I was just thinking before I even begin this column that it’s very likely going to expand into more than one before it’s done.
This coming Saturday at the Lewis County Veteran’s Museum is the one day each year dedicated to the Korean War. The activities are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. I’ll be there, because that’s “my war.”
Veterans usually don’t talk about their battle experiences except maybe to other veterans. I don’t recall ever having talked much about mine to my family, and this is probably the only time I will open up to explain what it was like from one soldier’s viewpoint.
First, the winter weather was as much an enemy as were the North Koreans and, later, the Chinese. Americans had never fought in such brutally cold conditions before and were unprepared for it. The late author David Halberstam wrote a history of the first year of the Korean War, finishing it just before he died. He called it “The Coldest Winter,” an apt title if ever I heard one.
The 38th parallel divides North and South Korea, and if we follow that line to the east we find that it’s just about midway between San Francisco and Sacramento, Calif. It’s hard to believe, looking at a world globe that it could get so cold; 20 degrees below zero on some nights in January and February.
Our equipment wasn’t equal to the conditions. We were issued the standard fatigues, a World War II parka and gloves, while the Chinese wore specially padded and quilted clothing suitable to the climate. While our gloves were the standard five fingered woolen type, the Chinese wore padded mittens with a slit which allowed the wearer to extend his trigger finger. They did the job, as I can attest after taking a pair off a Chinese officer’s corpse.
Our footwear wasn’t up to the conditions, either. We had two choices: our beloved jump boots that we had purchased with our own money (about a third of a month’s pay per pair) and standard issue shoe pacs that were waterproofed with rubber and did not allow perspiration to escape. The jump boots were excellent for marching, but woefully lacking in protection from the cold.
One day in February 1951, four of us were detailed to be part of a jeep reconnaissance patrol to see if we could detect any enemy activity. (The only way we would detect such activity, of course, was if we were fired upon in an ambush.) The patrol was scheduled to take most of a day, so I wore my pair of shoe pacs since I would be essentially stationary in the tiny back seat of the jeep.
When we returned from the mission, we were surprised to find that all of the company’s duffle bags — mine included — had been shipped off “somewhere in the rear.”
I never saw mine again. All my possessions except what I had in my backpack were gone: my camera, letters from home, a label off a Korean whisky bottle that I was saving to show my dad since it boasted about being “Real Old, Very Fine, Smoked Turkey Whiskey.” Everything was gone, including my jump boots.
A few days later we began marching north through a narrow valley. The “road” was too narrow for vehicles, only native carts that were used in tending the rice paddies on either side of it. My feet were perspiring, as they had been since the patrol, and beginning to become slightly painful while walking, and cold, very cold, at night.
Next week: The Chinese attack.
Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven123@comcast.net.
