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K-14 APO 970
"The Land Of
The Morning Calm"
The music is Arirang
It was anything but calm on Sunday morning 25 June 1950
2 October 1950
The 51st moved to Kimpo Air Field, Korea (K14). After the Marines landed at Inchon they turned north to secure Kimpo. We flew in on C-54’s and I got my first up close view of a place that had been bombed, burned and shot up. The Marines were our welcoming committee. They took their tanks and left a few days later after a final mop up.
The first few nights we set up our tents off of the main base. It wasn't to bad except when it rained. All of that red dust churned up by the tanks turned into grease. For a couple of nights there was a small group of British Army troops that camped next to us. Very nice guys. One night I invited one of the guys to my tent. He brought along some tea. It really tasted good. I hadn't had any tea since I left Japan and that was green tea. We talked about our lives at home and in the service. We started to compare uniforms and he really liked my tie. He said that it was by far of much higher quality material than his. I told him to take it since we weren't wearing ties at that time. He insisted on trading something for it. He went to his tent and returned with a navy blue beret. He called it his "walking out beret". I wish I had his name. It remains one of my most cherished possessions to this day and rests in my top dresser drawer.
Kimpo was now all ours, what there was of it. We set to repairing the base and
getting ready for the balance of the Wing to arrive. The 16th Fighter
Squadron arrived on 24 October and the rest of the Wing set up operations the
following day. We had a lot of supply problems. The problem was there were no
supplies. We couldn’t get anything from Japan (lumber, electrical
wire
and fixtures, glass and anything else). So we had to scrounge around Korea and
buy whatever we could find on the local market. Light bulbs, sometimes you
would go through 5-6 before you found one that would last more than 6 seconds.
There was an old shop building down by the ramp and we put the Air Installations
Job Office in there. I would travel to Seoul, Inchon and Yong dong-po to hire
contractors and laborers to work at the base. We would send 6x6 trucks in to
pick them up in the morning and take them back at night.
About two days after we got to Kimpo the CO and I had to go to Seoul to talk to some contractors. Crossing the Han River was a bit perilous. The Army Engineers had installed a nice pontoon bridge due to the fact the original bridge had been blown up. The problem was the treads on the bridge were spaced for larger vehicles than a jeep. I had to drive with one wheel on the tread and one up on a divider between the treads. The scenery wasn't the best. There were a lot of North Korean soldiers bodies caught on the steel cables that anchored the bridge to the river bottom.
My biggest surprise came as I was driving down the main street in Seoul. All of a sudden a shot hit the windshield frame of my Jeep just to the left of my face. I grabbed my carbine and bailed out the left side and the Major went out the right. Some ROK soldiers came running out of a building, across the street, and into another building. Later they came back dragging a North Korean soldier. He was the sniper trying to blow my brains out. After a little interrogation they disposed of him. Seoul wasn't as safe as we had thought it was. Now reality has sunk in.
No matter how many times you made the trips to the various towns the one thing that you never got used to were all of the little children, some as young as three, looking through garbage for something to eat. Ragged, dirty and starving, may none of us ever forget that image. When ever I could I would stop by the mess hall before leaving the base and take what ever they would give me and give it to the kids. There never was enough.
Kimpo was very hot with high humidity when we got there, but it started to get cold in November. The famous winds from Manchuria came blowing in. We arrived from Okinawa with just our summer issue clothing. No gloves, jacket liners, winter caps, long underwear or cold weather footwear. We had to make a “midnight requisition” from the only source that seemed to have winter equipment. Sorry Army. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't comfortable, but the Army and Marines had it much worse than we. At least we had our tents to sleep in at night and almost never missed a meal.
In November the Chinese got involved in the war and we started to have more problems with infiltrators into the area that we had begun to think of as pretty safe. The guys that had been leaving their weapons in their tents started to carry them again. In early December I was chosen to be one of the first in the squadron to take R&R (rest and recuperation) back in Japan. When I tried to get a flight back to Kimpo I was informed that there would be no more flights to Kimpo. When I inquired as to why I was told that the Chinese were fast approaching the base. I insisted that I had to return and finally they said that I could have a place on a C-46 freighter. When I got to the squadron area I found my gear had been packed and the tent had been struck. Again we were going to move, back to Itazuke.
I had only been in the Squadron Area a short time when the CO’s houseboy came to get me. Major Robinson informed me that I was to leave immediately on a C-54 for Itazuke. I was to be the courier for some items that he didn’t want to destroy. The bulk of the Squadron came out in about three days. Some of the guys had to stay and blow up everything that we had worked to build for three months. They spent Christmas at Kimpo. The lucky ones got to fly out, but part of them had to convoy down to Pusan and return to Itazuke by water.
After New Years Day we received word that we were going to move to a base of our own about 60 miles away. I was to drive the lead jeep in the convoy.