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Korean War Project Newsletter – Dec 25, 2007 Volume 10 - 6
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Table of Contents:
1. Editorial
2. KWP Project Maps, Charts, Casualties, Guestbook
3. Bookstore | Films
4. Shanks Booties
5. Christmas Cards – Menus
6.
Christmas Poems
7. Membership
8. This Mailing List
9. 2nd Infantry (Indianhead) Division Association
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1. Editorial
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Hal and I wish a 'Seasons Greetings' to each of our readers. We
especially want to extend that message to all of our servicemen and women who are on duty around the world.
A tradition for our Holiday / Christmas newsletter has been to feature a wonderful story written by Dave Hughes of
Colorado Springs.
Dave was a 1st Lt with K Co of the 7th Infantry Regiment, 1st
Cavalry Division during the first year of the war. He retired from the US Army as a Colonel. He taught at the US Military Academy. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for action during the attack on Hill 347 in October 1951.
Holiday Extra: for this edition, several postcards or menus will be found on our online web version of this newsletter.
Hal will be giving you an "up-to-the-minute" progress report for accomplishments on projects
featured in earlier 2007 news. That report will be out on New Year's Eve.
As part of our ongoing work, we have finally been able to get photographs of our Killed and Missing online. Over 3900 photographs are now displayed
within the KIA/MIA data section of the site. Hal is soliciting new input for this section.
The New Year's Edition will feature Navy, Air Force and USMC items, so consider sending us items for publication.
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2. KWP Project – Maps, Charts, Casualties, Guestbook
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Hal has taken most of the past 5 months to perform a line by line research of the casualties. This includes corrections of spellings of both names and hometowns. Where we only
have county both of us would like your input on actual hometown, if at all possible.
Our Guestbook/Looking For area needs some housekeeping by those who have posted. We will be sending out an email with a form inserted to
allow an automatic update of our data files.
All the information is for the use of the Korean War Project and users, only.
Link: www.koreanwar.org/html/korean_war_databases.html
Link: www.koreanwar.org/html/looking_for.html
Link:
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3. Bookstore
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========a.==========
One Came Home, A true story about twin brothers who are called to serve their
country together in the Korean War
By Vincent A. Krepps
This is a real work of love by an old friend. Vince really captures his emotions in detailing the events of both twins from home to Korea and the tragic loss of
Richard.
We follow the Krepps from the Naktong River to hospital in Japan and to Korea again. Kunu-ri was the place the 82nd AAA AW Bn took heavy losses, once again. This is where Richard was captured.
For
the next 50 years Vince diligently sought word of his brother. The search led to his heavy involvement to spur the US Department of Defense to seek agreements with the DPRK, allowing teams to search within North Korea and China.
The book gives us insight into the painful process and the results of this very personal inquiry.
Published by: Heritage Special Edition, American Literary Press
ISBN 1-56167-998-7, Hardcover
Price: $26.95 US
Order (410) 882-7700 or (800) 873-2003
I also have many books (One Came Home) to sell. I anyone wants one autographed special I will do that. My costs will be $25
including postage. Send Check or money order to:
Vincent A. Krepps
24 Goucher Woods Ct.
Towson, MD 21286
Email: vak1950@starpower.net
========b.==========
Wall of Fire, A diary of the Third Korean Winter Campaign
by Dudley J. Hughes
We found this gem at our local bookstore. This is must reading for anyone interested in the use of artillery and especially the use of indirect fire by Quad-Fifty Machine Guns.
Another story of twins and the
incredible amount of work to leverage the Quad-Fifty's while under fire. The 45th Infantry Division was holding ground around Heartbreak Ridge and over to the Punchbowl.
The Hughes boys were assigned to the 145
th Field Artillery.
Published by: Hellgate Press
ISBN 1-55571-637-7, Hardcover
www.hellgatepress.com
PO Box 3727
Central Point OR 97502
PH: 800 795-5049
========c.==========
Mid-Century Warrior: A Soldier's Journey to Korea
By Warren Gardner MacDonald USA (Ret.)
Tanks! This succinct book covers Warren's
induction, basic training in Armored Command and all the way to Korea and ultimately to his posting to the Tank Company, 32nd Infantry Regiment 7th ID under X Corps, late October, 1951.
From battle to
hospital and back to the US, Warren takes us on a journey which details life in a tank unit.
Published by Lulu Press
ISBN 1-4116-7894-X, Paperback
3131 RDU Center, Ste 235
Morrisville, NC 27560
========d.==========
Sunchon Tunnel Massacre Survivors
By Pat McGrath Avery and Joyce Faulkner
Our friend, Ed Slater, and other POW survivors of one of the most sordid episodes of the war, finally have a voice.
This war was fought ferociously and this book brings that horrible fact home to the reader. The book features personal interviews which are compelling.
Endorsements come from Phil Chinnery, Shorty "Tiger" Estabrook,
Dave Grossman, Samuel Clark, and W.H. McDonald, among others.
Published by Red Engine Press
ISBN 978-0-9800064-0-7 Hardcover - $26.95
ISBN 978-0-9785158-1-2 Softcover - $17.98
18942 State Hwy 13, Ste F 107
Branson, MO 65737
PH: 417-230-5555
or Amazon.com
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4. Shanks Booties
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Dave Hughes
dave@oldcolo.com
Shanks Bootees
It was during the dark days of the December retreat when I first
saw them. They were hanging from the cold muzzle of an old, battered, Springfield rifle - a
pair of tiny blue baby bootees. Their pale silk ribbons ended in a neat bow behind the front sight, and each little boot hung down separately, one slightly above the other, swinging silently in the wind. They reminded me of tiny
bells, and even though one had a smudge of dirt on its soft surface, and part of the ribbon that touched the barrel had lost color from scorching heat, they seemed to me to be the
freshest, cleanest objects in all of drab Korea.
At first the bootees had fixed my attention, but after the surprise
of seeing these symbols of home in such an incongruous place had worn off, I let my eyes drift, unobserved, to their owner.
He was a lieutenant, young, I could see, and tired; not so much
from the exertion of the trudging march, but with the wear of long days and nights in combat. He was talking to men from his platoon, all of them together
watching the core of a little blaze in their center, and I could tell that he was answering some of their disturbing questions about the war. There was a tone of hopelessness in the men's voices, but the lieutenant sounded
cheerful; there was a glint in his eye, and a squint that melted into an easy smile when he spoke.
As my companions moved on, I glanced back briefly to the blue
bootees still fresh, still swinging. Often in the next few
weeks I saw the lieutenant and his bootees while we moved southward before the Chinese armies. Around the ever-present warming fires I heard the simple story of the officer and his boots.
The lieutenant was named
Shank, and he, twenty-two years old, led a rifle platoon. He had come over from Okinawa while the Army was clamped in the vise of the Pusan perimeter, short on manpower. Shank had his baptism of fire on the hills outside Taegu. His
youth and fire helped keep his decimated platoon intact, while the North Koreans frantically tried to crack the American lines. Then came the breakthrough, and Shank's company, rode on the record-breaking tank and truck dash
northward. He picked up the Springfield rifle then, and kept it because of its renowned accuracy and apparent immunity to the cold weather. A violent day south of Pyongyang won Shank a Silver Star for gallantry, as he led his
flesh-and-blood infantrymen against T-34 tanks and destroyed three of them. The Chinese intervention and beginning of the American retreat brought him up to where I met him, south of Kunari.
The bootees? That was
simple. He was an expectant father, and the little boots sent by his young wife in the States reflected his whole optimistic attitude while the battle was the darkest. I also learned that when the baby came it would be announced by
a new piece of ribbon on the boots - blue for a boy, pink for a girl.
Then I forgot about him as we prepared to defend Seoul from above the frozen Han River. We were hit hard by the Chinese. They streamed down from the
hills and charged the barbed wire. They charged again and again, piling up before our smoking guns. The days were but frantic preparation for the nights. Companies dwindled, and my platoon was halved as cold, sickness, and the
enemy took their toll. I neared the end of my mental reserves. Names of casualties were rumored, and I heard Shank's among them. I wondered where Shank's bootees were now.
Then the endless night of the retreat from Seoul
came. When we got the word my few men were too dulled to show any emotion at the announcement. Most were too miserable to want to retreat again for twenty-five miles, Chinese or no. But we did, and the temperature dropped to 30
degrees below zero as our silent column stumbled along the hard ground. It was the most depressing night I had ever endured - pushed by the uncompromising cold, the pursuing enemy and the chaotic memory of the bloody nights before.
I, as a leader, was close to that mental chasm. Only the numbness prevented thinking myself into mute depression
We plodded across the cracking ice of the Han River at four-thirty in the morning, and marched on south at an
ever-slowing pace. Finally the last five mile stretch was ahead. We rested briefly, and as the men dropped to the roadside they fell asleep immediately. I wondered if I could get them going again. Worse yet, I didn't think I could
go myself so tired, numb, and raw was my body.
Then in the black despair of uselessness in a second-page war I
looked up as a passing figure brushed against my inert shoe pacs.
There walked young Lieutenant
Shank up the Korean road, whistling softly, while every waking eye followed him to see the muzzle of his battered Springfield rifle. Swinging gaily in the first rays of the morning sun were Shank's bootees, and fluttering below
them was the brightest, bluest, piece of ribbon I have ever seen.
Lt David Hughes
Seoul, Korea, Dec 1950
7th Cav Inf Rgt 1 Cav Div
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5. Christmas Cards - Menus
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6. Christmas Poems
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A Korean Christmas Carol
Forwarded by
Kathleen Hatch and others:
T'was the night before Christmas and all through the tent,
Was the smell of fuel oil, the stove pipe was bent.
Their shoe pacs were hung by the stove with care,
In the hopes that they'd issue each guy a new pair.
The weary GI's were sacked out in their beds
As visions of sugar babies danced in their heads.
When up on the ridge line there rose such a clatter,
A Chinese machine gun had started to chatter.
I rushed for my rifle and thru back the bolt,
The rest of my tent mates awoke with a jolt.
Outside we could hear our platoon Sgt. Kelly,
A hard little man with a little fat belly.
"Come Yancy, come Clancey, come Conners and Dodson,
Up Shiller, up Miller, up Burgess and Watson.
Get up on that hill top and silence that Red,
And don't you come back until you are sure he is dead."
We tumbled outside in a swirl of confusion;
So cold the guys could have used a transfusion.
So putting his thumbs up beside of his nose,
Sgt. Kelly took leave of us shivering Joes.
But we all heard him say in a voice soft and light,
"Merry Christmas to all, may you live through the night."
A Different Christmas Poem
The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,
"I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my father's before me.
My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers.
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ' Nam ',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother.
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right.
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son.
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."
LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN
30t h Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq
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7. Membership
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Consider supporting the mission of the Korean War Project by donations in
the form of Membership/Sponsorship.
Membership: www.koreanwar.org/html/membership.html
Our Pledge Drive is an ongoing process. Many of our previous donors no longer can assist. We are recruiting from those who have not participated, so if you can, jump on in, it will be appreciated.
The site is free for all to use and those who participate help to ensure that we remain online whether the donation is $1.00 or more!
For those persons or groups who cannot participate, we certainly understand.
Donations/Memberships are tax deductible, if you use long form IRS reports. Our EIN: 75-2695041 501(c) (3)
Postal Address
Korean War Project
PO Box 180190
Dallas, TX 75218
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8. This Mailing List (going to 40,000 + persons)
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We began this newsletter mailing in December of 1998. The first issue went to just over 2000 persons.
This list is a private list for our visitors and members. A person may join or
leave the list at will. It is compiled from our Guest Book and comprises public service messages of general interest to veterans and families.
To join or leave the list: email to: Ted Barker tbarker@kwp.org
Place: Subscribe or Unsubscribe in the subject line.
Consider forwarding the Newsletter to your friends by email or print. Word of mouth is how we grow.
Thanks for being part of the Korean War Project family!
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9. 2nd Infantry (Indianhead) Division Association
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The 2nd Infantry (Indianhead) Division Association is
looking a new secretary treasurer, preferably from the
Korean DMZ war era of the late 1960's.
If you are a member of the association and are
interested in the job (or know of someone who might
be), let me know or contact the association president,
Jack Woodall, at:
warriorvet@verizon.net
The association is also looking for a new webmaster.
Thanks,
Mike Davino
Life Member
2nd Infantry (Indianhead) Division Association
MDavino@yahoo.com
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Thanks to all who have made this newsletter and the website possible!
Donors: www.koreanwar.org/html/membership.html
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Hal and Ted Barker
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