Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [157]
While we were still waiting for our names to be called, we met a guy—Norman Smith—from Oakland. During basic he special ordered a pair of boots from Georgia, and he was complaining that they were too loose. My boots were tight, so we traded. Norman was assigned to the 19th Infantry Regiment, and while on a patrol during his first week with his unit, he was killed; he was wearing my boots.
It was now day three, and I had to go to the latrine. I could vaguely hear names being called over the loudspeaker. When I returned, Oliver, Alberto, and half the guys I was with, were gone. They had been assigned to the 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. Later that day, my name was called; I was assigned to Headquarters Battery of Divarty, 24th Infantry Division.
After arriving, I was taken to Captain Spivey, the Battery Commander’s tent. I informed him that while having served in the Merchant Marines, I had been to Korea a few years earlier. He told me that he had been in Korea since the Pusan Perimeter, and as he put it, “When we got our ass kicked.”
The captain said since my records showed that I had been a cook, they could use one in their mess hall. I told him, “With all due respect, I have already turned that job down twice already, since coming into this man’s army...” He said they needed a forward observer in the survey team. I told him that would be okay, but I would need to be trained since all my training had been as an infantryman; my training started the next day.
Since I knew nothing about what a surveyor did, I started out as a rod and tape man. Sgt. Gilliam kept telling me one needed strong legs for this job, because it involved a lot of walking. By the end of the week, I was ready to go on a mission with them.
Our missions included establishing locations for observation posts, azimuth orientation lines, reference points, potential target points, and potential firing points for our artillery batteries. I soon learned to be an instrument operator and would get my first taste of action against Chinese and North Korean forces.
Four guys from our team climbed to the top of a hill in search of a trig point, while three others had gone to a pre-arranged location, to set up a red and white surveyor’s pole. Then they would measure off two-hundred yards and put up another flag pole, so the instrument operator could shoot a triangulation. However, heavy shrubs and debris hampered our view, so some of the guys started to clear the shrubs with their machetes. Being a country boy, and having hunted, I said the machetes might make an echoing noise and alert the Chinese of our position; thereby, causing them to lob mortar shells at us. I asked our team leader if I could set up an instrument in top of a tree located next to where the trig point was located. Permission was granted, so up the twenty-five foot tree I went—with a sextant.
Soon we were spotted by the Chinese and the mortar rounds started coming in. Not long before we arrived, heavy fighting had taken place and the tree I climbed up was riddled with bullet holes. So, with the incoming mortar rounds, the ground began to shake causing the tree to fall. On my backside, I landed on a solid flat rock, which knocked the breath out of me.
The team immediately evacuated the hill; they carried me as far as they could, which was about three miles. We made it back to our vehicle, which we had hidden in a ravine, and made it back to our unit before dark.
The next day, my backside was black and blue, and our team leader thought I should go see the medic. However, I just laughed it off and told him, “I just got my ass black and blue; I’ll be fine in a few days.”
It had been a month since the Chinese May Offensive when we had to walk over mountains of dead Chinese, and North Korean, soldiers. Decomposing with worms, and other kinds of insects crawling in and out of their bodies—especially their spooky