Voices from the Korean War - Douglas Rice [96]
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About a thousand yards in front of us, three Russian T-34 tanks had dug in during the night. Late in the day, we called in scattered fire and all three tanks took off. The following morning I was able to get an 8-inch howitzer, whose shell could do more damage than that of the 105 howitzer; we tore up all three bunkers. Two were empty; the third one had a tank in it. The tank was set on fire and burned for several hours, as the ammo inside exploded.
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Prior to going home in November 1951, I spent the last few weeks in Korea with a Greek infantry battalion. I joined a company, as a replacement, whose forward observer had been killed in action. One thing about the Greeks, they were terrific fighters.
When I left their hill, I had the honor of having lunch with their battalion commander—a lieutenant colonel. He told me that every man in his battalion was a volunteer who hated communism with a passion. It seemed each man had a family member killed, or wounded, during the civil war that occurred in their country after the Second World War. The Soviet Union had tried to turn Greece into a communist country. He went on to say that guards had to be placed around the dock to keep other soldiers from sneaking aboard their ship as it left for Korea. I recall one incident as were attacking the hill. A Greek lieutenant kicked the hell out of a soldier who was manning a machine gun, because he hadn’t moved his gun fast enough to kill more Chinese—as they retreated.
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After serving in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, I retired from the U.S. Army.
~~Twenty-Seven~~
Douglas Voss
USS Pledge – AM-277
U.S. Navy
In 1944, at the age of seventeen, I joined the U.S. Navy for a two year tour; then in 1948 I re-enlisted. I was assigned for duty aboard the USS Pledge—a minesweeper. The function of a minesweeper was to cut the cables on underwater mines, and when they came to the surface we destroyed them with our guns.
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After the liberation of Seoul, in the later part of September, the UN forces headed north. On the 9th of October, the invasion of North Korea began, with I Corps going up the western side of the peninsula and the Tenth Corps taking the eastern side. However, amphibious landings would be required of the Tenth Corps. The Marines 1st Division would be landing at Wonson and the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry Division would land at Iwon.
In preparation of the landings at Wonson, the Navy sent in minesweepers to handle the difficult and hazardous task of clearing an area two-thousand yards wide and fourteen miles in length. One of the minesweepers involved was us—the USS Pledge.
On October 12th, after aiding in the clearing of two minefields, the Pledge entered a third. Suddenly the lead ship, the USS Pirate, hit a mine and within minutes she was gone. We quickly lowered a boat and cut loose our sweep gear to help retrieve survivors. Immediately we were fired on from shore batteries from Sin-do Island. Equipped with 3-inch guns and two Twin 20 mm guns, we returned fire—silencing at least three of the batteries.
I was on the second deck on one of the 20mm guns, when we tried to turn out of the minefield; as she turned she struck a mine on the starboard side of the bridge superstructure. The blast buckled the deck. I was injured. Everything was done to save the ship, but within sixty minutes she had met the same fate as the Pirate—she sank.
I don’t recall how long I was in the water, but it must have been around four or five hours. While in the water I clung to a net with floats, as the shore batteries opened fire on us; thereby, making rescue attempts very difficult. We were finally picked up by crews from the USS Endicott. The USS Doyle was also in the area, but I can’t recall the names of the other ships or how many.
That afternoon the Pledge lost seven men—one dead and six missing—and another forty wounded. We were taken to the hospital ship, the USS Repose, where I would be a patient for two weeks. Then I was transferred to