Part of
the cost of South Korea's freedom
March, 1995
TO: General Robert Barrow
FROM: Billy Rivers Penn, M.D.
At your suggestion, I am writing
down my experiences as a prisoner of war during the
Korean conflict. Maybe it is something I should
have done long ago. I don't know. I do hope
that it will help the younger people in our country
to appreciate the sacrifices made by so many to
insure their future. The young ones I see appear to
have no idea of what went on, or what is going on,
in this world.
My tour of duty as a hospital
corpsman attached to the Fleet Marine Force started
off on a rather ominous date.
The fifty of us from Pendleton
Marine Base arrived in Korea on Friday the 13th in
February of 1953. Even though my tenure in Korea,
North and South, was short, compared to some of the
experiences of the Vietnam POW's, it seemed
like a lifetime on occasion. I think maybe the
Vietnam POW's were a little more prepared than
we were then. As you know, the Chinese and North
Koreans had never heard of the Geneva
Convention.
I believe that it was the
(Republican) Senator from Massachusetts - Margaret
Chase Smith - who had gotten the law passed that
you could not put fresh troops on the MLR until
they had been in the country for several weeks.
After landing in Seoul, they were transferring us
at night to a rest area, which was approximately
three miles behind our MLR. They gave each one of
us an empty M1 to carry up there, however, I found
a clip of ammunition and took it with me. On the
way up with about three of us in a truck, enemy
mortar fire was really getting close, and the truck
driver told us to get out and get away from the
truck.
I started running; I guess I ran a
hundred yards or so , and after the mortar shells
stopped, they started calling my name, and when the
driver realized where I was, he told me not to
move. It seems that I had run out into the middle
of a mine field, and they had to get the engineers
to come and get me. I was really starting off in
good fashion.
Our main jobs for the first two or
three weeks were patrols between the rest areas and
our MLR's. There were a lot of artillery shells
day and night. Finally, we moved up to our MLR to
replace a company on the MLR when that company
pulled a daylight raid on a hilltop called Ungok.
They suffered a ninety-percent casualty rate.
The first casualty that I took care
of was Geronimo, an American Indian. It seemed like
all American Indians were nick-named either Cochise
or Geronimo. Our company had to go out that night
after the daylight raid to pick up dropped
equipment that the Marines had left. We went out
again the next night, further up the hill, and in a
Chinese machine gun bunker I found the Korean dolls
that I now have.
We stayed on the MLR because the
other company had such a high casualty rate. We
made two patrols at night, and I was the only
corpsman, so therefore, I had the honor of going on
both patrols.
On one patrol we were ambushed on
the way back; I had one bad casualty that I was
trying to drag back when I ran into some Chinese,
and the casualty and I laid in a ditch that night
for a long time. After the Chinese left I heard
Roscoe Woodard calling for me. He had come back for
us. Thank God for Woody!
Woody and I had long talks about
home. He was from Lucedale, Mississippi. I was from
McComb, Mississippi. We talked about home, families
and the Corps. It seems that Woody already had a
couple of Purple Hearts. He had been wounded twice
before, was in the hospital for three months, and
elected to stay in Korea rather than go
stateside.
Finally, I was attached to the 5th
Marines, 3rd Battalion, "H" Company. One
afternoon we got word that a corpsman was needed on
Vegas. I volunteered to go.
We had three outposts between our
MLR and the Chinese MLR - Reno, Vegas and Carson.
They were so named because they felt it was such a
gamble to be out there. I knew that Woody was
already out there as a machine gunner.
On the way out, a lot of incoming
mortar and big stuff was hitting close. How could
they see us? We were on the back side of a tall
hill. Incoming was getting heavier when we got to
the trenches on Vegas. I went straight to the
command bunker when the artillery really
intensified. I was in the bunker when I could hear
somebody calling for a corpsman. I was taking care
of a Marine when two Chinese jumped on me in the
trench.
They were like ants all over us.
One stuck a bayonet through my left leg above the
ankle, and I couldn't move; he couldn't get
the bayonet out, and I saw his finger on the
trigger and his gun clicked. They had taught us
that if you ever got a bayonet in somebody and you
couldn't get out, to fire the rifle, and the
recoil would help pull it out. I knew I was about
to lose a foot. He started to cock his rifle with
the bolt action when I got my .45 and shot him in
the head, and it moved him about three feet down
the trench.
I was an expert with a .45. At boot
camp they kept trying to get me to stay on with the
Marine pistol team. Thoughts of that have gone
through my mind since that time!
The Chinese are so small, they look
like ants with a 10" waist. They were all over
us. They had run up the hill with their own
artillery still firing. I was able to remove the
bayonet and rifle still in my leg and started
pulling the Marine into the command bunker. I was
hit in the left knee superficially with shrapnel,
took a shot by burp gun in the right shoulder, a
through and through wound. I didn't really know
about the shoulder until later when I saw how much
blood I had lost.
A bayonet in the right lower back
glanced off my flak jacket. It barely scratch my
skin, but it scared the devil out of me. As I
turned, my elbow caught him in the throat, he fell,
and I jumped on him. The adrenaline was flowing so
I'm not sure about him, but I hit him so many
times he did not move after I got up.
This is very difficult to write.
They were all over us. I picked up an entrenching
tool and started swinging. and hit one in the neck,
and the way his body was shaking on the ground I
thought I had decapitated him. I had a flash back
of wringing a chicken's neck at home. Dead
Chinese were all over.
Our machine gunners and Marines had
really done a job on the first wave of Chinese. I
had been told that the first wave of Chinese had
the weapons and that most of the second wave did
not have weapons. They were supposed to get their
weapons from the fallen first wave. Everyone was in
hand-to-hand combat. I saw Woody standing outside
his machine gun bunker - swinging his M2 like a
baseball bat. Trying to get another Marine back to
the command bunker, I was jumped again by a Chinese
and I beat him unconscious with a rock.
When I started out of the command
bunker again (the door was only about four feet
tall), as I stooped to get out I was hit by a rifle
butt on my helmet. Reflectively, I raised my .45
and when it went off it was on the tip of his nose.
I'll never forget the expression on his face as
the .45 went off, or the feeling I had seeing what
power the .45 had at point blank range. I backed
into the command bunker seeing what looked like a
thousand Chinese over Vegas, however, the whole
outpost probably wouldn't hold that many. Just
as I squatted behind a 12 X 12 support, a sachel
charge came in the door and all I remember is a big
flash of white light. I had put all my eggs in one
basket and they blew up my basket.
I don't know how long we were
buried. It was dusk when we were hit, and dark, I
think when the Chinese dug us out. I was blinded at
the time and could only see blurs of light. I could
not move. The 12 X 12 was across my chest, and one
was across my helmet. I was probably an hour after
I woke up that the Chinese started digging us out.
When they did get me out of the bunker - what was
left of it - they put a bandage around my eyes. I
don't know if it was a blindfold or a bandage,
and they started pushing and shoving me. There was
still lots of artillery all around. We went
approximately 300 yards and went into a tunnel;
then I realized they had probably tunneled up
through our out-wire. The tunnel was about four
feet tall and three feet wide. I was tripping all
over bodies in the tunnel; I don't know if they
were Chinese or Americans. The tunnel was probably
100 yards long.
When we came out we were in a large
trench. As I was sitting there resting, I could
feel tank tracks in the trench. That was a big
trench! They put me in a truck with four or five
wounded Marines or GI's and we were driven for
a long way to a small area with several huts. We
were put in this place for two or three days. No
food or water. Cold as it could be. One Marine,
Sammy Armstrong, probably 18 years old, had a bad
arm wound. I thought he was really bleeding one
night; I couldn't see. It was dark. I still had
my bandage on. When I checked him I could smell
gangrene. I tried to rouse the guards and they hit
me, but they took Sammy off, and when I saw him
during the exchange of prisoners of war, he was
absent an arm but otherwise in good shape.
We were walked for approximately
one day and came across a wounded Army man from
west Virginia. He could not walk, I could not see,
so we made a good pair. I carried him on my back
and he told me where to walk. We came to what was
later found to be an old abandoned mine; I think
they called it camp #10, way up in the mountains.
Another Geronimo gave me a bath and washed my
clothes in a stream. About ten of us were in a
small room.
My presence really confused the
Chinese. I was in Marine clothes with Navy
insignias on my shirt. I think they thought that I
was a forward observer for the artillery of the big
ships sitting out there shelling them all the time.
So I was in isolation for a long time. Name, rank
and serial number didn't seem to impress them.
They had never heard of the Geneva Convention. For
me the brain washing really started then.
After a few rifle butts to the head
and body, I told them I was from Mississippi, had a
mother, father and two brothers. I was accused of
germ warfare. I didn't know what on earth they
were talking about. Then the bad/good cop routine
started. After about four days of no sleep, being
kicked and hit with rifles. and so forth, you learn
to fake unconsciousness after the first rifle butt
to your head or ribs. . . . like Pavlav's dogs.
Food was a very small handful of rice daily. Then,
I had 15 to 16 days of fake firing squads.
They would go through
"ready", "aim",
"fire", then "click". At that
time I was hoping that they would kill me. That
takes a lot out of you. Once or twice they would
send a live round close to my head into the rock
wall behind me to get my attention. We had an
interrogator, Chinese, who graduated form the
University of Illinois, or Chicago, and had a
masters in Sociology. Wow! We named him "blood
on hands" because he kept reminding us we had
Chinese blood on our hands. He informed us that we
had killed 5,000 Chinese. . . .the first indication
that we had done well.
He kept trying to get me to sign
the germ warfare papers, inform him of our battle
strength and so forth, plus tell him which division
we were from. Once again, I think they thought I
was an FO for the artillery strikes. One time after
a firing squad, he told me that the International
Red Cross had informed him that my mother, father
and brother were killed in a car wreck. I was
wondering how the IRC knew I was there. I asked him
about my sister. He said that she was also killed.
I had no sister. By that time I was pretty mad. I
informed him that he was lying. . . . I had no
sister. He hit me and called in some guards. They
held me down and pulled my fingernail from my ring
finger with pliers. It had been injured earlier. It
never grew back. It was a constant, daily, reminder
of my captivity. Nothing can be done to correct the
nail bed.
On what I supposed was Easter, they
gave all of us a dyed egg. Later on, we learned
from one of the cooks, an Australian, that Stalin
had died. I guess we thought it was like the old
wild west. If the Indian Chief were killed, the
Indians would stop fighting. We were so happy in a
quiet way. We found out there were some Cuban
POW's there also. We had two Australians in our
hut; one was a cook. By the grace of God, I had a
tube of ophthalmic ointment in my top pocket which
I kept putting in my right eye. Finally, the
eyesight on the left returned.
The wounds on my leg, knee and
shoulder were healing. The Australian cook kept me
with some boiled water. I kept pouring the boiled
water on all my wounds to remove the exudate. Thank
God for the 23rd Psalm in my Bible. . . .my mother
had given me one with a steel case cover, inscribed
with "May this keep you safe from
harm".
One day they loaded us on a truck
and we headed out. There were no bombing runs by
allied planes or artillery. We noticed in the
morning that the sun was on our left, which meant
we were headed south. Still no noise of war going
on. We were really headed south? We arrived in
Kaesong, and were held in an old Buddhist temple,
full of artillery and machine gun holes. I met
other POW's. We were given clean bandages,
Chinese clothing and tennis shoes, none of which
fit. We were told we were part of Operation Little
Switch, an exchange of sick and wounded
POW's.
Most were very dumbfounded,
depressed, and there was not much talking. Most had
very hollow looking faces. This is where I ran
across Sammy Armstrong again. Glad he made it, but
sorry he lost his arm - he was so young. Of course,
I was an "old 20 year old" myself. My
name was finally called. I was loaded on the truck
and headed for Panmunjom. The first Americans we
saw in uniform, we all cheered and cried. We were
taken to Freedom Village. The first nurse I saw was
a Lieutenant in the Army. I can't remember her
name, but boy, was she beautiful. She took the
bandage from my right eye and she almost passed
out. I realized then that it must be pretty
bad.
A lot of pictures were taken. I ran
into a corpsman, Bobby from Tennessee. I can't
remember his name, but we were in Corps School
together. He told me about the high casualty rate
on Reno, Vegas and Carson. Woody and most others
were killed. They had already had a memorial
service for me.
From that day until now, I still
wonder, "why me?" The same question you
had, General, when you, your Lieutenant, and
radioman were standing together and a mortar round
dropped in and they were killed and you were not
injured.
You know, three weeks after
reaching home, I was back at work in a Navy
Hospital in Pensacola. I had three surgeries on my
right eye and a lot of "sand papering"
done on my face trying to remove some of the
superficial shrapnel. Nobody talked about their
experiences then. My family never did. They were
told not to bring it up, and maybe I would forget
it. Other than my wife, Nancy, the only two people
that I have ever discussed it with are you and
Frank McLavy, combat men. I have all the symptoms
of post traumatic stress syndrome. Especially
nightmares - I still have some every night.
It's worse this time of year because 42 years
ago this month, in March, is when my tour of duty
in North Korea started.
Recently a "D-Day" TV
program convinced me that people should know about
this. Like the holocaust, people, especially the
young generation, should not forget what people
have done to give us a world to live on and a
country to live in.
A lot of people have given parts of
their hearts, souls, and bodies all over the world
for us to have the freedom and privileges we have.
Except for my wife, Nancy, I have never told my
family anything Walter Cronkite said that when he
went over on the QE2 with all the veterans for the
D-Day ceremonies that they discovered something
together. The reason they never talked is that they
all have guilty consciences. They came home and the
others did not. I don't know if all of this
will be therapeutic or not. I hope so, but mainly I
owe a piece of my heart to all the men who left it
in Korea. They are, not were, but are, a great
group of men who don't want to be
forgotten.
Korean police action has been
called a forgotten war. It's time for
remembrance and respect. God is good, and has a
sense of humor. I promised myself I would never eat
rice again and would never treat a Chinese patient.
So what happens? After my B.S. at L.S.U., Medical
School in Mississippi, internship and OB-GYN
residency at Tennessee, I move to Louisiana, where
they put rice in, and on, everything. And during my
first year of practice, I delivered 10 Chinese
babies.
Meeting and talking to you,
General, was an enlightening and gratifying
experience. Maybe when we get to heaven it will be
written on the big blackboard the answer "why
me?" My experience with the Corps makes me
very proud - proud to wear the pogey rope that the
5th Marines gave us in World War I, and proud to be
part of the Semper Fi Society. I have rambled and
this is not in exactly chronological order, but I
hope that this will help the youth of our country
to love, respect and honor the legacy we have left
them.
When I see the problem in North
Korea today, and the way the modern Americans
believe in honoring the North Korean officials, it
scares me. Those people speak with forked tongues
and do not tell the truth. Life is still the
cheapest commodity on the market over there. Even
today, if they called me, I'd go back to
serve.
In your memoirs, report, or papers
that you are preparing, please feel free to use any
portion of my story that you wish. I thank you for
encouraging me to do this. Maybe my feelings have
been selfish in the past for not wanting to talk
about what happened to me, but now I feel I
can't let my fallen comrades down.
I know God has forgiven me. I only
wish that I could forgive myself. I have been close
to death several times in my life, but my faith in
God has always brought me through. Thank God for
children and grandchildren. It is God's
indication that he wants us and this world to
continue. It is as though the circle of life is
complete. I have answered a lot of letters from all
over the country asking if I knew anything about
their sons, husbands, or brothers that were still
listed as MIA's at the time of my return home.
I pray fro them all, and hold them in my heart.
Thank you again, Billy Penn
ADDENDUM 1997
General Robert Barrow USMC, retired
past commandant of USMC encouraged me to write the
manuscript. He wanted to include some of it in his
writings or memoires. General Barrow is one of the
greatest Americans I have ever met. During World
War II he parachuted into North China to teach
gorilla warfare to the Chinese versus Japan. In
Korea he helped lead the invasion into Inchon and
in the "Frozen Chosin" he received the
Navy Cross. In Vietnam he distinguished himself so
many times; he was made Commandant of the CORPS. He
was a "MUSTANG"-(He came up through the
ranks). In Marine history books, half of the
indices include his name. The manuscript is now in
the Archives of Marine History in Washington, D.C.
This addendum is not part of the manuscript. I
cleaned it up some because of my children, but they
are older now, and I think all of you as physicians
and friends can handle this addendum.
About 1/2 down Page 4:
"In hand-to-hand
combat"-- (A Chinese and I were
"involved". He had me on the ground with
a bayonet over his head driving it toward me. I
reached up and gouged out both of his eyes as we
rolled over. I remember seeing him running around
screaming.
When I got back to the command
bunker with another wounded Marine, one of the
Chinaman' s eyes was still in my hand.
That is probably the reason in all
of "daily" nightmares I always see eyes.
Like the portrait on the wall of a museum, the eyes
seem to follow you around the room. From 1955-1957
at LSU I scrubbed and assisted Dr. Paul Marks, an
ophthalmologist, every Wednesday. Even with a steel
cup over an enucleated eye, it seemed to be looking
at me.
This is "stuff" that will
never be in textbooks, history books, etc., but I
feel all of our younger people should know that
"FREEDOM IS NOT FREE".
This is not for sympathy--maybe
prayers won't hurt. I just want to share a part
of my life with you--a part that will not go away
nor get better.
The logo from the EXPOW and MIA
Organization is so apropos:
"For those returned, thank
you, God
For those killed, glory forever,God
For those still missing, please God."
Thanks, Billy Penn
ADDENDUM 1999
Page 6, Line 6 "So, I was in
isolation for a long time." My isolation
domain was a hole in the ground 5-1/2' long,
3' wide and 4' deep with several
2"x12" boards about 1" apart
covering the opening. This turned out to be the
camp's latrine. My uniform at that time was a T
-shirt, fatigue pants, no shoes nor socks. This is
where they retrieved me for the firing squads. It
was cold. My feet, toes and fingers were black, but
I never lost any toes, fingers, nose or ears. Even
today, when my feet get cold, everything tingles
and hurts.
The song "Hand on my
Shoulder" was so evident and alive then, long
before it was written. The camp was high in the
mountains, so no barbed wire could be used. They
would hit our ankles with rifle butts, which caused
so much swelling we could not walk very far . There
was a young Marine with a bad wound in our camp,
who had a tattoo of an American Flag over his right
deltoid muscle. There was a tear on his shirt over
the tattoo. He would unveil that flag to everyone-a
beautiful site -we even said the Pledge of
Allegiance to our Flag.
The Chinese beat us every time they
caught us with our flag. Finally, they took him
with me to the firing squad routine, tied his hands
behind him, put him on his knees, put a gun to the
base of his skull and killed him 3 feet from me.
God, rest his soul!
B.R. Penn
(The original and the addendum
quoted, with verbal permission, in its entirety
April 3, 2001)