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This is two slides stitched together via the magic of digital image processing.  I'd walked to the top of the hill behind headquarters, and had taken these series of pictures looking North East over the Ch'orwon Valley. The Han Tan river runs along the bottom of this picture.

These picture were taken from an old bunker that had been built on the top of the hill.  There was (at that time) an old, rusted, live hand grenade in the bunker.  I've since wondered if the pin ever finally rusted through and it finally went off.

The lower hills on the right of the picture above and in the next picture, were occupied by the U.S.  The road you see snaking North up the Ch'orwon valley toward the U.S. controlled hills on the right side of the picture was under Chinese observation at all times, and subject to mortar fire from the Chinese but was the only road to the MLR.  Two of the men in my platoon were killed at the left where this the road crests the low hill there. At first it was thought to be mortar fire - there was always a lot of that - but they had run off the road and hit an anti-tank mine.  The mine shredded their Jeep and them with it.  One of two inseparable friends died here. Flat and Flowers had been through basic training and the whole trip to Korea together.  Now one was dead.

Hidden by the hill I'm standing on and at the left side of the picture was an experimental RADAR.  It used a phased array antenna located on the right side of the road that bounced its signal off the cut in the hill on the left side of the road to spot shell trajectories of enemy artillery and mortar fire.  Artillery used that information to track the trajectory back to its source and would then pound it with return fire.

Note the terracing of the river bank along the bottom of the picture into long, skinny fields.  Any place you could grow a crop was used.

The town of Ch'orwon is to the left, but not visible here.  The road you see running from right to left goes there. You can check the maps for details.

The blackened area in the foreground above and below is the burning of grass to deny cover to the enemy.  If you look closely, you can see smoke from the smoldering fires.  Also, if your eyes are really good, you can see a spot on the road almost to the right of the picture.  That was our Regimental commander out checking the terrain and communications and incidentally showing the flag by driving on the road and risking being shelled.

A little bit further down the road to the right, <more> about where the Turks were, was a 90mm anti aircraft gun.  No aircraft to shoot at, so it was zeroed in on the entrance to a railroad tunnel 20 miles North.  Randomly, someone would walk by and pull the lanyard and a high explosive shell would travel the 20 miles north and explode in the railroad tunnel entrance, hopefully playing havoc with any train coming through that tunnel.

When scanning these slides, the thing that struck me was the lack of people.  Ch'orwon Valley is a rich agricultural community, with signs of intense farming, small towns and villages every where.  Not a person moved out there, except for our Regimental CO zipping down the road in his Jeep, radio antennas waving.

And looking further to the East, you can see a snow-capped mountain in the distance.  I met one of my college classmates near that mountain.  He had been wounded by shrapnel from a mortar round, shipped back to Japan, patched up, and was back on line. The only way home was in a body bag or, if you survived long enough, to accumulate enough points to rotate home. You did get extra points for being in combat so it all worked out.

Turning around and looking South, this view is toward the rear of our position.  Down the hill is Regimental Headquarters with the parade ground in the middle and the motor pool nestled up against the middle hill behind the parade ground.  Just over the hill behind the motor pool is a dirt airstrip where a spotter plane made its home. You can also see the road to the rear supply depot snaking down the valley headed South. There also was an artillery battery between the airstrip and the base of the hill.

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 ©Copyright Freeman Bradford.  All rights reserved.