Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [115]
As we looked at each other, he said, “You’re dead.” I told him my story of escaping during the confusion when the group was shelled that night some two years earlier. He then explained those who I had known in Item Company believed I had been killed when the artillery shell exploded. He went on to say the column regrouped and moved north to POW Camp #1, taking only a couple of months to reach it. It had taken me five months to reach Camp #3, which was only twenty road miles from Camp #1. We became close friends as the end of the war neared.
The exchange of sick and wounded POW’s, from each side, took place in April of 1953. Now rumors were beginning to run wild that the rest of us would be liberated. Everyone thought the war would be over any day.
The Chinese anticipated there would be retribution against the GI’s who played ball with them for special treatment. That is why—I believe—when the war ended, a small number of prisoners from each camp, including myself, were singled out, accused, and tried for war crimes; we were all given prison sentences. There were five permanent camps—for America Prisoners of War—with as many as seven companies per camp. They were located along a fifty mile stretch of the Yalu River. This group of twenty or more prisoners convicted at trials, were a reminder to other prisoners to not start any trouble; or receive the same punishment as the progressives.
My trial took place the day the announcement was made that the war was over. Later that day my sentence of one-year at hard labor was read over the camps public address system.
Those convicted of various crimes were of course segregated from the prisoners. They were moved, under heavy guard, to a central location in a camp that previously housed ROK soldiers; they had long since been moved south for repatriation. The senior American officer, with our small group, was a Lt. Colonel who commanded a combat engineering battalion prior to his capture—in December of 1950 at Kunu-ri. He told us to do, or say, whatever the Chinese demanded that would help our case for release.
Some weeks later, after appropriate confessions and apologies were made to the Chinese officials that were holding us; we were taken to the rail head at Antung, North Korean, and put aboard a train bound for Kaesong—which was located on the north side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). Arriving at Kaesong, the group was put on display at a ceremony that had been arranged by the Chinese for the benefit of their foreign press. Reporters and photographers from all the Soviet Bloc countries were present to document the occasion. The Chinese said we were the worst war criminals from all the Americans they had captured. However, in keeping with their policy of lenient treatment, and after our confessions, they would pardon our crimes and return us to our home country.
When the U.S. and UN military brass at Panmunjom were informed the Chinese would be holding the twenty Americans in our group as war criminals, a senior American official threatened to immediately stop the prisoner exchange. He also said that thousands of Communist prisoners would be held indefinitely until they released, and repatriated, all American prisoners—they released us immediately.
Afterwards we were transported to a tent city where all POW’s waiting release were assembled. We again waited for several days before being put on trucks and driven across the four kilometer wide DMZ, to our release point in Panmunjom.
Following our release, on September 3, 1953 at the exchange point in the Joint Security Area, we POW’s were taken to Freedom Village. Here we each received a shower, light meal, a new uniform, and a medical evaluation. Then we were flown, by helicopter, to Inchon.
The USNS General A.W. Brewster lay at anchor in the Inchon Harbor. That evening we would board her for our trip home, but first, there was the matter of the Army’s inquisition—officially called a counter intelligence debriefing.
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