Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [54]
We would throw a grenade over the hillside—in front of us—along with an illuminating grenade every thirty to forty minutes. These would light up the draw between our position and theirs. Our tanks down on the road took advantage of the light and would fire rounds into the draw.
If you were fortunate enough to still have a sleeping bag at this point you didn’t dare get in it during the night, for fear of being caught in it if we were overrun again. With the extreme cold, and being in it twenty-four hours a day, frostbite had now become a factor.
On the morning of December 4th, I went down to get something to eat. As I was returning to relieve another Marine, so he could get something to eat, I found myself falling down every few steps. Every time I fell, I laid in the snow trying to muster enough strength to get up, and get up the hill. The last time I fell, not knowing how long I had laid in the snow, I tried to crawl up the hill. Then one of our new replacements, a staff sergeant, came along and rolled me over, asking me what was wrong. Even with his help, I still fell. So, he told me to wait there and he would go get a corpsman.
Shortly afterwards, a couple of corpsman arrived and were able to get me to a tent. They told me the doctor would be in to see me later. Even though it was cold in the tent, it was the warmest I had been in days, so before I knew it I had fallen asleep on the floor.
A few hours later the corpsman and doctor woke me up, and then I explained to them what had happened. The doctor told me to take off my shoes, so he could look at my feet. Both of my big toes had turned black on the ends. He then wrote out an evacuation tag and tied it onto one of my coat buttons. I tried to tell him that if I could warm up a bit that I would be okay. He said, “No.” He then went on to say that everyone was going to have their feet inspected and those like mine would be classified as unfit to walk, and flown out. Continuing, he said we would be more of a hindrance than help when time came for us to fight our way out.
He went on to inform me that he would take care of letting someone from G/3/1 know my situation. I was taken by a corpsman to the air strip to be flown out on the next available flight to Hungnam. When we arrived, there was a plane sitting there with its engines running. Since I could still walk—somewhat—there was room for me. All the stretcher patients had already been strapped in, so they strapped me in one of the bucket seats. Several more walking wounded came aboard then they closed the door, taxied out, and took off for Hungnam.
Finally, arriving at a field hospital in Hungnam, I was told they would probably fly me to a hospital in Japan the following morning. I ended up in an Army hospital located somewhere in southern Japan. After evaluating my condition, a couple of doctors came by later in the day to give me their diagnosis. They said my hands would heal just fine by themselves, but both of my big toes would have to be amputated.
Not liking what I heard, I requested to see a Marine Liaison Officer. Not knowing where one was, they continued to insist that my toes needed to be amputated. However, I continued requesting to see a Naval or Marine person to obtain a second opinion.
The following day a Master Sergeant, from the Marine Corps, came to see me. After a couple of days of talking back and forth, he had some good news. He had arranged for me to go by myself, by a civilian train, to a town that had a naval hospital.
On the third morning of the trip, the train stopped and two