During the first week of December 1950, exactly 69 years ago this week, God sent a Tootsie Roll miracle from heaven upon a beleaguered and battered bunch of frozen, famished Marines.
Our youngest daughter, Kaye, sent the Tootsie Roll article below and asked me if it were true. She knew I was a Marine, in the Chosin Reservoir Battle in North Korea, when the Tootsie Roll incident happened. We had fought our way into the Reservoir area when the Chinese Communists surrounded us with ten times more troops than we had. We were under constant attack and being overrun every night in temperatures ranging from Minus -10 to -60 below zero weather. We had lost thousands of dead and wounded in the last few days; everything was frozen including parts of our bodies, our C-Rations, our weapons and our water. We had practically no sleep for days and were barely able to function. Fortunately supplies were being dropped by air. We were fighting our way out, the trucks were full of wounded and the dead were stacked on top of trucks, jeeps and even on rolling artillery. Our energy level was hardly enough to keep us moving over those mountains and a few Marines simply fell over dead of exhaustion. Then this unbelievable miracle happened. A supply plane dropped, by parachute, a load of Tootsie Rolls on us. Since our C-Rations were all frozen, we were near starving when it happened. I remember my sergeant showing up with boxes of Tootsie Rolls, now frozen, but easily melted in our mouths and when carried next to our bodies. Everyone called it a mistake but to me it was a miracle from God. I can't tell you what it did for our energy, attitude and moral. I must add that the Tootsie Roll company has for years attended our national Chosin Few meetings with another load of Tootsie Rolls for a bunch of old Marines. Here is the article Kaye sent. RB
Its true .... I was there. RB
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A True Story About Tootsie Rolls
Did you know that Tootsie Rolls helped save U.S. Marines? During the Korean War the First Marine Division met the enemy, at the Chosin Mountains Reservoir, in subfreezing temperatures. There were about 15,000 Marines surrounded at, or near, the Reservoir, in North Korea, by 150,000 Chinese Communist enemy. Nearly out of ammunition, the Marines called for 60 MM Mortar Ammo; code named "Tootsie Rolls". The army radio operator, on the other end, did not have the code sheets that would tell him what a "Tootsie Roll" was, but knew the request was urgent, so he called in the order to be air dropped. Above the surrounded Marines, a plane dropped pallets of Tootsie Roll candies, parachuted from the sky, to the Marines. Although not the ammunition they expected, the candy provided much needed moral and nourishment for the troops. The large Tootsie Rolls gave them energy and the chewy candy took their minds off of being so hungry and cold. Since it was 10 to 60 degrees below zero, the Marines would warm the Tootsie Rolls by carrying them next to their bodies. They also learned that they could use warmed Tootsie Rolls to plug bullet holes in their gas tanks and radiators, sealing them as the candy refroze. After two weeks of fighting, the Marines fought their way to the sea. These Marines are called the Chosin Few. Many credit their very survival to the Tootsie Rolls.
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My further comment:
There was another miracle a night or two before the Tootsie Rolls.
It was just before we were to jump off on the final leg of our battle out of those mountains. The temperature had dropped to its lowest in the two week battle and everything was frozen. We had a bridge out ahead of us on the side of a very steep mountain. We were at our lowest ebb. We were desperate for close air support, the next day, so we could hold off the enemy and span the chasm, but the sky was overcast and the planes wouldn't be there. I think most of us were praying to see a star in that black sky to indicate the overcast was clearing. Sometime after midnight a fridged voice cried out ... "a star" and every eye searched for it... and there it was, a single star in that black sky. We would have close air support the next day, helping us clear the road and heights to the sea of enemy forces. No one could miss that this star seemed related to the one followed by Wise Men 2000 years ago. And it became the emblem of The Chosin Few. See it below. RB
Go to this link to see who The Chosin Few are.
