Korea: Where Boy Marines Became Men

Common Sense Commentary:

We were probably the best trained military force, without actual battle experience, ever produced in America, at the beginning of the Korean War.  We were trained by WWII
Marines who had just finished a four year, continuous series of battles against the Japanese in the South Pacific.  These hardened war veterans were our trainers and then leaders in the Korean War.  I personally, already had 3 years of war training by those tough, experienced Marines when we hit the beaches in Korea.  It made all the difference.

That war began June 25, 1950 when the N.K. (North Korean) Communist army attacked across the 38th parallel border into S.K. (South Korea).  The SK capitol, Seoul, was taken within hours and sent civilians, the S.K. army and U.S. troops stationed there, retreating rapidly southward.  Within a week the Communist forces had South Korea's weak, untrained defenders backed up against the Sea of Japan in what became known as the Pusan Pocket.  The only disadvantage North Korea had was a long supply line, the U.S. Air force and the arrival of a brigade of U.S. Marines to help hold the Pusan Perimeter.

When it seemed the Communist forces would drive the defenders into the sea, the U.S.
First Marine Division, including my unit, landed on the opposite coast, far north, at Inchon, the S.K. Capitol's port city.  This was the last "combat", mass amphibious landing in history.  It broke the back of the N.K. Communist forces and cut their supply lines back into North Korea. Within days we had recaptured Seoul and the N.K. forces were in full retreat north.

I had some hair raising night patrols in and around Inchon and Seoul.  A radio operator was assigned to each six man patrol which went out from an emplacement, into no man's land, each night.  These small, night patrols were not sent out to fight or destroy but to probe the darkness like a person in a darkened house feeling for furniture and doorways.  The purpose of these patrols was to find the enemy's front lines and report any unusual activity or build up for a surprise attack.  Our greatest danger, on these night patrols, was our own noise.  The enemy seldom knew we were there unless we made noise.  Even the tiniest noise we made sounded to us like  beating a pan with a big spoon.  There were times when we would be within fifteen feet of an enemy fox hole when he would throw another shovel full of dirt out or speak to a comrade.  We never returned the same way we went out for obvious reasons.

The Inchon landing was my introduction to war.  After securing Inchon, we fought our way across country and crossed the Hangang River into Seoul after some very hot battles, especially in Yeongdeungpo near the river.  In Seoul it was all street to street and building to building fighting. We lost a lot of good men in this very difficult kind of battle.  One of those killed was a combat radio (SCR300) operator named Vargo. Another radio operator had been killed and I was told by the Communications Chief to grab another combat radio and  take his place with a rifle company two or three blocks away.  our Communications Officer, Lt. Foyle, ran up about that time and told me to go with another officer to operate a Jeep radio (TCS).  The Comm Chief, a sergeant, gave the back carried radio to Vargo and sent him to replace the dead radioman.  Before I finished the jeep patrol and got back to my company, Vargo too had been killed.  A T34 Russian tank round had gone through a brick wall, through the radio and through Vargo.  He died in my place and it has bothered me all these years with a feeling somewhat akin to guilt. 

We captured Seoul, which was full of homeless children who lived in the ruins of the city.  They begged us for food and each of them had a tin can stuffed with smoldering rags and paper with a wire attached to each side of the punctured can and looped up about 18 inches.   They would sling it around until it flamed up and then they would squat near it to warm themselves.  I often think of those ragged, dirty little children. Tears even now.

Pursuing the enemy north, out of Seoul, the bar ditches on each side of the main road were full of dead bodies.  Our interpreter asked locals and was told these dead were all  kinds of government official, leaders of the city and missionaries.  Their hands were tied behind them and they were all shot in the head.  I have hated Socialistic Communism ever since.


When the army troops, who had been in the Pusan Pocket, arrived in Seoul, the Marines were shipped out of Inchon around the Korean Peninsula to Wanson North Korea, where we were to cut off the retreat of the N.K. army. My Battalion (3/1/1) moved inland to a village called Majon-ni, to hold and block an intersection coming up from the south.  We were to kill or capture the thousands of Communist forces retreating back to North Korea. Each day, we radio operators were attached to various rifle companies, (F,G,H, I) Fox, George, How and Item companies. One or two of those line companies would be assigned different sectors beyond our perimeter of defence to patrol. These day-time patrols were probing actions to feel out the enemy so command would know where they were and in what strength. When we came in contact with them, we would call in mortars, artillery fire or close air support from the Marine and Navy air wings on carriers at sea. On one occasion, I was assigned to How company on a patrol south of the intersection. Since I had two good friends, Jim Story and Lucky Don Henderson, mortarmen assigned to George Company, and another radioman, named Dolan, had friends in How Company, he and I changed places. He went with How and I went with George Company. In an ambush, the enemy always tried to knock out the radio or officer in charge, first. Dolan was critically wounded on that patrol, rushed back and air-vacted out by helicopter. I have never heard whether he survived or not.  That had been my assigned patrol.

A really hot war eliminates all unnecessary activity and all but serious wounds are sulfured, bandaged and forgotten. Most wounds, not requiring evacuation, in WWII and Korea were not recorded simply because there wasn't time or men to do anything but fight, supply, care for the seriously wounded and survive. Hundreds of guys were cut, bruised, burned, knocked out, and hurt, who were never treated and the wound never recorded. That is, except for a John Kerry type with three wounds but no scars.

When the First Marine Division moved on north, into the mountains near Manchuria, my battalion was left behind to catch up later. When we were  relieved at Majon-ni by an army unit, we followed our Division north. We arrived at our Regiment's position, high in those frozen mountains near Chosin Reservoir, at a village named Koto-ri. It, the First Marine Regiment, commanded by Chesty Puller, was holding the Division MSR (Main Supply Route) open to the sea.  By this time, all the First Mar. Div. Regiments were strung out from the south at the foot of these mountains, all the way north approaching Manchuria, on a one lane gravel road, called a main highway, in eastern North Korea. Our Division Commander, General Oliver Prince Smith, didn't like that one bit and told Army General Almond, Commanding the entire 10th Corps, including the Marines, that it was terrible tactics to string his troops out like that. But, the power in Tokyo ordered this 30 mile long, thin line of Marines to attack north up this narrow road to the Yalu River, to join up with the Army on the western side of North Korea, also under devastating attack.  Joining up with them wasn't going to happen.

 Our precarious situation was rendered untenable by several Chinese Communist Armies which had poured across the Yalu River, three hundred thousand strong, and had overrun the U.S. (UN) army forces to our west and surrounded every regiment of the First Marine Division strung out on this one lane road and 75 or 80 mines from the sea. We had Marines stretched from "Yudam-ni to you damn sea", as one Marine complained. My unit had arrived at Koto-ri, in these frozen mountains about ten or twelve miles short of Division Headquarters and still south of them. The temperature was falling fast with the Siberian wind blowing a minus 30 (below zero) temperature across this long thin battlefield. Wind chill factor was not  considered back then, but our weather section estimated it would have reduced the temperature to minus 40 below. Every Marine Regiment was surrounded by tens of thousands of Communist Chinese, and our Division Headquarters, on the southern shore of the Chosin Reservoir, at a village called Hagaru-ri, was understrength and being overrun each night, and in serious need of re-enforcements. If we lost Division Headquarters, we would lose the entire Division. Those Marines farther north, the majority of the Division, would have no place to withdraw to, as a rallying point from which to fight our way out to the sea. They had truck loads of wounded and dead and we were not going to leave them and try to fight our way across country.

First Regiment's Chesty Puller had already detached one of his companies to hold the MSR south of Koto-ri and a battalion north to defend HQ, so his defences at Koto-ri were thin. Even so, the situation of HQ, ten miles north, at the Reservoir, was so bad, he detached another of his companies, George, including me, and a solitary British Marine Company, plus an assortment of various other small groups awaiting a convoy north, to make up  what he designated  Task Force Drysdale. The British Marine Colonial Drysdale was the ranking officer in the convoy and therefore in command.

We jumped off, the morning after our arrival, as Task Force Drysdale, with several tanks, supply trucks, George Company, British marines, some army replacements going north, and a spare mortarman, Jim Story, and a spare radioman, me. We had strong opposition from the start as we fought our way through the mountains in a twisting, turning valley, later named by Col. Drysdale, "Hell Fire Valley" because of the heavy losses we suffered, through that day and night fight. We fought our way through eight roadblocks, an enemy holding the high ground on each side of the road and 30/40 below zero cold. Of the 900 who entered the south end of  Hell Fire Valley, at Koto-ri, only about 400 of us got through to the Reservoir, to defend Headquarters
of the First Marine Division.  The convoy was cut up into several, separated pieces and was being over-run by Chinese.  When he was wounded, the Brit Col. gave up command to George Company Commander, Captain Carl Sitter. Some of those on the tail end of the convoy made their way back to Koto-ri. Those in the middle section of the Convoy were either killed or taken prisoner. I was at the very rear of those who got through and at the very front of middle section which were killed or captured. There were fifteen or twenty of us in a group, separated from George Company and the British marines up ahead, and from those in the middle section behind us. We were on the road, cut off from both ends of the convoy, with one truck full of wounded and dead and enemy all around us.

I only remember three other Marines who were with that truck of wounded, Bob Kopsitz, Jim story and another Marine, Orace Edwards, who is a member of the North Texas Chosin Few. Jim Story and I were fighting together, on the right side of the road, at night. Jim was trying to get a better position and crawled up behind me where I had a clear view of many gun flashes from the side of a small hill twenty or thirty yards away. I was firing at their gun flashes but gave no thought that they would shoot back at mine. Jim was behind me on my left when a bullet went through my clothing between my left arm and chest, burning and bruising both sides, and hit Jim in the chest. I shouted for a corpsman (medic) but there wasn't one there. I could hear the enemy coming at us and kept firing at them, thinking Jim was dead. As he came to consciousness, he cried out, "Momma" and began to pray and make things right with God. He confessed Christ and went into a coma. I dragged him up to the truck and got someone to help me push him up on top of other wounded. Chinese were all around us and even among us but someone got in the cab of the truck and started driving blindly up the road, no headlights on, of course, but  Marines touching each front fender calling directions to the driver, "right", "left, "straight ahead" while bullets were flying all around and then an explosion in front of the truck caused it to veer to the left and over an embankment. It rolled to a stop on it's back and the wounded were moaning and crying out for help. We could keep fighting on the road and die there or we could go down and drag the wounded back up on the road and die doing that. Some of us, or all of us, I couldn't see who or how many, dragged those in the truck up on the road. The Chinese were doing most of the shooting now but couldn't see gun flashes that weren't being fired.  We were lower than most of them and it was darker on the road than on the hills. We could often see them on the sky-line. It was kind of unbelievable that our guys were walking around and standing in the road firing away when we heard another truck coming up from the rear. It had to be the last truck to get through. We stopped them, heaved the wounded on top of those in their truck, in a hail of bullets, and proceeded on up the road. We knew we didn't have a Chinaman's chance in Hell Fire Valley and were resolved to die fighting. What else could we do?  But God hadn't forgotten us .... strangely, the firing suddenly stopped, we kept moving and a few minutes later some Marine up ahead had the nerve to call for a password. Since 400 other friendlies had preceded us to that road-block, there was no way he did not know who we were and none of us knew the password, for that night, anyway so we rolled on into the perimeter of defence around that besieged command H.Q. of the First Marine Division on the southern shore of the Chosin reservoir.

That same night, hundreds and even thousands of soldiers and Marines were killed or wounded across the far north of North Korea, as three hundred thousand Chinese Communist Forces swept down and over-ran them. Something like 120,000 of those Chinese troops over-ran every Regiment of Marines around the Chosin Reservoir, but we ran them right back where they came from or used their cold dead bodies to fortify our positions .... since fox holes were near impossible to dig in frozen ground.

Jim died some time around dawn and we flew his body out from a small run-way our engineers had simi-leveled, and sent him home to his family and Mamma, a wonderful Christian lady, I met years later when I visited Jim's grave overlooking the Ohio River near Aurora, Indiana.

I surrendered what was left of me, that night in Hell Fire Valley, to the Lord and His ministry,  and have never doubted He had a purpose for my life.  I have tried to fulfill it ... or tried to try. I'm writing this down for the record, so when my time comes to depart, it will have been said. I claim no righteousness or special intelligence or ability to explain why God chose to use me far beyond my capabilities .... I just claim Jesus and thank Him for sparing me to do His will.

Our bruised, battered, worn and frozen, extended Regiments fought their way back to the south end of Chosin with horrendous losses, but as a united fighting force against ten enemy to each Marine. Then we fought our way back to Koto-ri, and my own 1st Regiment. We picked up our dead all along that bloody ten or twelve miles of Hell Fire Valley, stacked them in and on top of trucks, tanks and jeeps in the grotesque, frozen forms they died in. There, in Koto-ri, we buried them in a single mass grave as wide as a Caterpillar Tractor and as deep and long as it had to be, and prayed over them too.

In an effort to bottle up our trucks, tanks, artillery and rolling stock, the Chinese blew a bridge between us and the sea, just south of Koto-ri, on the side of a mountain, leaving a sheer cavity hundreds of feet deep. We had to parachute in several huge sections of Treadway bridge, to span that gap in the road, in order to get our wounded and equipment out and down the mountains and on to the sea.


We arrived at the bottom of those frozen mountains as an organized, united fighting force ready to take on whatever awaited us in the final 40 miles to the coast of North Korea. Following us out of those mountains were long lines of North Korean civilians fleeing their Communist Government, the Chinese, and the hard land they had been forced to live in. There were  nearly 100,000 of them, freezing, giving birth, starving and many dying, as they clogged the road to what they hoped was freedom. We had innumerable ships awaiting us at the N.K. seaport city of Hungnam. We loaded out our equipment, troops and then 100,000 North Korean civilians on all the open deck space available, blew up the harbor and sailed for Pusan in South Korea. I have met a good number of those N.K. civilians on a trip back to Seoul and here in the states as well.

During those three weeks in November and December of 1950, just the Marines lost approximately 3000 killed, 6000 wounded, and all 12,000 with some degree of frostbite injury, in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. We were outnumbered by the Chinese ten to one but have learned from the Chinese that they lost, at Chosin alone, 34,000 killed during that three week period.

Near Pusan, we rested briefly, washed ourselves, ate like starving animals, rearmed, redressed and took up the fight anew in Operation Killer somewhere southeast of Seoul where I learned my wife had safely given birth to twin boys.

When I was being rotated home, based on time there, wife and children, and awards won, Lucky Don Henderson came to me and asked if I would mail his Silver Star Medal to his mother in West Virginia, when I got back. I said I would and handed him a pencil and my New Testament and asked him to write his home address on those lines on the last page. He took the Testament and read aloud the words above the lines ... "I do now accept Jesus Christ as my Saviour." He looked up at me and said, "This says .... " . I interrupted him and said, "Well do you". Lucky stood there a minute and said, "Yes I do" and signed his name and address in the back of my New Testament which I sent with his medal to his mother. I had previously told Lucky about our close, mutual friend, Jim Story's prayer and acceptance of Christ before he died. I had been a Christian since I was thirteen but knew so little about the Bible that I had no part in either of their professions of faith in Christ. But I witnessed it and later learned how to lead someone to Christ. Lucky was killed before I got home. I've always felt he was the one who should have been going home, not me. The Testament I carried throughout the war was one of many placed in all the buildings of Camp Pendleton, from which we departed to embark for Korea. When our First Sergeant's command "Load up" came, and we all rushed down a hall to the trucks, I saw a rack of little New Testaments and stopped, for a moment. I looked for a price, but didn't have any money anyway .... so I stole one .... I thought. I didn't know they were free and felt bad about stealing it, but I was going to war and wanted all the help I could get. I was the last one on the truck.

My mind tells me I did my best and wasn't responsible for what happened to those homeless, parent-less children living in the ruins of Seoul, or the lives of Vargo, Dolan, Jim or Lucky Don... or a civilian I may have killed in Seoul who was running across a street where the enemy was schooting at us, and running from place to place. I think I did my best or at least tried to ... or maybe just tried to try.  For some reason I still carry guilt feelings and regret that I wasn't a braver Marine and a better man.

In a sense, my ministry was often fueled by those experiences. For years afterward, when I would awaken in a cold sweat and couldn't go back to sleep, I would use that time to think and plan and pray some new project into existence. Most of our ministries in Tallahassee, Florida began on such sleepless nights .... Temple Baptist Church (now North Florida Baptist Church), North Florida Christian Schools with three campuses; one at the church and two in adjoining counties, Aucilla Christian School, and Gadsden Christian School. Also Lighthouse Children's Home, Haven of Rest Rescue Mission, Tallahassee's Food Bank, 24 hour TV Station, our own Mexican Mission station and dozens of other missions projects world wide. But, of course, I didn't really do those things ....God did. One of our Aucilla School directors once asked me, "Pastor Blair, where did you get the money to build all these ministries ? Did some Christian organization or billionaire give it to you or build all those buildings? You aren't smart enough to do all that."  To which I answered, "You are right on every count ... God did it all ... through those wonderful, billionaire members of Temple Baptist Church in Tallahassee."  RB   "Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake."  Psalms 115:1