Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [72]
After leaving Majon-ni, on the 5th of April, 1951, we arrived at a temporary camp that was located in a village deep in a valley that could only be reached by foot. Seven days later, our group of fifty-eight would be split into two groups; one of twenty-eight, and thirty in the other.
From the group of thirty, the Chinese picked eighteen U.S. Marines and one Army soldier to be released. These nineteen were marched south a few miles, stopped, fed well, given pamphlets of peaceful aims of the Chinese, surrender leaflets that they were to hand to their comrades when they caught up with them, then they were released.
The remaining men were brought back north where they rejoined our group. The four Marines that returned were, Sergeants Mathis and Roberts, Cpl. Aquirre, and PFC Daniel Yesko. It was during this time that many of us began to physically suffer more. My wounds had begun to bother me, and from the knees down my legs were in excruciating pain. During the nights the pain became more intense, so I got very little sleep.
We arrived at a deserted village after several days of moving around, and dodging allied planes. Here, the Chinese removed a sergeant and a private from our group, which we didn’t view as much of a loss. Ever since our capture, both of these guys were suspected of ratting guys out to our captors; these two were favorites of the Chinese. They received better treatment, and always had cigarettes. No one trusted these two.
Near the end of May 1951, we met approximately two-hundred American soldiers that had been captured a month earlier around Seoul. Most of them belonged to the 24th and 25th Infantry Division’s.
Roughly ten days later, the Chinese moved our group away from the other’s and marched us toward the Hwachon Reservoir. They marched us until August, then we were taken to a village where we stayed for about a month; then we moved again, heading back north. At our next stop they moved Ray Hikida from our group; we didn’t see him again until the end of the war.
Next, we headed to a place called “The Mining Camp,” which was near P’Yongyang. This is were the Chinese collected prisoners and when they had a large group, would walk them to various camps lining the Yalu River. While here we met some newly captured prisoners; their clothes looked fairly new, not torn or ragged like ours. They kept their distance and looked at us suspiciously, as if they didn’t care for us. However, they began to warm up to us after they found out how long we had been captured.
We never had problems with the dispensing of food until now. Being in such a large group, it had become dog-eat-dog. A lot of the new prisoners still had their canteens, and canteen cups. When the guard left the food container on the floor, it was chaos with the newer guys filling their cups. Us older ones didn’t stand a chance; our cups would only hold about a fourth of the canteen cups. Many of the prisoners, especially the wounded, got nothing to eat.
Daniel Martinez, a staff sergeant from Dog Company, 31st Infantry Regiment, immediately took charge of the group. He asked how many didn’t get anything to eat that morning—several prisoners raised their hands. Continuing on, he told us that we were all soldiers and still in the military, but some had forgotten this and were acting like animals. He told us that when the afternoon food arrived, everyone would