They joined us in with some other unfortunates and then separated us into groups of ten. We dragged ourselves into our assigned huts. I don't know what we expected, and God knows we had seen enough Korean huts, but this one was particularly lousy.
I can remember all the times we complained about how bad the Army supplied us. Looking back on it from this vantage point, I realized how wonderful the Army's logistics system was. Even when things were really tough in combat we got food, when it was cold we got blankets, when sick we got medicine. Even if things just cooled off a bit we got shelter. It may be a hole in the ground, an elaborate sand bag bunker or a pup tent. Now all we got were Korean huts. No matter where we went, it was a dirty, filthy Korean hut.
This one amounted to two rooms constructed out of packed mud. One room served as a combination living room, dining room and bedroom. The other was a tiny kitchen. The ten of us would live in this eight foot square patch of earth. The only equipment provided to us was an improvised table and crummy blankets, absolutely nothing else. We slept on the dirt floor and would make shelves by digging out an area in the mud walls. We were surprised to find an electric light supported by a mostly bare wire. We also found that the Koreans had long ago learned an ingenious way to heat their huts by building a series of tunnels under the floor.
The fire in the kitchen was made in a fireplace fashioned from mud and rocks. The tunnels under the floor were connected to this fire source and drew heat from it forming an elaborate, if not primitive, heating system. A cast-iron pot hung over the fireplace and we used it for everything.
"Well, well, well, home at last--at least until they decide to move us again."
"Call this dump home, hell, I've seen more comfortable foxholes."
"I'll bet these knockers won't even let us try to clean it up."
The rest of us were much too tired to even comment about the accommodations. It was a place to rest, and God knows it was time to rest.
I took off my uniform for the first time in weeks. I couldn't remember the last time I had clean clothes. As I took my pants off I stopped and just starred at myself. Being of Lebanese decent I naturally had a lot of hair on my body, chest, back, shoulders and legs. I stood in shock as I found that all the hair on my body was gone. Instead of hair I found my body was now covered with blood sucking lice. Once I was finally able to look around the room I found that the other men were making the same discovery.
As part of my training I remembered reading that epidemics can be carried through lice and I began to worry. "Here's the first thing we've got to do," I commented to the room in general. "These damned things will kill us if we don't get rid of them fast."
"Let's get to it then, I want to see if I have any skin left," one of the boys said. There were a lot of wise cracks while we killed the lice, but we all knew how deadly serious it was. We agreed on the spot --"anybody that doesn't clean the lice off of them can get the hell out of this hut." We meant it and everyone got the message without further elaboration.
It took hours working with fingernails, picking one off, capturing it between our fingernails and squashing it. My hands looked like I had dipped them in my wife's red nail polish before I was half finished. My wife, I wonder what she is doing now. I wonder if she knows I'm alive. I wonder if the Army's telegram told her that I was killed, missing in action, or POW. Oh, dear God, take care of her and my little girl. Please let me get back to them safely. Please let me live through this hell. I can't let go, they need me so much. I was sure the family would look after them till I got home. But my daughter won't even know me when I get home, if I get home.
It took days to completely rid ourselves of all the lice and at that it took every minute of our time. By then one pest was replaced by another. Flies so thick we had to keep our hands moving back and forth over our food to get it into our mouths. They would swarm onto any open cut or bruise. They covered our dead buddies. The smell of death hung in the air. Death is the only smell you can taste. Anyone who has lived near a dead body knows what I mean.
I began to wonder when you become immune to human feelings. When do you look at a bloated body, the skin so tight it is ready to burst, without getting sick? When do you pass a skeleton without wondering who he was, what did he look like? I didn't know the answer to these things yet and hoped I never would. But if I ever did find these answers I was sure they would be found in a place such as this.
The latrine at Bean Camp was a hundred yards from our hut. It didn't take us long to learn that unless you had dysentery you would be better off to make as few trips out there as possible.
One of the guys from the 187th Airborne learned this lesson the hard way. He started out one night and as he approached the latrine, he heard; "Halt, where you go?" It was the guard.
"Right out there to the latrine, " he replied.
"Take off your boots," the guard demanded.
"You go to hell buddy, I ain't taking these things off in this weather for nobody."
"Take off your boots, now!" the guard got rough.
"Now look, what's the idea, I need these boots." He said pointing to the jump boots on his feet. "What will I use for shoes?"
"I give you my sneakers," the guard replied. He held up a beat-up pair of tennis shoes, the foot gear of oriental soldiers.
"Oh, no you don't, I'll be damned if I freeze my feet just because you want a pair of jump boots...Ohhh" The guard had swung the butt of his rifle against the soldier's head. He fell to the ground fighting to stay conscious.
We heard the commotion and looked out the door. The guard was getting furious because each time he reached for the boots he was kicked by the still resistant soldier. "Beat me, you sonofabitch, but you'll have to fight me for these boots, I ain't gonna freeze my feet."
One of the guys in the hut took off to get the interpreter. He yelled at the interpreter, "You told us we were going to be treated as prisoners of war, not slaves. What the hells the idea of that guard stealing those boots?"
The interpreter ran to the seen of the incident as the guard climbed off the top of the soldier. I don't know what the interpreter said to the guard but from the looks he was giving us it must of been hell.
The interpreter then helped the soldier off the ground and said, "So sorry, it was a misunderstanding. The guard did not want your boots. It will not happen again."
Yeah, it won't happen again-- not until the next time. The guards continued to try to force us to give up what little clothing we had every chance they got. Sometimes they would strip us down to our underwear, but they were mainly after good boots, watches, wallets, and rings.
Everyone was a target of opportunity for the guards, dead or alive. In combat you never get use to watching someone die and be carried off the battlefield, but at least you know he will get a descent burial. Even when you are not in combat, because of the way we live, you expect some kind of funeral--or at least some respect. You never get use to seeing a man laying stiff on the ground. You know that no matter what your circumstances are something must be done--he has to be buried.
Our problem in the camp was finding out when we had one to bury.
One night I started for the latrine and had walked about fifty feet when I saw him. He was not only dead, but naked.
I can't tell you how I felt. It was a mix of embarrassment and shame. Nakedness on a living being is one thing, but on a dead man, laying on the snow covered ground, frozen solid, is something that defies description. I looked around for something, anything, to put over him. I finally took my jacket off and laid it over his head. What entered my thoughts next made me realize the effect this place was having on me. I remember saying to myself, "Take back your jacket, the Chinks will just steal it if you leave it here." I stifled a sob, grabbed the jacket, and stumbled back to the hut.
That night we made a decision. Whenever one of our buddies died, we would appoint an honor guard to stand watch over him until we were given a chance to bury him.
The first few nights we had to fight with our bare fists to keep the Commies from undressing the dead. But those soldiers were buried with their clothes on --but then we found another striking character flaw in these Chinese.
Less than a week later. We were carrying a dead sergeant up the hill to lay him to rest. Four of us carried the body and two others followed with a shovel-- we had insisted that the company commander furnish us with one.
None of us were prepared for the sight that met us at the top of the hill. All the bodies we had buried the past three days were dug up. They were all naked.
Callous as it may sound, we wouldn't have minded too much if they had only buried them again, but as we now knew, they had absolutely no respect for our dead.
If this is communism, and I think it is, they can have it. When we protested to the Chinese commanders they had the gall to tell us the dogs had dug them up. Some smart dogs that can dig up a body and undress it.
It was also here that we had our first experience with brainwashing.
In those days we weren't familiar with the term. What we did know was that they did their best to get us as physically and mentally exhausted as possible and then would drum in the same bits of propaganda over and over. Eventually it was hard to tell the fact from the fiction. In the beginning their efforts were careless and laughable. It was easy to fight back.
Our first lecture was on combat situations. They drilled it into us that the Chinese People's Volunteers and the North Korean People's Army had pushed the United Nations troops all the way back to Pusan. One of the "Facts" they gave us was that the U.S. troops would be pushed all the way back into the sea. One of the men decided to dispute this fact. He jumped to his feet and yelled, "The only way you bastards will ever get to Pusan is the way I got to this Goddamned hole--as a prisoner."
They were very patient. He didn't get any food that night. The following day they spent hours "convincing" him that they were right.
We soon found that we could use this process to our advantage. If we pretend to accept one of their "Facts" we could get a meal, some sleep, and they would leave us alone for a while. Our education on which battles were worth fighting was beginning to pay off.
Each of us knew where we stood. Life here is unbearable. Tell them yes to anything to make it a little easier. Tell them anything, we know you don't mean it.
The knowledge that we stuck solidly together in this little scheme made it easier to fight back when we felt we could no longer sell our dignity. Every now and then we each had to take a stand. If for no other reason than to reassure ourselves that we were worthy of survival. When one prisoner was told he would not get any supper because of his arguments against the "party line." The defiant one knew that meant he would get more to eat than the rest of us in the hut. Each man in our hut would sneak a mouthful of their meager rations to the disobedient soldier. It was our way of paying tribute to him.
Infections, beatings, starvation, and exposure, all served to thin out our ranks over the next few weeks. It was more than just one or two now and then. It was ten or twelve men each day. More than anything else it was the lack of proper food and medicine that took it's toll. We begged for more food for the starving and more medicine for the sick, promising to work even harder to make it up. Our efforts resulted in even less food and even less attention being paid to our sick and wounded. We hated ourselves for even thinking that our begging would accomplish anything.
Their excuse was always the same. "Sorry, we would like to feed you and give you medicine, but your planes bombed train with your supplies."
After hearing that excuse over and over in answer to our pleas, I decided it was my time to assert my dignity. I challenged, "It's damned funny that our planes bomb our supply train and let yours come through. How stupid do you think we are?" That cost us some more food and some more sleep.
The march to our next location was the longest and by far the toughest. This one lasted twenty-three days and it seemed to have only one objective--to get rid of as many of us as possible.
It began on the 24th of April, 1951, when 760 of us were formed up and told to walk. That first day we walked about 30 miles and most of the weaker ones died that day, being shot as they fell out of line. It wasn't anything we hadn't seen on our way to the Bean Camp, only the numbers were larger.
At the end of the first day we
stopped in a small village. To hide us from air attacks they
jammed us into small huts. There were about fifty of us to each
structure. Those of us that were able stood in order to allow
the sick and wounded enough room to lay on the ground. Some of
the men would collapse from sheer exhaustion and fall on the wounded
men at their feet. The interpreter laughed as he called, "Get
all the rest you can, we move out early."
U S Army Infantry and Marine POW's
The day that followed was even worse. We needed water desperately. We protested to the guards who finally stopped us a short distance from a well. We became delirious at the thought of getting a cool drink. Each of us that were in fairly good shape took the canteen of a wounded man and headed for the well.
As we approached the well the guards pushed us back using their bayonets for emphasis. We got the message, we were to go no further.
"We want a drink!" we yelled.
"You wait!" the guards said, pushing us back with sadistic grins.
Actually we didn't mind too much at first. After all we were the captors and they had a right to drink first. We stood silently watching as they each took their turn at the well, the first clean water we had seen in days.
As they finished, however, we were stunned when they ordered, "Get back in line, we march."
"Hey, we need some water. Those men are dying. We can't go any further without water." They laughed at us as if it was some big joke. One of the men screamed, "You dirty bastard, I want a drink", and headed for the well. He was struck by a blow from one of the guards and now lay helpless on the ground just a few feet from his goal. The rest of us turned toward the column of thirsty men and we went on without the water.
We had barely started moving forward again when another man began cursing the guards for not giving us water. He received the same reward - a rifle butt to the head. It was no use, these beasts lacked human emotion. To them this was simply another step in their methodical process to break us down.
I think we marched all over Korea, at least we felt that way. I honestly don't know what kept us going. Maybe it was seeing that many of us who couldn't go on were left to die or be killed.
The next day we stopped marching and rode - if you can call it that. We were packed, standing up, in a railroad coal car and traveled in that position for the next three days. There was no room to lie down or even sit. We were packed so tightly into that car that as men fell asleep or worse yet died, they would do so remaining upright.
During the second day on the rails, just before daylight, the train stopped. They were afraid of air raids so they pulled the train into a railroad tunnel. This proved to be worse than the ride because they deliberately left the smoke from the stack of this old locomotive pouring out smoke. The black smoke was scolding hot and suffocating. We remained in the tunnel for hours. We waited in terror for something to happen, knowing that whatever was to happen would mean death to more of us who had already seen our share of ordeals. By noon we were all more dead than alive as the bitter fumes choked off the breath of already sick men. By early afternoon three men had died in my car alone. We could stand it no longer, climbing through the thick smoke, over the walls of the train car, we dropped to the tracks below. From there most of us were barely able to crawl the few feet to fresh air.
We carried the three dead men, along with many more from other cars, to a bomb crater about seventy-five yards from the track. We intended to bury these poor souls but the guards wouldn't allow that. We were made to leave them lying there as we were forced back to the edge of the tunnel.
Later they brought us some sorghum which we attacked like the starving animals we had become. Then we were placed back onto the train to continue our miserable journey. On the fourth day we started on foot once again.
They kept telling us we were being taken to the rear where we would be safe from our planes. At times I was sure that we had walked far enough to be half way into China by now. I'm sure we were taken around in circles most of the time. It was a process that was reaching it's intended outcome - turning us into zombies.
On May 17th, my birthday, I found out how it feels to be dead. I thought I was and by all rights should have been.
It started as we climbed a long mountain trail. It must have been a mile straight up. Even though I was sure I couldn't make it another hundred yards, I kept myself going by telling myself over and over, Gee, this will be easy going down the other side.
But as I soon found this was another of Korea's one-sided mountains. When we reached to summit there in front of us was another hill just a little higher than the one we just struggled up.
Oh, God, I'll never make this one. It became an endless routine, dragging one foot in front of the other, stumbling, half falling, slipping backwards on the muddy trail.
Half way up this second hill I had given all I had to give. I couldn't force myself to take even one more step. I was too tired to think of the consequences. I had to stop, to rest just for a minute. I eased my exhausted body to the ground. All I need is a minute or two then I can make it.
But one of the guards spotted me before I saw him. Even though I knew he was coming for me I couldn't move. He took his rifle by the barrel and with a full swing hit me across the head with the butt of the gun. I rolled face down to the ground. I was still conscious, but all I could see were lights, and my head felt as though it had been ripped right off my shoulders.
Oh, my God, I'm heartily sorry for having offended thee. I confess all my sins... Jesus Christ, just get it over with - shoot me and get it over with... what are you waiting for? Even though I couldn't see him I knew he was still standing over me with his rifle. I had seen this act played out too many times before, I knew what to expect. I tensed up waiting for the bullet to hit and extinguish what little life was left in me.
I was surprised to feel a pair of hands lifting me to my feet. Why didn't they kill me like they had killed so many others? It was Pete Murphy, he was carrying me the rest of the way up the hill.
But I had already given up, I thought it was over, I wanted a quick escape from this torture. "Let me go, don't try to carry me," I mumbled. I could feel the blood running into my eyes and my stomach turning inside out.
"Hold on sarge, I'll help you," a voice whispered in my ear, "Keep moving, sarge, I'll take care of you."
"No, I can't. I can't walk any more, they'll kill you too," I moaned. But he dragged me over the top of the hill and my head began to clear.
God was with me that day. Half
way down that hill, the hill I thought was my final resting place,
our "Death March" came to an end. God must have heard
my prayers when he arranged to have Camp No. 1 located just a
mile from where I had my head knocked in. Having to endure even
one more hill would have meant the end for me. Back to: Chapter 1 | 38th IR | POW | To: Recollections | To: Korean War Project Home Page
