It is hard to believe that almost 44 years have passed since I began my tour of shore duty in North Korea as a guest of the North Korean/Chinese communists. When I was shot down, I was a new Ensign with at most, 700 flight hours. Sitting here at my desk in Williamsburg, VA., many memories come flooding back in my mind although dimmed by intervening years, not to mention age. Space will not permit a recording of my two years as a prisoner of war. Therefore, I will select a few incidents to record.

Shoot-Down

In November 1951, I was a member of VC-35 night attack team six serving off the coast of Korea on board the USS Bonn Homm Richard(CV-31). We were to depart for our home base of San Diego in about two weeks having completed our deployment. Our AD Skyraider team was composed of six pilots - one lieutenant commander, two lieutenants, one lieutenant junior grade, and two ensigns. The other ensign, John Reynolds, and I had been badgering the team leader, LCDR Al Waldman, to let us fly a night mission together. Fate seems to raise its head at the most unusual times.

On 3 November 1951 our team leader told me that inasmuch as I was the only pilot never to have visited ashore in South Korea, I was to fly a visiting Army colonel to Pusan and that I had permission to remain overnight when we arrived in Pusan. The colonel invited me to spend the night at his command which he informed me was the Joint Advisory Committee on Korea (Jack). It turned out to be a wonderful evening, with food, company, and quarters provided. One thing did happen of special note. While at the bar before dinner, I met and visited with a gentleman who was very interested in the specific areas in which I was doing most of my interdiction flying.

After I described the area to him, his reply was "We have been doing a great deal of work in that area and should you be shot down, the chances are good that you will be contacted by a friendly." He would not answer any more specific questions. I thanked him and stated that I would not be a candidate because I was about to depart for home. What a mistake!

The next morning, 4 November, I arrived at operations, and there was a message from the Bonn Homm directing me to fly to Seoul, pick up a newspaper correspondent and return to the ship. I proceeded to do this and returned to the ship about 1600. Upon landing, I discovered that we two ensigns had been given the green light to fly the interdiction flight launching in two hours. Since my lineal number was one or two lower than John Reynolds', I was designated flight leader. At our briefing, we were assigned rail and road routes leading toward the front line area. This was an area generally southwest of Wonsan, North Korea. Our ordnance load on the AD consisted of flares, napalm and 260 pound fragmentation bombs. At launch, I felt a bit uneasy because I had lost my wristwatch earlier that day. Not to worry though, since the aircraft had a perfectly functioning clock.

The weather was low overcast at about 3000 feet with light snow. The temperature hovered in the mid to high twenties-not too bad a night for an interdiction flight. Our launch was uneventful, as was our flight to the beach. Upon, feet dry in the Wonsan area, I immediately turned southwest to check the main rail route and road in that area. As a side note, our night attack team allowance of three AD-3N aircraft had dwindled to one through attrition. As a result, I was flying an AD without aircrewman aboard for which I was later very grateful. (This aircraft had been borrowed from our air group attack squadron.)

After several minutes, I noticed a light on the snowy ground and directed my wingman to drop a flare. I placed myself in position for the first run. When the flare illuminated, I saw one of the largest truck convoys of our cruise. We were receiving quite a bit of heavy antiaircraft fire by this time. I proceeded with my first run which was a low-altitude napalm drop. I scored a hit on the front area of the convoy. This served to stop the line of trucks as well as provide additional illumination. I told my wingman to set up a racetrack and start picking off the targets.

My second attack was a strafing run and, midway through, I felt a heavy thump under my engine. I notified my wingman and immediately started climbing for altitude since I was well below 1000 feet. About the time I reached the base of the clouds (2,500-3,000 feet) a great shower of sparks came out of the exhaust and then a thundering, deafening silence my four-bladed prop stood still. I turned my aircraft toward ocean, thinking that my rescue would be easier in the open water. I called John to tell him I was leaving my aircraft, unfastened all cords, opened the canopy and crouched in the seat to go over the side. However, something was holding me in the cockpit; I could not get out. So I sat back down, rechecked all lines, etc. and trimmed the aircraft a bit nose up. As the airspeed dropped below 100 knots, I finally exited the cockpit and landed on the trailing edge of the wing. After I fell off the trailing edge, I pulled my rip cord and that blossoming chute looked absolutely gorgeous.

As I descended, I noticed I was in a valley with rather high mountains on either side. The wind was blowing quite hard ant I began what I considered to be large oscillations under the canopy. As a matter of fact, I was swinging beyond the edge of the canopy. I had heard stories of collapsing a chute in this manner, so I began working the opposite riser which seemed to help some. However, as I descended further into the valley, the wind became less of a problem, I did see the ground a few seconds before landing. This gave me sufficient time to note that I was landing in an unobstructed field area and also to relax. I landed on my feet, rolled forward, stood up and said to myself, what in the world am I doing here in this Godforsaken place?

Escape and Evasion

Thank goodness I was not injured. I immediately started rolling up my parachute. I took inventory of my belongings, and I discovered a serious mistake that I had made before leaving my aircraft: I had neglected to check the retaining clip that held my life raft in the seat of my parachute. My raft was lost during bailout. Had I reached the ocean as I had planned, my longevity in 40-degree water without a raft would have been next to nil. Meanwhile, my wingman was dropping flares to locate my position. I finally felt I had to leave the area because of the intense illumination.

There was about 10 inches of snow on the ground. I had formulated a quick plan of action in my mind. I estimated that I was about 30-40 miles from Wonsan harbor where we occupied an island in the mouth of the harbor (Yo-Do Island). I would make my way to the eastern foothills where concealment would be the best and thence proceed to the Harbor area hoping to procure a small boat and get out into the harbor for rescue. Walking in strange surroundings at night with only a compass for navigation presented a formidable challenge. And very shortly after starting on my trek, I was greatly troubled by not knowing the time and the number of hours left before daybreak, I was having no success in finding proper concealment areas in the flat terrain of the valley.

After alternately walking and then running for a considerable period of time (with many spills along the way), I was exhausted. I finally found small frozen stream with the remains of a bridge stanchion on each side of it. I sat down and leaned back against the stanchion. A few minutes later, I heard a noise, looked around, and a long line of men started going past me no more than 25-35 feet away. Of course, I did not move a muscle or blink an eye. I was convinced they would hear my heart thumping if nothing else. After what seemed an eternity, they were gone. I arose, and with renewed vigor, ran away from that area.

The hour of the night now became my most serious problem. I came to the main rail line, which ran toward the front line. It was elevated and I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get up to it. For some inexplicable reason, I had my .38-caliber pistol in my hand. When I reached the track, I stood up and paused to catch my breath Far off in the distance, I heard the sing-song chanting of what I assumed to be a work party repairing the day's bomb damage. Perhaps this was the same group who had walked past me earlier. And then all of a sudden, like snapping your fingers, a Korean man stood in front of me. I had not heard him coming and to say the least I was very surprised. My first reaction was to stick my .38-caliber in his gut. He threw his hands in the air as I had indicated to him. He knew no English and I did not know Korean.

So here I was, several miles into enemy territory, and I had my first POW. Now an immense question arose in my mind-what do I do with him? I might add that this question has plagued me ever since that night in 1951. Three courses of action came into my mind. First, I thought of shooting him. However, with a working party in the vicinity, the noise might cause a problem. But even more important, I could not bring myself to shoot someone in cold blood. Perhaps if he had been the only barrier between myself and a rescue helicopter, things may have been different. Second, I could take him with me. But the obvious impossibility of this course of action negated it immediately. Third, I could just let him go and that is what I did. As I motioned him down the track, he got a big smile on his face, patted me on the back and ran off. I suspect he played a part in my later capture. I left the railroad quickly and continued on my preselected track terribly worried about my encounter as well as wondering about the time.

Sometime later I came upon a farmer's field with large piles of cornstalks, what a great hiding place! I crawled under one of these large piles and was well hidden. I fell asleep almost immediately. My next recollection was of the sound of low-flying aircraft in my immediate vicinity. It was apparent that they were searching for me At this point I fell victim to a malady that has afflicted many downed aviators and it s called rescueitis. I just knew that there was a helicopter over the horizon waiting to pick me up. But first I had to let my friends know where I was hiding.

In those days Naval Aviators were issued long white scarves. In our airgroup we had sewn large florescent arrows on these scarves so one could position them on the ground with the arrow pointing in the direction one wanted strafing runs. It was visible up to about 800 feet. I gradually worked this scarf up over the top of my pile of cornstalks. After a period, I realized this maneuver was not effective. Then I thought of firing a few tracer rounds from my .38-caliber towards the aircraft in the hopes of being seen. I had checked my immediate area as best I could for troop movements and signs of activity but had noticed none. Nevertheless, this effort on my part was doomed to failure because the search aircraft were receiving fire from heavy guns in the not to distant foothills. After firing two rounds, I recognized my folly. I leaned over to replace the two rounds, heard a slight rustling of the cornstalks, and looked up into me glint of the morning sun reflecting off six bayonets about two inches from my head. With that horrible mistake, I commenced a close, even intimate, association with the horrors of worldwide communism of the Korean/Chinese variety.

First Interrogation

During my first two or three weeks of capture, I was moved constantly from group to group of military people. None spoke English. I was frequently placed on display in a town square where civilians were encouraged to vent their anger by hitting me with sticks, fists, stones, etc. During all of this, I really questioned if I would ever arrive at a POW camp alive.

We had been briefed that the North Koreans frequently executed captured pilots as war criminals, a familiar communist tactic. However, after about three weeks of this experience, I was turned over to a group headed by an officer who spoke English. He informed me that I would probably not be executed. This group turned me over to an Army major and his sergeant. The sergeant spoke excellent English. He knew a lot of American slang as Well. And he was very nasty! It was at this point that we left the Wonsan area. I was told we would cross the waist of Korea and arrive in P'yong Yang, the capitol of North Korea.

Interestingly, we had no method of transportation. We began walking and. on occasion, we would hitch a ride on an army vehicle. After a couple of days, we stopped at a typical Korean three-room house. The major told its occupants to leave and the three of us took over that family's home for about five days. It became readily apparent that a major concern of the North Koreans was another amphibious landing, this time in the Wonsan area. The sergeant was the interpreter and frequently used his rifle butt to inflict answers. The major kept his pistol on the table beside him.

After three days, I was informed that the major would be leaving for one day and I would be in the custody of the sergeant. I really worried about being alone with this thug. After the major was safely gone, I was dumbfounded when the sergeant came up to me with tears in his eyes and apologized for the way he had treated me. He explained that he had no alternative. He further told me that he was a South Korean of Christian parents. As a matter of fact, he said his father was a Methodist minister in South Korea. The sergeant had been a patient in a hospital in Seoul when the North had overrun the city. He had been give an ultimatum - join the North Korean Army or be executed. He further told me that his greatest desire was to get to the United States someday. I immediately informed him of how lucky he was because I was just the person to get him there. All we had to do was leave and he could lead the two of us out of North Korea. He grew very solemn and told me it would be impossible. He said that even being a Korean, he could not get out of North Korea because of their system of identity papers and unknown checkpoints. (This was later verified by many would-be escapees). He told me his best bet was to get transferred to a front line combat unit and surrender during a firefight. While I did not attempt an escape here, I feel I missed my best opportunity for success. It was as close to friends as I would be for almost two years.

Pak's Was No Palace

After completing my first interrogation with the major and the sergeant, we left the Korean home and continued our journey across the waist of Korea to the capital city of P'yong Yang. About 20 miles Northeast of the city, we arrived at a North Korean POW camp at midnight on a very cold November night. I was literally thrown into a room that contained II other human beings. What a night! I soon discovered that all of those bodies were sleeping on the dirt floor in a big circle, packed together. At certain intervals, those in the middle shifted to the outside of the pack and those on the outside edges moved to the middle in order to have their chance at some body heat. Since it was bitter cold, I soon joined this rather crude but fairly effective way to keep from freezing. Introductions to my roommates could wait until morning.

Soon after arriving, I was shocked to hear blood-curdling screams coming from next door. This continued on and off all night long. I imagined that I had finally arrived at the place where some sort of terrible torture was taking place. At daybreak I met each of my roommates and also learned the daily routine. Precisely at first light, the North Korean guards shouted, blew whistles and opened the doors to announce reveille. We were issued a small amount of cracked corn as our total food allowance for the day. Of course, cracked corn is inedible unless cooked sufficiently to soften it. Unfortunately, we had at most 30 minutes before work call and this was insufficient time to cook the corn. We would hide this partially cooked corn and then continue cooking it in the evening during the 30 minutes between our return from work and lights out (which was darkness). One did not have to be a great intellect to figure out that survival was a very tenuous concept at this camp which was named Pak's Palace, after the officer in charge. Our daily work was in the local mountains cutting timber and hauling logs. It was a difficult situation - practically no food and very physical work.

At daybreak, my fellow POWs told me that the blood curdling screams were coming from a U.S. Army major in the advanced stages of dysentery. One of the many unfortunate aspects of this illness is one has an almost unquenchable thirst. Every night after he had finished his last canteen of water, he started screaming for more water which, of course, the guards ignored. We were powerless to help since we were not allowed out of our room. I learned the major had stopped eating anything even though we did our absolute best to prepare edible cracked corn for him. After receiving permission from the senior American POW present as well as the North Koreans. I went to visit the major to see if I couldn't talk him into eating something. When I entered his room, I was met by a terrible stench and I was shocked when I looked at him. Despite the brutal December temperatures, the major was clothed in summer fatigues material. He only wore a shirt and a three-foot square piece of blanket-like material covering his privates. He had defecated all over the room and himself He was just skin and bones - a skeleton with skin stretched over it. I had never seen nor smelled anything like it.

I introduced myself and he did likewise. He was a very pleasant person who immediately told me he was just waiting to die. As a young, 22 - year-old healthy ensign, the entire scene was one of unbelievable horror. I can tell you that at that moment, I made a solemn vow with myself: In the future I would eat anything edible that was offered to me. But at that moment, I knew I had to do something positive, so I told the major that I was a new POW, having been shot down only a month ago. I advised him that peace talks had started and everything pointed to an end of the war soon. All we had to do was hang in there and do our very best to survive. I asked him if he was married. His face lit up and he produced a picture of his wife and two good-looking children. I congratulated him on his fine family and again mentioned the peace talks. I told him I had some thing for him to eat. He looked at me and said with absolute sincerity. No, I m just waiting to die. I was bitterly disappointed and nothing that I said moved him at all. In a few more days it became apparent that if something drastic didn't happen we were going to lose him. Our last-ditch effort was to pull his hair to make him eat. It didn't work. We were able to pull out his hair without his making a move toward eating. Just a few days later, the guards must have gotten tired of his constant screaming at night and they opened his door and windows. The next morning, we found him frozen to death.

Next came the very difficult task of some sort of a funeral. Two obstacles immediately came to mind:

1. burying a body in the frozen North Korean ground and,
2. a service that the North Koreans would permit. Finally, we prepared a shallow grave of sorts and the North Koreans permitted a prayer but no outwardly visible Christian insignia. All went well with the ceremony until we stuck a small cross in the snow after the funeral. The North Koreans went berserk, but I noticed that none dared touch the cross. I was able to verify this fear, if you will, with my own possessions. When I was captured, I was wearing a Saint Christopher medal. Neither the North Koreans nor the Chinese took it from me. In fact, they wouldn't even touch it and it was the only personal item that I later returned home with.

(This article originally appeared in the Fall issue of the "FOUNDATION", the magazine of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. The article was forwarded by Capt. Harry Ettinger, USN, Ret. who obtained permission from the Editor for us to use it in our Association NewsLetter.)