Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [107]
We were home at last![6]
~~Thirty-Two~~
John “Rick” Kennedy
5th Marine Regiment
1st Marine Division
U.S. Marine Corps
During the Second World War, students at St. Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky frequently worked in defense plants during summer break and after school during the regular semesters. In my junior year, I worked at Jeffersonville Boat and Machinery, building the LST. In my senior year, I was a clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad after classes. Upon graduation in June of 1945, I immediately enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps—at the age of seventeen. The strict discipline at St. Xavier allowed me to breeze through Parris Island.
After Parris Island, I attended the Naval Academy Prep School in the old remains of Tome University in Bainbridge, Maryland. It was like a highly regimented high school, with the same discipline as Annapolis. Here our main objective was to study for the entrance exam into the U.S. Naval Academy. The school population consisted of two-hundred sailors and fifty Marines. Many of the Marines were veterans of the Pacific Theater, but some were just like me—fresh out of boot camp. Guys like Private Gordon Cooper, who later became a Mercury Seven astronaut, and Private Hugh Krampe, who later became the actor Hugh O’Brian were there as well. Soon the atmosphere at Bainbridge became boring, so half of our group—including myself—left and was put on active Marine Corps assignment.
I was assigned to the Washington Navy Yard located on the Anacostia River at 8th and M Streets, where I was assigned to a special guard detachment. My duties included chasing prisoners, acting as a guard while the Secret Service handled the melting down of obsolete currency plates and U.S. Saving Bonds at the foundry, I stood guard on Pier One while President Truman was aboard his yacht—the Williamsburg. At 6:00 AM one morning, I saluted the President as he walked with two Secret Service men past my post, on his way to get a paper at the front gate. He stopped and told me that he had the Marines, Army, and Navy here today, and everything was in good hands. I saluted and said, “Yes sir, Mr. President.”
After several other assignments, my first Marine Corps experience came to an end and at Quantico I was given an honorable discharge. I then enrolled in school at Indiana University.
In 1950 I attended summer school at the I.U. extension in Jeffersonville, then one day in July—after class—I joined some friends at the Brown Derby bar. Like me, they too had served in the military after World War II. On the television was the news showing the Marines landing in Korea. I told my friends that the war would be over in two weeks. They told me if I thought so much of the Marines that I should go give them a hand. So, the next day I joined a Marine Reserve unit in Louisville; two weeks later I was headed to Camp Pendleton by train for advanced combat training.
* * * * * *
Early in November, with roughly fifteen-hundred Marines and a small group of Navy personnel, I boarded the SS General Collins. As the lights along the California coastline disappeared into the night, the ships sound system played “Harbor Lights.” Talk about a haunting feeling.
We were put in troop quarters with bunks stacked five-to-six high. Our first night at sea felt like we had run into a typhoon. The ship rose out of the water and the rudder made a terrible noise. Many of the Marines became seasick with no other choice but to vomit on the Marines in the bunks below—it wasn’t a pretty sight. Needless to say, I thought the ship was going to sink. The following day, the sky was blue and the sea calm. Apparently, no one had bothered to tell us about the ocean swells off the coast of California.
As we approached the coast of Japan, we were met by a harbor pilot in a tugboat who led us into the harbor of Kure, Japan. We dropped off some