This scrapbook and its pictures start a month or so after I got to Korea.
We arrived in Korea by boat from Japan arriving in Pusan harbor, got off the boat, were issued weapons (but no ammo), winter clothing, then put on a train and sent North to Seoul. As we boarded the train we were advised to duck if the
train was strafed by Koreans as we rolled past. Rumor was that a
machine gun would be set up pointed at where the train would be and as the
train came into view the North Korean sympathizers would lock the trigger and let the train roll
through the field of fire while they disappeared back into the local civilian
Korean population. We arrived without incident at the replacement
depot in Seoul.
We spent a frigid Christmas eve in tents at the replacement depot in
Seoul. Before going to bed, we were entertained by an outdoor movie after
dark while sitting on bare
benches outside in the cold. There were no city lights in Seoul to
lighten the sky. I've never forgotten the contrast between Gene Kelly splashing about
in rain and the bitterly cold, snowy place where my butt
was while I watched him cavort on screen that Christmas eve in 1952. The projector and its operator sat
inside a partially destroyed building and showed the film out a window that
had glass. I guess Singing in
the Rain is one of the great entertaining movies, but somehow I've never really
enjoyed it.
From Seoul, we were loaded on another train. Around mid afternoon I got off
that train at
an air force field somewhere close to the front. A cook offered to
make me a meal of leftovers from their noon meal. The day was
Christmas, 1952, so the leftovers were the remains
of an elegant turkey-and-all-the-trimmings meal and is a bench mark for my arrival in
Korea.
At the end of my tour I was on a troopship somewhere out in the Pacific
Ocean when we got
word that the Korean armistice had been signed. The armistice was signed on
July 23, 1953.
Other than the Christmas meal and the armistice, my memory of time lines
has gotten fuzzy during the last 50 years. I apologize to anyone who is looking for some sort of absolute, historically-precise document.
(Note: After writing this, I received a letter from my sister which I'd written
on December 24th
1952. She had found it being used as a bookmark in one
of the books left her by my Mother when my Mother died.
You
can click here to read this letter.)
Instead, consider these web pages as a scrapbook put together by a Grandfather
of an earlier time in his life with no historic relevance
except, maybe, to his immediate family and friends. I've kept the photos in sequence
using the date-stamp Kodak put on the original slides, but other than that I've made no real attempt
to tie these pictures to specific dates.