Much has been documented about US soldiers' involvement in the Korean War. In this memoir, one officer details the little-known events of the battle of the Koto-ri Pass in North Korea in 1950. Chosin Reservoir narrates the role of the First Platoon, Battery A, Fiftieth AAA Battalion, X Corps, US Army, in facilitating the withdrawal of the First Marine Division from the Chosin Reservoir. Providing firsthand insight into the realities of war, author Merrill Harper, a retired lieutenant colonel of the US Army, tells the story of how one army officer and three enlisted men were able to break up a ten thousand man Chinese ambush on Koto-ri Pass, killing 7,500 Chinese and running the rest over the next mountains within six hours. In addition to chronicling the war-related events in North Korea in 1950, Harper, a soldier who was wounded twenty-four times, discusses his career leading up to the battle and shares other details from his twenty-two years of service in the military.
CHOSIN RESERVOIR
As I Remember Koto-ri Pass, North Korea, December 1950By Merrill HarperiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Merrill Harper.
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4697-8956-9Contents
Foreword..................................................................................xiPreface...................................................................................xvChapter 1: The Making of a Soldier........................................................1Chapter 2: The Assembly of My Platoon.....................................................3Chapter 3: By Train and Ship—Seattle to Japan.......................................6Chapter 4: The Army of One and the Inchon Invasion........................................10Chapter 5: A Hundred to One—Outnumbered in Hamhung..................................13Chapter 6: Chesty Puller—Most Decorated Marine......................................16Chapter 7: How to Defeat a Ten-Thousand Man Ambush with Just Four Men.....................21Chapter 8: First Marine Division Breakout from Chosin Reservoir...........................23Chapter 9: The Fiftieth AAA Battalion Sails to Pusan......................................29Chapter 10: The Kimpo Air Base Defense....................................................32Chapter 11: Guarding Suwon Airfield.......................................................34Chapter 12: Return to Kimpo Air Base......................................................38Chapter 13: Germany.......................................................................42Chapter 14: An Easter Sunday Wedding Day..................................................48Chapter 15: Fort Bragg to Vietnam—Psychological Warfare.............................50Chapter 16: Colorado—Moving into the Mountains with NORAD...........................55
Chapter One
THE MAKING OF A SOLDIER
July 7, 2007
We are gathered together in Falcon, Colorado. It is certainly a beautiful day and we are looking forward to this day.
Well. I'll start at the beginning. I was born in Hartwell, Georgia. I lived six miles west of town and went to school. In junior high I set an all-time school record as [having] the highest rating of any student to graduate. I then went to Hartwell High, where I was among the six highest-ranking students.
From there, I went to college at North Georgia College in Dahlonega, which was a military college where I had ROTC [Reserve Officers Training Corps] and where I got my commission. I started in June of 1945 and graduated in September of 1948, finishing really in under three years of college. I got bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics, and a minor in engineering.
When I finished college I thought it would be a while before they called me to active duty, but they needed second lieutenants. I was commissioned in October of 1948 and then called to active duty November 30, 1948, at Fort Benning, Georgia. There I was initially given the First Platoon of C Company of the 325th Regiment in the Eighty-Second Airborne Division.
They were moving all of their jumpers and troopers to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I was infantry, so they transferred me to the Third Infantry Division, which at that time was headquartered at Fort Benning. While there I had an infantry platoon.
In early 1949 the Department of Army searched the records of all its second lieutenants. I had the qualifications they were looking for, and they put me in the guided missile program with [Wernher] Von Braun and that group of scientists.
Shortly afterward, in the summer of 1949, I was transferred to El Paso, Texas. Fort Bliss is the station there. When I went out in the heat I never imagined anything to be so hot in my life as crossing Texas and going to El Paso in August.
Chapter Two
THE ASSEMBLY OF MY PLATOON
In June 1950, the Korean War broke out. Three days later they put together the Fiftieth AAA Battalion [Anti Aircraft Artillery Battalion] in which I had the First Platoon, C Battery, Fiftieth AAA Battalion. In three days' time we processed out of Fort Bliss, Texas, and were on a troop train going to Seattle. Before we left, I come to find out my platoon had seven NCOs. I had an assistant lieutenant, and we had thirty-three men who had just come out of the post stockade [chuckle]. All my men were felons [chuckle], so it was quite a platoon. In Korea we were first attached to X Corps, then to the First Marine Division.
We were assigned to a ninety-day wonder, a West Point lieutenant colonel who had never commanded even a platoon. He'd never left headquarters. Before he was to be promoted to full colonel he had to command the Fiftieth AAA Battalion for ninety days or more. Then he was to be Chief of Staff, Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division, in Korea—a full colonel's position. His West Point contacts must have set it up.
The troop train we rode to Seattle had been in mothballs since World War II. It had about an inch of dust, powder-fine, and the windows were sealed. Going out across New Mexico and Arizona in that, we went up through Death Valley. It was about 130 degrees in that train, and talk about hot and sweat. There wasn't any way to get away from that heat. We finally broke out in northern California and crossed over into Oregon, and before we got to Portland, I heard the train stoppin'. I asked the conductor what they were doin' and he says it was a minor forestry town where they put water in the train, refilled it. [The train was a steam locomotive.]
So, I got off the train and there was three buildings in the little town. I went into one, and it had a bar and all I wanted was an ice-cold Coca-Cola. I turned around and there was a slot machine, a quarter machine. I had a couple of quarters, so I put a quarter in and money came out. I put another quarter in and money came out. Money came out every time I put in a quarter. I filled up my pockets, and then I tightened my belt as tight as I could get it and I started puttin' quarters around the inside of my shirt. I had my shirt filled up to where it was overflowin' out of the top of my shirt.
'Bout that time I heard the train give the first call, and I put in another quarter and out come more quarters; the next quarter, it stuck inside the machine, and I shook it and I said, "Barkeep, this machine won't play." He said, "You've played enough already. Get out of here!" [chuckles] And I tried to run, and I heard the train go second alert, blew the whistle that it was goin'. I couldn't run. I left a trail of quarters all the way across the sandy area toward the train, and I started goin' straight toward the back of the car.
I figured I better take an angle on the train or I'd never make it. The porter, he was wavin'. "Come on! Get in here!" And I started runnin' parallel to the train as best I could, and I got within about three feet; I reached up [but] I couldn't pull myself up, I was so heavy. The porter just literally lifted me right up off the ground, and quarters went everywhere and I pitched my hat up on the platform, which was full of quarters. I laid there and I was out of breath, and the porter says, "Man, you almost missed this train!" and I says, "I know!" I says, "All those quarters in that hat are yours!" [chuckles] So I went inside and I counted the quarters, and I had about ninety-nine dollars in quarters that had survived the trip across the heh, sandy area.
Chapter Three
BY TRAIN AND SHIP—SEATTLE TO JAPAN
We went from there into Seattle, and we went by bus onto a little...
