I would like to mention Munsan-ni, where we dropped. Years later, they put a community center in the middle of the DZ. In the community center they had a large PX and a chaplain center. They also had a recreation center in that area we dropped on in 1951.
When I was with the 24th Infantry Division, I was about five miles from our DZ. The orientation for all new arrivals in the 24th ID was to go to the DZ and look at the North Koreans across the DMZ. In order to get there, you had to pass Hill 151. To the right of 151 was a bridge, they called it Freedom Bridge. In the 7th ID area, where we were fighting, is Tonguchon. I spent one year in that area. The main gate is where we (2d Ranger Company) set up our mortars.
Recollections of James H. Fields,
2d Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne)
I was assigned to the 80th Airborne Anti-Aircraft Battalion, Division Artillery, 82d Airborne Division from November 1948 until October 1950. The 80th had moved from its old area to barracks in line with the 505th Third Battalion. It was sometime after the evening meal when someone came into the barracks saying there were some officers in the 505 area interviewing volunteers for a new outfit. When I arrived at the drill field, there was a white officer standing on a P.T. stand.
When we were assembled he started to speak. He said something like this: “We are forming the toughest, meanest outfit in the United States Army. I don’t know if you will go in by submarine, parachute or what, but you will be fighting. The unit will be called Rangers. We want volunteers. The line forms to the right.”
Well, I had to be in this outfit. I knew what Rangers had been in World War II. I had done research on Darby’s Rangers some time before. The post library had information and pictures of the men in the Rangers battalion. I knew about British commandos. I had this idea that we would be engaged in this kind of warfare: missions carefully planned, split-second timing, hit-and-run. I entered the building for the interview. I gave the interviewing officer such a persuasive spiel that I could not be turned down. I was in.
If I remember correctly, we cleared the post in three days and were on our way to Fort Benning, Georgia. We arrived by troop train and were transported out to the Harmony Church area to some drab barracks made like none I had ever seen before.
I was assigned to the first platoon: Lawrence Estell, squad leader; James Freeman, Platoon Sergeant; Bernard Pryor, First Lieutenant. Most of the men I did not know, with the majority coming from the third battalion 505th A.I.R. We were originally designated 4th Company—the last of the four companies. About two weeks into training we were changed to 2d Ranger Company. I never knew what that was all about.
I am convinced that 2d Ranger Company pushed itself to the limits training day and night to reach top combat efficiency. I arrived at Fort Benning and never left the post until we got on the train for Camp Stoneman, California. Lieutenant Allen and First Sergeant West said there would be no passes and I took them at their word. There were no public telephone lines out to Harmony Church. There was a public phone up on main post at the colored NCO Club. I got up to the main post by bus and the fellow in charge of the club gave me such a hard time I did not think I was going to be able to make my call. However, I did. I was just a Private First Class. I had heard stories of some of the fellows’ unauthorized excursions into town. I did not think it was worth it, given the racist, domineering attitude of the Columbus police.
We trained extremely hard, learning not only about our weapons but foreign weapons and maps. Sergeant Freeman and Lieutenant Pryor were two of the best I had ever seen in the field at night. They would take a map, get under a blanket, orient it, shoot an azimuth and bring us right to our objective. Had we had the time, all of us could have sharpened our skills to that point.
I always had this desire for ice water. We almost never had ice water. We would come in from training and there would be this young fellow selling ice cream. I don’t know where he came from out there in Harmony Church, but there he would be. I told him that I did not want any ice cream, but when he sold out, which he did, I would buy his dry ice. I took the ice and put it in my canteen cup and set my canteen on top of the ice and in minutes I would have cold water. Everything for the “Dogface” was so damned inconvenient. The taste of ice water was a luxury.
There were no rounds available for us to train on the 57mm recoilless rifle. We had to use a system called sub-caliber. A carbine barrel was placed in a dummy, a recoilless round was placed in the recoilless rifle and fired at miniature targets. It worked. I remember we were speed marching out to the sub-caliber training area one day. I had on combat boots, the ones with the two buckles. Someone stepped on one of my heels and it came off. I tried to get out of column and find it. That was impossible. I marched on with one heel missing and trained all day. There were civilian truck drivers on the post, and to my surprise trucks pulled in to take us back to the company area. This did not happen often in our training. We formed up in ranks. But some men broke for the trucks before Lieutenant Allen gave the order to mount up, and he sent the trucks away. We had to walk back, me with one heel missing.
There was also water training. I saw the training film the night before, and it looked pretty straightforward. You cross two rifles and secure them, and take two shelter halves and make a raft. Place your equipment on the raft and push it in front of you as you swim. The next day I was on K.P. (Kitchen Police). I don’t know what happened at Victory Pond. I got several conflicting accounts. The noon meal was prepared and waiting. I saw the company come into the area, but no one came to chow. I could see the company commander. He always looked angry, but this time more so than usual. The company encountered some difficulties in training—some that could have been tragic. Tragedy was averted, and they did eat the evening meal.
There was a problem getting aircraft in so that we could make training jumps. My last jump was at night. I had made one other night jump at Bragg. This was a simulated combat jump. We were jumping into enemy territory, blowing a bridge and escaping and evading an enemy force comprised of elements from the 325th Infantry. That was the night I lost my rifle grenade launcher and had a statement of charges against my pay. It’s funny how some things stick in your mind. We had completed our mission and were on our way out. There was a jeep coming up the road and we got into the woods just a few yards and they could not see us, but someone fired a blank and they were on us for most of the night. We had to stay off the road and go cross-country.
There was never a dull moment during training. I had never seen a flamethrower in operation before and I was impressed. The demonstrator set an old P. T. stand on fire. I never wanted to be on the business end of one of those.
We were being trained to live off the land, and in some cases prepare our own meals. When food came to mind, the worst Thanksgiving I have ever had was Thanksgiving 1950. We had moved from our old area to barracks across the road and some of our guys were cooking. Talk about on-the-job training.
Under the command of Lieutenant Allen and his staff of career officers and top-notch NCO’s, we were molded into a cohesive fighting force in a very short time. There were news reports that the war would be over by Thanksgiving, but our training never let up. We were given one Ranger Tab. The morning we were to leave Benning, brand-new city buses were lined up on the parade field to take us to the train in Columbus. We got off the buses and were faced with the colored signs indicating where colored people were to be seated. We took the signs with us.
It took five days to get to Pittsburg, California. We were in Camp Stoneman for a couple of days. My shot records were somehow lost and I had to take them again. The ferry carried us to San Francisco. I remember being in what looked like a warehouse by the water. Red Cross workers gave us coffee and donuts. I had seen in World War II newsreels how soldiers walked up a gangplank to board the ship, but didn’t get to do that. The ship had giant metal doors that slid back, so we just walked off the dock into the Butner.
It looked as though we were stacked one on top of the
other to sleep. If you were the least bit claustrophobic, you were in trouble. Before I could find a place to settle, Lieutenant Pryor told me I was on guard duty and to report to the brig. The brig was in the very bow of the ship. A Marine Corps Sergeant, who was in transit just as we were, was placed in charge. Lieutenant Pryor did me a great favor by putting me on guard. I had plenty of room where I was, could shower whenever I wanted, had a badge that allowed me to go to the head of the chow line, and pulled guard all over the ship.
We stopped in Pearl Harbor and got shore leave, which surprised all of us. I saw downtown Honolulu and ate a good Chinese meal. I had to be back on the ship for guard duty that night. It was hotter than blue blazes on shore and we were dressed in our winter uniforms. I got a taxi ride back to the docks. The next morning before we pulled out, 2d Ranger Company fell out on deck for physical training. From my vantage point above the fantail I could see the men of 2d Ranger Company with their Mohawk haircuts doing calisthenics with the precision of a well-practiced dance team. We had a long two-week trip across the Pacific to Japan, and disembarked at Yokohama on December 24th. Went to Camp Zama by train.
While at Zama we drew pistols, knives, and cold-weather gear. We went to the post theater for orientation: cold weather survival, the enemy, and the terrain. We test-fired and battle-sighted our weapons. Aircraft became available after a few days and we were airlifted from Tachikawa Air Force Base to Taegu. There, our gear was thrown from the aircraft to the tarmac. It was not quite dark, so we were able to find our individual equipment. I was on the last truck in the convoy, and not very far into our journey north the truck I was riding on broke down. The truck ahead of us faded into the distance. It was extremely cold and it was some time before they realized we were not behind them and came back for us. I remembered thinking, “Is this the way it is going to be?” Others had it as bad or worse. I remember running across some troops who had been called up from the reserves and who were on the ship with us. They moved north by rail on a train whose windows had been shot out, and it was unheated.
The hills were barren, the roads so narrow around the hills, with such sharp drop-offs that convoys could only move in one direction at a time. I remember arriving at what I was told had been a school. It was then being used as an aid station, and medics were there unprotected. We were to set up a protective perimeter around the aid station and make part of it our command post. There was room for one platoon to sleep inside. First Platoon got the privilege. Our minds were not set at ease when we saw the bullet holes in the ceiling above us and in the floors on which we would be sleeping.
Second Company patrolled the hills around the aid station by day, set up defense positions and controlled the approach road at night. I recall returning from patrol and coming up to the command post from the rice paddies to the front. Our machine guns were pointed out toward us.
There were train tracks immediately above the aid station command post. The bullet holes in the ceiling and floors had been fired into the building from a train. We could hear a train coming when it was some distance from the aid station, and you could hear the distinct sound of burp gun firing. There were men lined up for chow on the far side of the station. I could see men moving about, seeking cover from what they knew was coming. Lieutenant Queen was patrol leader, and he gave the command to lay in on the train. It did not have many cars. I got off eight into the first boxcar, firing up and over the heads of our men. Shortly after that the train was in a tunnel, our machine guns were turned around and you could see tracers hitting in the tunnel.
One day coming off patrol into the command post my platoon leader told us we were moving after chow. We moved out toward an area we had never been before: up into the hills. As we set up a defense line for the night, jets flew over our positions firing at what seemed to be men running in a valley to our front.
I tried to dig a foxhole, but the ground was frozen so hard that I could only make a small depression. My canteen was frozen solid. Some G.I.s on a hill across from us were firing a machine gun almost all night. The next morning we moved out and joined a line of troops that stretched as far as I could see. I always thought that our mission would be when and if we got there. We came up to some huts. The people there were guerrillas and were shot on the spot. When they fell to the ground they were sprayed with automatic weapons. I could hear sporadic gunfire as we moved forward. The regiment was strung out up through a gorge and I could not see anyone, but I knew they were taking a lot of fire.
The enemy was on high ground and the fire was raining down on us. I was assistant BAR man to Billie Tate. He and I were together and caught in the open with no cover. I was carrying the BAR and could not get it to fire more than one or two rounds at a time. I told Tate to give me my M-1 and for him to take his BAR. Tate got the BAR to work. My M-1 worked fine for a while, popping them off as fast as I could load it. But after a while it would not extract, eject, and feed; I had to work it like a bolt-action rifle. Took my glove off my right hand to get the round out fast. Tate was hit and moved back. Higginbotham came up by my side and started to lay down a base of fire. Bullets kicked up the snow to our front and flanks. Everybody was shooting. I looked back and saw Lieutenant Pryor was standing, with blood streaming down from under his helmet and two men trying to restrain him. They led him away.
Lieutenant Allen seemed to have been hit in the hip. They had placed a soldier from the other unit just behind Higg and myself on a litter. He was covered with a blanket, but was shivering from the cold and had a strange pale complexion. Someone around the bend that I could not see yelled, “Here they come!” and that fellow got up off that litter and took off. There was all of this firing and fury of battle, then all of a sudden there was this silence. I looked around, it was just Higg and me. We looked at each other and not a word was spoken, but we both took off at the same time the way we had come. Moving down this steep, eroded ditch for cover, I became entangled in commo wire that regiment was laying as we moved forward. When I reached a point in the ditch it was as if a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I knew I was no longer in danger. I picked up an abandoned BAR, which I gave to Sergeant Dude Walker. We got back so far there was a bird colonel looking at a map. He looked up and just said, “Keep moving.”
There were some Koreans with a huge stack of C-rations and they were handing them out. We had not eaten that morning and I was feeling the results. We did not get back to the aid station until that night, and we spent the night in tents.
The day after the Tanyang Pass action we moved down the road into a village. We burned everything we could get our hands on to keep warm. If I remember correctly, the floors were somehow heated from fires in the cooking area of the hut. My feet and right hand began to ache. The fingers on my right hand had started to turn purple. I knew that I was in trouble, but I did not know how much. Two officers came down from Division and interviewed Higginbotham and myself. We had been recommended for the Bronze Star. I was surprised at how many questions they asked, and the detail. Higg and I were interviewed separately. When the interview was over I went to the aid station, never thinking that I would not return. I left my rifle and other equipment in the hut. When I got to the aid station the medic took one look at my right hand and tagged me for evacuation.
After being tagged I waited for an ambulance. Soon we had a load and moved out just before dark to a field hospital, where we went to bed and stayed overnight. The following day we were transported to the railhead. To my surprise, there was my old Platoon Sergeant from the 80th. Sergeant Graham was a non-jumper. He had left Fort Bragg with an ambulance unit that was shipped to Korea in August. His unit was up north when the Chinese came into the war. He was telling me of the men he had seen out of 2d Ranger Company who had come through the hospital unit. One fellow he had seen was Donald West. West and I had been in Graham’s platoon. He and I had served on various demonstration teams in the 80th. I never saw Sergeant West again.
The train took us to Pusan. In Pusan
harbor there were two hospital ships, the Consolation and the Repose. I was placed on one, I don’t remember which. I took a shower and I could not feel my feet. The last two fingers on my right hand were purple and hard to the touch. The next day I was lifted from the deck of one ship, set down on a platform, and lifted to the deck of the other. When the transfer of patients was finished we sailed for Yokohama. I think the hospital was 155th Army.
George Rankins was in the hospital and I saw Daniel Boatwright there. Rankins came down to the ward and told me he was going on convalescent leave, which he did, and then went back to Korea. The hospital was filling up with wounded. I could hear the ambulance come in at night and unload. They moved me to another ward and said a number of patients would be going to the Zone of Interior. A doctor came in, pointing to men, saying “ZI.” He pointed to me and I was on my way to the U.S.A.
I was transported out to Kaneda Air Force Base with a bunch of other wounded G.I.s and placed on an aircraft rigged to handle litters. I was strapped up in my litter and looked down on the floor of the plane and saw a soldier in a body cast who looked familiar. He and I had been in the same basic training company in Fort Dix. I asked him what had happened. He said he was riding a motor scooter in Pusan and was hit by a truck. We took off from Kaneda in a driving snowstorm. We arrived at Midway Island, where it was warm and raining. Took off from Midway, and arrived at Hickam Air Force Base. Stayed at Tripler Army Hospital overnight. The next day we were placed on a civilian airliner with stewardesses and army nurses. We flew to Travis Air Force Base, to Scott Field, Illinois, stayed overnight, then flew to Kellogg Air Force Base, Battle Creek, Michigan. The home of Percy Jones Army Hospital—the Frostbite Center.
Edward L. Posey Page 21
