I never saw him again.

I was sworn into the Navy January 3^'^ 1951. We rode a train down to the Naval Training Center in San Diego and went through boot camp. We had nine weeks o f training and one of those weeks was mess hall; scrubbing trays and cleaning. I had been offered five different schools but I turned them down. I wanted to be a gunner's mate on a destroyer.

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After boot camp we loaded onto a troop transport; the USS General Wil l iam A Mann and went to Treasure Island up by San Francisco. There were about 7,000 o f us on that ship. They had a receiving center there.

Right after we landed everyone went home on leave except five o f us. There was one guy from American Fork; Jay Singleton, a Japanese man from Salt Lake, another guy from Lehi; Jack Doyle, myself, and John Bryan from Payette, Idaho who ended up getting killed on the ship. We sat around the barrack wondering what was going on but then the next day we all went home on leave. I was there ten days. Us five guys all rode the same Greyhound bus home and back to Treasure Island.

When the five of us had come back we discovered everyone else had been back for a day. We were only there two hours and they passed word for us five guys to fall into the debarkation center. They took us over and loaded us onto a commercial airline; which is unheard o f for an enlisted man. The aircraft was a little two motor job. The Navy nurses, doctors, officers, and us five sailors were the only ones on that fiight. We landed on Hawaii, then Wake Island where we got off and had a meal. We got back on the plane and went to Tokyo where the Japanese guy from Salt Lake got off. I never saw him again. This was Apr i l 1951.

In Tokyo on the Japanese island o f Honshu we got in a 6X6' and rode to the naval base in Yokosuka and stayed there one day. Then we got on a little train that had such little bunks in it we had to curl up to sleep. We traveled south across the entire length of Japan, went under a tunnel in the ocean to reach the southern Japanese Island o f Kyushu and stopped in Sasebo. On our train ride, we had gone through Hiroshima where they had dropped the bomb five years earlier. They woke us up so we could see it. There was a little bit o f cement and corrugated t in sticking up but no trees, no houses, no nothing; just desolation. I was surprised to see people walking around it to get where they were going. The radiation was probably still pretty hot there.

When we got to Sasebo we got on a tanker; an oiler, and rode it out to our ship. Jack Doyle got off onto his assigned ship, me and John Bryan got on the USS Brinkley Bass, Jay Singleton was still on board the oiler going to another ship. John and I rode the high-line^ from the tanker to the USS Brinkley Bass in a little bosun chair. A high-line is a cable stretch over the water from ship to ship.

I never did find out why they flew us over. I was on the Brinkley Bass before all the other guys even left the States. They all ended up coming over on an ammunition ship. When I first got on ship the 1 '̂ Class from the fire room told me the Captain wanted to talk to me. They said he wanted to know why they flew me over and wondered why I had information about all the men

^ M35 2%-ton cargo truck also known as a "deuce and a half." ^ High line Is a nickname for Underway replenishment (UNREP), a broad term applied to all methods of transferring fuel, munitions, supplies, and personnel from one ship to another while the vessels are underway.

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coming onto the ship. They said, "He thinks you're CID ". The Captain o f the ship called me in and questioned me about it. He asked me, "How come they flew you over." I told him I didn't know. He said, "You're telling everybody about all these guys that are coming here and I don't have no word on anybody being assigned to this ship." He asked, "How do you know all this?" I told him I had read the bulletin board on Treasure Island that said who was coming here.

When we got on board I was supposed to have been the gunner's mate but they were short-handed and put me down in the fire room. I was a Fireman Apprentice. This was where the boilers made the steam to propel the ship. I thought they would eventually move me back to gunner's mate but they never did. I didn't mind because in the winter when it got 20 below, the deck was frozen with ice, the life-line was frozen, the gun barrels had four inches o f ice on them; everything was covered with ice. I was glad to be down in a nice warm environment. I started at the bottom as a messenger and then advanced to operating the burners. I had to be pretty fast to get the burners off and on. There were four barrels; each wi th different size orifices to regulate the amount o f o i l for the burners. We'd have to answer bells that came from the Captain or whoever was running the bridge letting us know how fast to go, when to stop, or whatever. We'd have to raise the burner up to increase the speed of the ship. I f it wasn't enough we'd have to click in another burner until we got all four burners going. We could get going up to 33 knots which is about 37-40 miles an hour. Normally we traveled at about 18 knots. The ship was about 390 feet long and 40 feet 10 inches wide. It had approximately 300 people on it.

When we first got there the operation of our ship was Task Force 77. It was a group o f carriers, battleships, and cruisers that were circled by destroyers. We were the screen for submarines or airplanes coming in. The U.S. was always launching airplanes. We did this about two months then we left and went to the coast o f Korea. The USS Brinkley Bass was a gearing class destroyer.

This was about the time the US got pushed out of Korea from the 38"" parallel almost back to the south end of the Korean peninsula. The U.S. started bringing troops in so one o f the first things we did after we left Task Force 77 was to be assigned to escort three troop transports taking men into Korea.

Our next assignment was in the Wonsan Harbor. Three sides were surrounded by enemy gun placements and it was heavily mined. We had sweepers in there getting rid of the mines all the time. A minesweeper is a small boat and usually made o f wood. This is because metal ships build up magnetism when they go through the water and it w i l l pull the mines into the ship. Every time we went back to the States we had to go get degaussed or demagnetized. We encountered a lot of mines and at times had to use fire hoses to keep the mines from bumping into the ship. Our radar worked and could pick up on them fairly well . The USS Small was hit by a mine and it blasted 1/3 o f the front end off. It had to back up all the way to Japan where

Center for Information Dominance

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they put a little hull on it so it could steam back to the States to be rebuilt. We had two minesweepers that hit mines and sank while we were there.

Anyway, when we went into Wonsan the 16"' of May 1951 we came under fire almost every day. It was almost like being in the movie; bullets were splashing in the water and bursting in the air. Most of the guys weren't scared but a few was. There was one guy named Langford that would get a five gallon can, take it over to the comer, get his bible out, and read it all the time. Us young kids we just didn't know to be afraid.

For the first six to eight months on ship I was also assigned to a damage control party. We often were top side o f the ship and during that time would stand out on deck watching the airbursts. One day me and the Chief were standing there after he told us to come out o f general quarters to get some fresh air after being in the superstructure o f the ship for five or six hours. The USS Brinkley Bass was a pretty armored ship; it had six barrels or guns o f 5 inch, the 105's, the 40's and the 20 millimeter guns, torpedo tubes, and hedgehogs'*. The Chief let me take the glasses and I watched. On that day we fired seventeen 5 inch rounds of white phosphorus set as airbursts to go off at tree top level and killed 6,500 Koreans; at least that is what the Koreans radioed out. The Koreans radioed that they were going to get our ship and sink it and God help anybody they got ahold o f A t least that was the rumor that was going around.

We were hit two days later; May 20, 1951. We laid a smoke screen; i f you cut down on the air going to your boilers it kicks out black smoke. Then we had a smoke generator that run off a diesel that kicked out white smoke that was on the fan tail in the back end o f the ship. We made the smoke and steamed around. In the Flong Kong paper it said we had been sunk but we hadn't.

It was a 100 mm round air burst that blew holes in a small area of the ship. It didn't do as much damage as the next time we got hit. There were eight o f us guys wounded. John Bryan from Payette, Idaho; the one that came on board with me was hit in the stomach; it went through the lower part o f his life jacket and he was killed. John was transferred to the USS Manchester where they had a surgeon on board but he died about three to six hours later. He was too hurt; he had a split in him about eight inches long. We were at the same duty station together; we done everything together really. I was hit and injured. I really wasn't aware o f it at the time. Shrapnel went into the bone of my arm. There was a guy above on the 40 mm that got hit in the eye and nose; they transferred him off ship. Another guy was hit in the left arm. He came back to the ship after about a week. We weren't shot at everyday but we were probably shot at 100 days during the three cruises we were over there.

We stayed mostly at Wonsan but we would do what they called shore bombardment. We would go up the coast o f Korea on what they called the bomb line and bombard there. When we would go up there, the USS Helena, USS Manchester, or USS New Jersey cruiser or battleship would

" Depth charge projector (hedgehog-type)

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be with us. We finished that cruise out and in August 1951 we came back to the States into San Diego. I took a 20 day leave.

When I had been hit by shrapnel my dad got a telegram from the Navy saying I had been wounded. Then it came out on the radio and TV that I had been killed in action because the newspaper writers misinterpreted the information as three people being killed, not one. It took my dad thirteen days to finally get the clearance that I was alright. The Navy held our mail up for almost two months on the ship. When our mail started going through my folks was still writing asking me to have someone else write them i f I couldn't write myself Three days after I came home on leave, twenty-seven letters that I had written home during that time I had been wounded were delivered.

After leave I went back to the USS Brinkley Bass where we completed a few months o f training and then in January 1952 we set off to report back to Task Force 77 and Wonsan.

While I was home on leave I had talked to Boyd Wilkin 's from Lehi. When I went back to the ship here this new guy shows up. I looked at him and he looked at me and I couldn't believe it; he looked just like Boyd Wilkins. I thought, " I t can't be o l ' Boyd, I just seen him two weeks ago back in Lehi. He couldn't have got into the Navy that fast." He came over and talked to me and sure enough it was o l ' Boyd Wilkins. He cut my hair many time on the USS Brinkley Bass.

In March 1952 we were hit again. It done quite a bit o f damage to the ship and five guys were wounded. We had to go into dry dock to get some of the damage taken care o f We went back to the US one more time after that and again returned to Wonsan.

Wonsan was a big city. They had troop concentrations there and estimated 100,000 North Korean men would be there at times. They would come there for their rest and relaxation. The United States would come in and get real active so the North Koreans would think we were going to make another landing at Wonsan. They would bring all these troops in case we were going to bring in the LST's ' and land our troops on their beach like we had done one other time in Wonsan before I was there.

They had roads and railroads that run along the coast. There were quite a few moimtains and rocky islands with North Korean gun placements but we could see the roads and railroad tracks. One o f the main purposes of the ship was to keep the railroads and bridges knocked out so they couldn't transport stuff. As soon as we'd knock them out they would rebuild them. Our planes would also come in making their runs blowing up the railroads, bridges, and stuff like that.

We were Destroyer Division 52 which were four ships. We was the flag ship. The Commodore was stationed on our ship so we got special privileges; we were allowed to wear tailor made bell bottom trousers, gabardine made in Hong Kong where most ships weren't allowed that. I f we

^ Landing Ship, Tanl<; a vessel to support amphibious operations by carrying vehicles, cargo, and troops onto an unimproved shore.

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crossed the USS Duncan, their officer on the deck wouldn't allow us to go ashore because of our tailor made dungarees. For this reason, the skipper on our ship would have the liberty boats from other ships tie on the end of our fantail and they would have to come across our ship to get on the liberty boats from there. We rarely wore our hats. We wasn't really in uniform and we talked to officers just like we talked to anyone else; even the Captain was almost, but not quite; just like one o f the boys.

The Korean War ended while we were there. A l l these North Korean's started coming out and fishing alongside us. We were shooting the day before and the next day; the day it ended the North Koreans were all over the place. They had been confined by our ships and couldn't bring their boats out or we would sink them.

After the war, when we got back to the receiving station i f a man had less than three months to serve they would discharge them so they could cut down on the Navy. They were mothballing ships and getting rid of them. After making me wait for two days until I only had three months left I was discharged in Oct 1954. I was supposed to have gotten out Jan 3'̂ '' o f 1955.1 actually got out 2 months and 28 days early. I served 3 years, 9 months, and 2 days - of my four year enlistment. There were about twenty-eight o f us that got off the ship that were discharged at the same time.

It was a different life in the Navy. I wouldn't have traded it for anything and I ' m glad that I joined up. I was awarded the Purple Heart, Korean Service Medal wi th seven bronze battle stars. Good Conduct Medal, Japanese Occupation Medal, China Service Medal, United Nations Service Medal for Korea, and the ship was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.

After I got out o f the Navy my folks had moved back to Lehi on 500 North and about 420 West. I went looking for jobs but couldn't find anything. I went back out to Dugway Proving Grounds as a laborer. They gave me my raises and within three years I was a Senior Operator running graters, caterpillars, and cranes.

I had married Darlene Faucett in 1951 but we divorced in 1952. After I got out o f the Navy I married Mildred Ileen .Tackson on January 11, 1955. She died during childbirth in 1961. Curtis Beverly introduced me to his niece, Darlene Greenwood. I had six children and she had three when we were married on the 3'̂ '' of September 1966. After we got married we bought the Julius Banks house in Lehi across the street from Crandall's and Drapers. Julius Banks had been a school teacher in Lehi all his life.

After almost 20 years of working at Dugway, I quit, took out my retirement, and bought in 1/3'̂ '' interest with the Greenwood Carpet Company in Lehi because my wife was a sister to Dennis and Ken Greenwood. After a year I quit that.

M y sister's husband, Pete Campbell asked me to come and work with him. We decided to start up our own business, Bell Construction. He had been a General Contractor but his license

6

expired so I took tlie test and became a General Contractor. We put up steel buildings for a year but things were slow so I walked out of that. He stayed in and eventually became a multi­millionaire.

We left Lehi and bought a motel up in Lava Hot Springs in Idaho. I t was rough up there so I started working with the National Forest Service. Darlene went to work managing the Maverick gas station. We stayed there eight years and then sold out.

We had some investors so we took $500,000.00 and went Gold Mining out at Osceola, Nevada. We lived in Baker, Nevada during this time. We bought the claim and rented the heavy equipment. This was when the price o f gold was up to $600 an ounce. We didn't make it but it was fun. We lived out there for a little over a year.

Because of my purple heart I am a 10 point veteran so when I put in for a job they put me right up to the top. Darlene wanted to stay in Utah so I went to work for the B L M in Salt Lake. M y duty station was in Vernon, Utah so after renting in Tooele for a year we bought a home in Vernon. M y work took in all o f Tooele County, out to the Nevada State Line, up to Idaho across over to Bear Lake. I had to blade all the B . L . M . road, care for the springs, and wi ld life. We lived in Vernon for twenty-seven years.

When we started getting older we decided it would be best to get a home that didn't have stairs so we moved back here to Lehi. Ilene and I are the parents o f four children; Laura, Dennis, Nancy, and Joy (died at birth). Reah and I had three children; George, Clayton, and Annette; I am also the step-father to Darlene's three children Craig, Mark, and Rebecca.

7

George F Pace receiving the Purple Heart by Commander A. F. Beyer, Jr.

8

>SGATIVE NO. CTF95/ A47 MjisER IN SERIiiiS-

CAPTION imiTTEN BY IL Yldftr. ̂ g;^ CHECKl̂ D BY ... L t ^ f . E . W^nnufl

PRIFTS RECEIVED BY ^ ^ E I J ^ A ^ T O BY / I . .

AMERIGAN POBK SAILOR AWARDED PUKPLE HEART- George F. Pace,

fireman apprentice, USN, son of Mr. & Mrs. Oeorge R. Pace of

325 E a a t 4 t h st.-, A m e r l e ^ a t t F o j ^ ^ r t e ^ i s p i c t u r e d being con­

g r a t u l a t e d by h i s commanding o f f i c e r , Gomdr. A.F. Beyer, J r . , a f t e r

being awarded the Purple Heart Medal aboard the destroyer USS

BRINKLEY BASS i n a southern Japanese seaport r e c e n t l y . The Purple

Heart Medal, one of the nations o l d e s t awards, i s presented to men

wounded by enemy a c t i o n . Pace was wounded i n the harbor of Wonsan,

Rorch Korea by Oommunist shore b a t t e r i e s which s l i g h t l y damaged the

destroyer a s " i t was l a y i n g siege to the Important t r a n s p o r t a t i o n

f a c i l i t i e s of the Red c i t y . The b a t t l e s h i p NEW JERSEY was i n s i m i l a r

a c t i o n the f o l l o w i n g day. Pace, f u l l y recovered from h i s wounds,

has r e t u r n e d to a c t i v e duty aboard the BRINKLEY BASS. The destroyer

i s a u n i t of Task Force 95 commanded by Rear Admiral A l l a n E .

' ;Smlth^ USN,^:

- 3 0 -

U.S. KAVY PHOTO BY, v^^^ng, P^^,

Distribution - - COKKAVPE

CINCPACFLT » - GHIPFO - - CTF95 PIO FILES - - DIARY . . .

TOTAL NUMBER OF PRINTS ORDERED

aiaber of prints 2 negative - - - - - - . - _ _

1

Max Dean Petersen interviewed by Judy Hansen

January 2015

I was born at home in Rupert, Idaho on March 3, 1929

to James O. Petersen and Christiana Amelia Hansen;

she went by the name Emily. I was the last child of ten

children. I grew up in Burley. My father homesteaded

in Burley in about 1907. There was a point in my life

when I was required to have a birth certificate. I typed

up my own certificate, my mother signed it, and I had it

recorded with the State of Idaho.

When I was twelve years old we moved to Salt Lake

City. I was raised in Salt Lake during the Second World

War and everybody; friends and relatives were

involved in the military in some way. When I was in

high school they were having a hard time getting the

military up to ten million men so my friends were

dropping out of high school and lying about their age to

join. I was in ROTC at West High for three years. We had a lot of exposure to the military.

Our ROTC advisor was a paratrooper from the 101st Airborne; there are a lot of movies about the 101st

Airborne in Europe. I was a Master Sergeant. In addition to the drills, they entertained us with army

training films. I have seen all the army training films that were ever produced during that time period

(he laughs).

I then went on a LDS mission in 1948 to Norway. I was there for three winters. When I came back I

didn’t want to be in the infantry because I had known a lot of people in the infantry that highly advised

me not to go there. I looked around to find a reserve group that was being called to active duty so

before I reported to the draft board I had joined the Air Force in the Airway and Air Communication

Squadron at Hill Air Force Base. I specifically joined the Air Force to avoid being in the infantry.

Our main mission was to run air traffic Control. I was called to active duty. The first thing they did was

set us up with what they called basic training when it wasn’t the same as basic training that you would

go to at a basic training base. We had basic training from about 7:00 pm to 12:00 pm every day. Then

our afternoon shift was to work at squadron headquarters. I was assigned to personnel. I other words I

kept all the personnel records for all the men. We were a revolving door of military personnel coming in

and out. People would come back from some place in the world and my job was to keep their records

and to send them out to Camp Kilmer New Jersey or Camp Stoneman, California to their new

assignments. I always had a revolving door of people coming in and out.

2

We were also weeding men out. We had a lot of people that we discharged for the ‘good of the service.’

You will recall at the end of the Second World War we had a hard time keeping ten million men in

uniform. Every unit in France needed replacements. They were taking into the military mental patients

and people paroled from the prisons. A lot of people were paroled from prison and sent directly to basic

training. My friends that served with them said the mental patients were a bigger problem than the

enemy (he laughs). They were misfits. Some of those people stayed in the military because of the

security so part of the thing we were doing was not only sending men to New Jersey and California to be

shipped overseas but we were discharging all those misfits that we could get rid of at that point. They

weren’t dishonorable discharges but section 8 discharges. This type of discharge did not give them

educational or other benefits. We were probably discharging 5% of the men. I was given the MOS as a

clerk. I was always a clerk; from the day I became active until the day I was discharged, I was always a

clerk.

While I was at Hill Air Force base the draft board sent my commanding officer a demand to discharge me

immediately so I could meet my draft quota; he laughed at them. He thought that was funny (as Max

also laughs). He sent them a short letter and said he needed me and that I wasn’t surplus to his needs.

They had been waiting for me for over two years while I had served my mission and they were counting

on me. I slipped away from them in the five days from the time I got home from my mission until I was

supposed to report to the draft board. Well actually, I did report to the draft board but I reported that I

was being called to active duty. So I was a draft evader.

As things progressed our group also was sent overseas. I was probably at Hill Air Force base for six

months. They sent me to California to try to figure out what to do with me and then from California

they sent me to Japan. I was in California for less than a month. I was only in Japan two days. When I

got to Japan I was sent to what they call a Kamikaze base. It was a place where Japanese Kamikaze

pilots had been trained. It had been converted to an American depot to decide what to do with all the

American Soldiers stationed there.

The boat was kind of an interesting experience. On the troop ship, it was divided so naval people were

on one side of the ship and on the other side of the ship were all the people that were being sent to

Japan. A few interesting things happened on ship. One interesting thing was that I didn’t get sea sick. I

had already been at sea quite a bit going to and from Norway. I had found that I could avoid being sea

sick by going up on the deck and looking at the horizon. The horizon was a fixed point and that was how

I learned to get over sea sickness. Because I wasn’t sea sick they put me in the galley scrubbing big pots

and pans. I spent the whole trip scrubbing pots and pans on the troop ship. When I got bored I read

the complete works of Shakespeare. I would also go up on the deck and watch the seasoned

professional gamblers. They were all Master Sergeants. They would put on a show just like in Las

Vegas. They would bring their sheep in and run their gambling operation and sheer them. I don’t think

there was a kid on that ship that got off with a penny in his pocket.

When I first got to the Kamikaze base they segregated twenty-five of us out and had us sit with our

duffle bags in a collection area. We sat there for hours and hours. Finally an Officer came by and said, “I

guess you would like to know what you’re doing here.” “Yea – we’d like to know” we said. “Well, you

3

guys are going to Korea.” This was probably 1951. They put me in an airplane and flew me to Pusan and

then put us on a train to Seoul.

An interesting thing happened at the Kamikaze base. We had five tiers of bunks and it was hard to get a

night’s sleep because people were constantly falling out of their bunks onto the floor and yelling. There

is not much space in military bunking. For example; on the troop ships we were five layers of bunks.

The only bad part of that was the guys were sea sick and they were throwing up out of their bunks.

Another bad thing about these bunks is that you can’t roll over. If you want to roll over you have to get

out of the bunk and re-insert yourself on your stomach. There wasn’t room to roll over. It was a tight fit

and I didn’t enjoy troop ships.

When I got to Korea the American’s had broken out of their perimeter at Pusan and pushed the North

Koreans out of Seoul. Seoul didn’t have any formal North Korean army anymore. The most interesting

experience there, was listening to the reservists who had been called from their civilian duty to defend

the Pusan perimeter. These guys were civilians that were still in the reserves. They would pull them out

of their civilian jobs, put them on an airplane, fly them directly to Pusan, and put them right on the

perimeter. They had interesting military experiences. By the time I got there Seoul had been taken but

the North Koreans still had a lot of Guerrilla groups working behind the lines and we had a really early

experience with that.

About two days before I got on the train, the Guerrilla’s had blown up the railway and they had wiped

out a platoon of Engineers who were manning a gravel pit. The Engineers weren’t paying attention to

what they were doing and the North Koreans killed every one of them and of course they blew up the

tracks. I had to get off the train and carry my duffle bag around

the railway that had been blown up and get on another train to

take me to Seoul.

They were interviewing me at Pusan wondering what to do with

me. The guy interviewing me was a Master Sargent and said,

“I’m married to a Mormon.” He said, “I like you and I’m going

to give you a special assignment.” There was a vacancy at the

5th Air Force Headquarters in Seoul and he got me assigned

there. When I got to Seoul they had two basic organizations at

headquarters. They had what they called ‘Headquarters’ where

the General was and his whole organization; and then they

assigned me to a squadron that was to provide me a rifle,

sleeping accommodations, and food. So I had a double

assignment; one to the squadron that took care of me as a

person and then I was assigned to the headquarters as a clerk.

The rifle they gave me was only about seven pounds. A regular

M-1 rifle weighs over ten pounds. So for the weight it was nice,

but it was also a bad rifle because the firing pin didn’t work. It

4

was a single shot. I couldn’t find a gun smith in all of Korea to get it working as an automatic. I went

through my Korean guard duty with a single shot (he laughs).

We were like a green zone in Iraq. We had a perimeter and no one was allowed in the perimeter

without proper authorizations and passes. We had a lot of Koreans that were working on the base.

They lived outside the base but assigned on the base to provide services. For example, I had a driver

and his job was to drive me when I carried messages out to the Air bases. At that time, the guys I slept

with in my bunk were all couriers. So when they were shorthanded I would be given courier runs. The

purpose of courier runs was pilots would go take pictures all over Korea of North Korean installations.

Then we would pick those photographs up and bring them to headquarters where we had an analytical

group that would analyze those photographs. From the photographs they would determine who was

going to get strafed and bombed the next day. We would take those orders back to the air bases for the

pilots so they knew what they were doing the next day. So that is what the courier was doing; running

back and forth. My fellow couriers often had to travel by air, but I never did.

I only had once scary experience as a courier. I had a tire blow out and I was stuck out in the boonies. I

didn’t want to be there at night because the North Koreans knew what couriers were doing and they

wanted to interrupt that process. I was lucky that a guy came along and loaned me a spare tire. I told

him I would be sure to get it back to him as soon as I got back to the motor pool. I got back safely that

evening and felt very relieved that I wasn’t going to be stuck up in the boonies at night; and you bet I got

his tire back.

The couriers were a very frightened group of people. I’ve never known a group of people so afraid as

that group was. Because they were afraid they drank heavily. Many of my supervisors and associates

could not function without a shot of whiskey to start the day. The young Sargent I trained as my

replacement was killed on a courier run.

One of my assignments was to be the librarian for the headquarters. I had to keep up the Air Force

regulations, Air Force letters, Far Eastern Air Force Regulations, and Fifth Air Force regulations. These

were constantly changing; nothing holds still in regulations. They are constantly being amended. So my

job; when Officers came in looking for the latest version of an Air Force regulation or Air Force letter was

to find it for them. In addition to that I was a typist. I’d type up letters for the Adjutant General. I was

specifically assigned to the Adjutant General’s office. I had two Adjutant Generals that I worked for but I

can’t remember their names. The first Adjutant General that I worked for was a reserve Colonel and he

was worthless. He just didn’t understand the military. The second one I worked for was a very talented

southerner. He was a gentleman and he knew his military business. As the years go by I lose these

names, they just drift away.

Another assignment that was given from time to time was to go log in messages at the message center.

In other words, there were telegrams coming in from all over the world and we had to log those so

when somebody wanted to know what was in them we could find them. That message center made life

quite interesting. I’d get to read all the intelligence reports from the Far East and they were interesting.

Their sources were interesting. Another thing that was interesting for a while was to log in the daily

5

reports from the Panmunjom peace talks. They put up a big tent right on the border of North Korea and

South Korea and every day the North Koreans would arrive, the Americans would arrive, and they would

talk all day. That was all typed up and sent to the message center.

The people were interesting to me. I really enjoyed the stories of the professional military people. I was

always getting them to tell me stories. One interesting thing that happened while I was there was a

Colonel fighter pilot had been shot down in North Korea and he arrived at headquarters having sneaked

back to the American lines through the entire North Korean world while he lived on rats because there

were lots of rats. That is how he stayed alive but he was pretty skinny when he got home. It took him

about six weeks to get back to us.

The most captivating part of my Korean adventure was listening to the experiences of my friends and

associates. I did put them in letters home, but the letters were all lost in my parents move. For

example: an Infantry Major, who was a reservist past his physical prime, fought up and down the hill

several times in the famous battle of Pork Chop Hill. The Chinese would overwhelm our troops in such

great numbers that our people would be chased down hill. Many of the Chinese were so high on drugs

that they would not even fire their rifles. The most important part of his experience was the complete

fatigue that would leave him in a state of collapse. Nevertheless, he had to find the stamina to just keep

fighting up and down that hill.

Another guy that was interesting that I ran into had been in the military his entire life. He was six

months from getting retirement but when MacArthur sent the landing craft into Inchon to cut off the

North Koreans that were in South Korea he had gotten assigned a job with the Navy to land the landing

craft on Inchon beach. He said, “That’s It! I don’t care if I get a penny of retirement there is no way I am

going to stay in another six months.” It was such a bad experience for him that he said he was through

with the military (Max laughs).

Another fellow I met was a Canadian Sargent who came on rest and recuperation to Seoul. He came to

our LDS group and he told us his job was taking platoons out to determine where the North Koreans

were. He said that his squad always wanted to go with him because he had a charmed life.

There were two fellow clerks that I called Brownie and Felix. These two guys were professional black-

market traders. These guys figured out how to make money and they were in business. They would go

out into the country side and they could get anything you wanted and they could sell anything you had.

They were either wholesalers or retailers; I don’t know which one. The interesting experience they had

with me, they came to me after I had been there six months and told me they decided I was a military

policeman and that I had been sent in to spy on them. They said, “You messed up our operations

something awful. We had to be very secretive. We couldn’t let you know anything we were doing” (he

laughs). I was too clean cut; too square world; not like the rest of the guys.

Their biggest concern was how in the world they were going to convert their military script to American

dollars when they got back to the States. They were totally puzzled on how they were going to do that.

We were given shrunken script. It wasn’t regular American dollars. It was military script and its purpose

was to keep the military from being in the monetary business. They purposely made it difficult to

6

convert it. I didn’t have difficulty converting mine because I didn’t have that much but I did save up

enough to buy a jeep when I got home. They had thousands of dollars and they didn’t know how they

were going to convert them.

In the spring of 1952 Korean thieves went throughout our compound and took every article of clothing

and pair of shoes they could locate. I was lucky. I was using my fatigues as a pillow that night. The next

day Brownie and Felix took up a collection and went down to the black market to buy up uniforms for

their customers. I didn’t participate. I was eventually issued new uniforms. Those were my clothes

when I was discharged.

I got tired of Korea because I had dysentery the whole time I was there and I had boils all over me. I

didn’t really want to stay. One day an American Air Force regulation came through that said anybody

that had served over six months that was a reservist and was serving in Korea was to be discharged

immediately. I found that piece of paper and took it to my Commanding Officer with a written request

to be discharged according to this regulation (he laughs). So my friends who had been sent all over the

world from Hill Air Force Base had served their full term but because I found this piece of paper I was

discharged and went back to school. I was in Korea in 1951 and 1952. I remember since I wanted to go

back to school in 1952 I got out the end of summer 1952. I wasn’t in active duty a full two years. I

wasn’t a very gung ho military person.

The most depressing experience I had was to stand on the deck of the troop ship the night before we

sailed for home. I watched the loading of the green casket boxes that contained the remains of those

going home for burial. They would never be reunited with their loved ones. I am proud of those I knew

and worked with. Although we didn’t always share the same values, many really did become my

brothers.

I graduated in Political Science at BYU and finished my Masters in Public Administration at Wayne State

University in Detroit. I got married as soon as I got my first degree. My wife, Lucy Marie Phillips had

graduated from High School. She was in my LDS home ward in Farmington. I graduated from College

and we got married on July 19, 1953. We moved to Michigan and had our ten children.

I moved back to Utah to be close to family. I had bought a house in West Valley on a five year contract.

I was going to roll the contract with a new mortgage but I couldn’t find a way to finance it so I had to sell

it so the seller wouldn’t take it back. I was just driving around looking for some place to buy that I could

work on and there was a for sale sign in front of this house in Lehi. So I made an offer and here I am.

That was 1992. I was looking for a project and boy did I find one. This home remodeling project was

more than I bargained for. I was married about 58 years and we were blessed with ten children.

When my grandchildren come to me with the doomsday narrative, we review all that is going wrong in

the world. I then tell them that the one thing I learned in Korea was to never underestimate the

resiliency of the American people.

Colby Peterson Pr. B-8

3-09-01

Biography of Neven Ray Southwick

My grandpa, Neven Ray Southwick, was born in 1928. He has lived in Lehi all his

life. His father was a dairy farmer, so Grandpa grew up milking the cows twice a day.

When he graduated from high school in 1946, World War II was just ending. But he

enlisted with the Marines anyway. His mother was very unhappy and worried about her

son who was now in the military. But Ray felt like he needed to represent his family and

do his patriotic duty. He served for two years and was released. He re-enlisted in the

inactive reserves and became a weekend warrior. When he was 22 years old he met his

sweetheart and they were married in April of 1950.

In June, Grandpa's unit was called up to active duty and assigned to fight in the

Korean War. He trained at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California. He went through

six weeks of extensive training. They were shipped out of San Diego in November

headed for Japan. There they traded for goods and got food and supplies. They also

bought winter gear for the vigorous trip. Then they joined up with another Marine Corp

unit. It was wintertime in Pusan Korea. They stayed there for three weeks. My Grandpa

was assigned to the Infantry Company, Item Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marine

Regiment, First Marine Division. He was assigned to the third platoon. They sailed to Pol

Hang Port. There were Koreans all over in the hills. It was hard in the fields. They never

bathed and were in cold freezing conditions. It was always rainy and foggy. The only

way to receive supplies was by airplane parachute drops. Each Soldier was assigned a

fox hole buddy. His was Walt Myers from Seattle Washington. They enjoyed fruit

cocktail from the sea rations. The parachutes sometimes would be let down to low and

only the cocktail would survive the hard smack to the grounds. So basically, they lived

on it.

There was a ridge line where the North Koreans and Chinese were dug in. They

approached the ridge and black things came rolling down the hill. They were percussion

grenades. He turned his back to shield his face from the flying debris, but none of the

explosions got close enough to harm him or his fox hole buddy. Then Walt yelled at him,

"Ray there is a grenade right next to your head." Grandpa turned around and sitting

right there was a black percussion grenade. Luckily, it didn't go off and he was grateful it

was a dude. Then they approached the ridge, there \uas fog so it was hard to see the

Chinese enemy. They couldn't see anybody and there wasn't any gun fire. Then all of a

sudden, this Indian from Texas that served with my grandpa raised up and fired a couple

of shots into the thick fog. Grandpa asked him what he was shooting at and he said that

Chinaman up there. My grandpa asked how he could see the enemy through the fog

and he said he saw his breath in the cold night air. Sure enough they went up to the top

of the ridge and there were three Chinamen laying dead. They dug in for the night on

that ridge.

The next morning they headed out to join the other battalion. They came to a little

Christian community in the area. Which was different because there weren't many

Christians in the area. They dug in and spent the night there. They went walking up the

ridge, when they came to a Korean grave. My grandpa and Walt went down to check it

out. Then they heard a couple of Chinese talking. Then they started shooting at the

Chinese soldiers. Then a machine gun opened up on Walt and Grandpa. It was only

about fifty yards away. They dove behind the grave and took cover. Then they took out

the bunker both of them firing shot after shot. When it was clear, they walked over and

saw that there were four Chinese soldiers laying dead in the bunker with a machine gun.

Then a couple of Chinese soldiers jumped up in front of them only about thirty yards

away. They were fortunate enough to not get shot by these soldier.

They traveled through many rice patties day after day. Once they came up on a

grass shack where they spotted two American G.I. s. taking cover. Come to find out

their whole regiment had been taken out. All the dead soldiers were laying all around

them. The dead American soldier's clothes had been taken. The only thing they had left

on their bodies were their under garments. This is when Grandpa finally noticed how

great the tragedies of war were. His platoon was then ordered to head up the canyon

and join another regiment.

Food was a big problem for these Marines. It was very scarce. Sometimes they

would meet patrols on the road or meet at a specific place to get their food. They would

have to do this so they wouldn't be discovered by the Chinese. The food was not the

greatest, he said they would have spam and a loaf of bread all the time. He would only

eat the bread because he couldn't stand the spam. He would usually trade it for

something else.

They spent eighty-seven days in the hills around Pusan Korea. Their shoes would

become wore out and their bodies ached and they all were sick in one way or another.

One day they were on the move and they came along an Army troop who were just

pulling out of the area. They had a truck load of shoes and they gave them to his troop.

He said that was the nicest gift he had ever received while he was in Korea fighting.

They spent many days in the hills. He became close to many of the soldiers that

he served with and many of them became his friends. Many of them lost their lives while

in Korea. One day they came to a place called the Kansas line which was by a road

were the American's had a couple of tanks. There was a bridge. An Army man with them

wanted them to check it out the bridge to see if they could get the tanks across.

Suddenly, they were shot at by some Chinese on the other side but they all fell on the

ground and took cover. The Marines all knew what to do and took over. They proceeded

with caution. When they got back to the main group the Army man praised the way

Grandpa and his buddies had handled the situation. He told their General. It was a

proud time for him.

Later in the year, the Chinese were on the charge again and Grandpa's battalion

was sent back up into the hills. They were on a ridge line were they were all taking a

five minutes to rest to regain their legs. Ray was getting restless, so he stood up and

was leaning by a tree. All of a sudden, he saw something move over in the trees on the

next ridge. Sudden the tree he was leaning on exploded from machine gun fire. They all

dove to the ground and started to fire shots back in the direction of the attack. The

Chinaman was only six inches off from hitting my Grandpa. It had split the tree into two.

The troop then came upon a stream were they planned to cross. They were

planning to get three tanks across also. They all had to slow up for these tanks to cross.

They all helped the first one get over. Then the second one successfully crossed. As the

third attempted to cross, some Marines had jumped on it to help. One of the soldiers

was standing on the fender of the tank when it struck a mine. Grandpa said the noise

was so loud it could have blown out his ear drums. It had thrown the man sitting on the

fender 30 to 40 feet in the air. No one else was hurt or injured. They got over to him and

he was covered in black and his eyes were the only thing white on his body. Even his

clothes had been blown off of him. When they got over to him, he jumped up and started

running around and everybody was yelling to him but he couldn't hear because his ear

drums had been blown out. They finally tackled him and got him under control. They

sent him back to the hospital. Ray never knew if that Marine survived or not.

In Korea it rained and rained and rained. The soldiers were soaking wet and all

were told to retreat because it was hard to fight in these conditions. It was difficult to

fight because you couldn't see or hear anything.

Soon weather conditions became better and the Marines all gathered on a ridge

around a box canyon. There were two tanks and two machine guns. The Item Company

in which my Grandpa was assigned, was up on top of a ridge. A Korean farmer was

coming so they all went out to meet him, he said that there were all kinds of Chinese

headed this way only a couple of miles behind him.

Grandpa and Walt dug in on top of the ridge. As the Chinese arrived, the first

thing they hit was a tank down on the road. They killed everybody in it and blew the

treads right off of it. That's when all heck broke loose. There was trumpets, bells, flares,

and whistles going off every where. Bullets started whizzing by their heads. There were

loud explosions going off every where. They could barely see because it was night time.

They were in a big mess because they dug in on top of the ridge and couldn't fight off

behind them or in front of them. They went back and joined the CP and spent the night

with them fighting in their fox holes. Then the next morning a new recruit named Ducky,

got out of the fox hole. He was going to go help a firing squad that was in trouble. He

didn't get more than ten feet away when a Chinaman popped up out of a fox hole. They

couldn't believe the Chinaman had dug in only ten feet away from the enemy the night

before. They didn't know he was there and he didn't know they were there. The

Chinaman was a poor shot. He shot Ducky in the right leg. They were able to take the

Chinaman hostage.

After that three more Chinamen came up over the ridge with their arms up and

their rifles above their heads trying to surrender. Grandpa and Walt went down to get

them. Then a US Army man came around the ridge and yelled, "I got them." My

Grandpa yelled at him to get back and not shoot. If he had my Grandpa would of been

shot because at the time they didn't know there were about ten other enemy soldiers

behind the three trying to surrender. The three soldiers put down their guns and came

and surrendered their arms. As soon as that was done the ten behind saw that they

weren't going to hurt them so they also surrendered their guns to my Grandpa and Walt.

They started bowing to Walt and Grandpa. Ray didn't know what to do. So he almost

started to bow back but didn't. They took them as POWs. Next, they went down to

where they had set up their bunkers the night before. They found two jammed enemy

machine guns. They had magazines still in them but wouldn't shoot. If they hadn't

jammed Grandpa and Walt would of been dead men.

Finally, American planes and rockets started to scare off the Chinese. Then the

Korean farmers came to bury all the dead soldiers. That was really hard for my Grandpa

because of all the dead on both sides. It made his heart sink. The US lost 39 people and

9 in his Item Company. Thirty more were injured in that little battle. Intelligence started

asking the prisoners what was going on and what China's plans were. Grandpa went

back to his fox hole with Walt. They both popped aspirin in their mouths to ease the pain

of their pounding headaches.

After 12 months of intense fight, Grandpa's tour of duty ended. He was shipped

out for the United States with a lay over in Japan. He will never forget docking in

California and seeing his sweetheart waiting for him on the docks. After one year of

fierce fighting, hunger, freezing cold conditions, death and destruction around every

corner, he was finally home. But the memory of that year in Korea will always be with

him. He tells the stories to his children and grandchildren not to be a hero in their eyes

but to instill in them the respect, honor and loyalty of what it means to be a free

American.

Ray Southwick is the father of 3 children, grandfather of 11, great-grandfather of

4. He worked for almost 35 years at Geneva Steel in Orem Utah. He is retired and

enjoys spending his winters with his wife in St. George and his summers in Lehi. He will

always love his country and is grateful and proud to have spent one heck-of a year as a

United States Marine in Korea.