i told you there are 2 million people. so big community. and also there are many, many korean americans here and also americans who are aware of the importance of the korean war. so these, i think, this is a big community that korean people can have in the united states and they are very, very supportive and proud of what korea has produced. so this is a big community. bill: we have a couple of minutes left. let's go back to the photographs on the website, part of the database, and what you said is the start of the whole idea of seeing the photographs of veterans. how do you judge what to put on the website? you said you don't want the dramatic theme ones, the military actions, but the everyday shots. professor han: there is no shortage of photographs, for example. important thing is the merit date, when and where and who. if korean war veterans comes with that kind of picture so we can put the meta data, because it's a database that's searchable, so we need the meta data and if photographs come with this information, we first choose those. bill: what about other things on the website, in terms of you've got photographs, oral history interviews, what else is on there? professor han: there are many writings about the korean war, and also we are trying to connect with the young generations, because there is a tremendous lesson out of the korean war, so we are trying to connect with the young generation using online social media. so we're using facebook, twitter, instagram, constantly introducing pictures and artifacts to younger generations. one more important thing, in american history textbook, there are only one paragraphs covering about the korean war. in this workshop that i invited the descendents of the korean war veterans i'm trying to educate them so that our textbook can cover more about an importance of the korean war. bill: jongwoo han is the founder and president of the korean war veterans digital memorial. thanks for joining us here on "american history tv." professor han: i sincerely appreciate the opportunity. >> tell me about your family when you were growing up. your parents, your siblings. >> my mother and father separated when i was four years old. i did not get to know my mother. i was raised by my father. he provided for my sister and myself. i graduated high school in 1946. in south carolina. shortly after i graduated, after a short attempt at public work i drove a truck for a couple months. then i wanted some excitement and adventure in my life. i wanted to leave the area so i enlisted in the u.s. army. >> do you remember the date you enlisted? >> february 13, 1947. >> what was the name of the high school you graduated from? >> dentsville high school. >> dentsville high school. where did you go to receive basic military training? >> i started at fort jackson south carolina for two weeks. they moved us to fort mcclellan, alabama. there was some political jockeying going on about closing the fort, fort mcclellan. the senator from that state had enough political pull to move one company of trainees down there just enough to keep the fort open. >> what kind of basic training did you receive? >> basic combat training. >> we just call it basic training. a rudimentary training for conversion from civilian to military army. how long was it? >> 8 weeks. >> were you paid? >> i did not receive any pay while i was in basic training due to a loss of my records. the transfer from south carolina to alabama, they missed placed several of our records. it was a political thing. they did it rapidly. somehow our records became separated. we completed basic training in may and we were given a 21 day leave, they call it delay en route. my first assignment out of basic training was in germany. post-world war ii germany. >> so, did you go to germany? >> yes. >> where were you in germany? >> i was stationed at an army camp in friedberg. there i remain for the next three years. >> you were there until 1951? >> 1950. i left the states in june 1947 and came back in june 1950. i came back with the rank of sergeant. >> how did you like germany? >> i liked it. i liked the people. when we got there in 1947 it was two years after the end of the hostilities there. the larger towns like frankfurt were pretty well torn up. there was a lot of rubble and streets. buildings were bombed out. the town itself, the infrastructure -- the streets, sidewalks and everything were in terrible condition. the railways were spared for some reason. rail transportation was fully functional. three years i was there, there were huge improvements. lots of rebuilding, cleaning up, i got on very well with the german people. i got to meet several of them. learn some words in their language. >> do you speak german? >> no, i do not speak german. if you are familiar with the term g.i. german you understand. >> what does that mean? >> we just learned words and what it meant. >> how much were you paid in germany? >> i started off with $78 a month. i was a private. when i left in 1950, i was a sergeant. i was making around $140 a month. >> do you remember the date he returned to the united states from germany? >> i do not remember the exact date but it was in mid june. >> before the korean war broke out? >> yes. i was on leave when the korean war began. i did not know what curry amount. a lady asked me, i was given a 20 day leave. my new assignment was to fort devens, massachusetts with the seventh infantry division. one sunday afternoon in late june, a lady that i had known since i was a child, she asked me if i was going to korea. i thought she was asking me if i was going to make the army a career. i confused the two words. i did not know where korea was geographically. i was not that good and geography anyway when i was going to school. i never really studied it. the word korea and career sounded a lot alike. i answered by saying i hope to. she said oh, you want to. i said yes. she was thinking i was telling her i wanted to go to korea. about two days later i saw the headlines in the paper about the beginning of the war and the attack on the south part of the country. i do not know what korea was. then we found out it was separated into two parts. north and south korea, at the end of world war ii. i began to study to find out where this place is. being in the army, i had three years of infantry trading, i figured i might wind up there. i went onto my assignment in fort devens and i was there a short time. and being the new guy, this always happens in the army. i stayed in the army for years but being in the army, the new guy coming into the unit, the unproven guy generally gets the details that other people do not want. and if they call for people, send me so many privates or sergeants, they are going to be the one to go. i understood that. being a new person, when they called to build a new battalion, the general called for more troops because the north korean army was advancing southward rapidly. he did not have enough forces to stop them. at the time, the army began to build quickly these provisional battalions. and i was fortunate enough to be a member of the first provisional battalion from fort devens, massachusetts, in july. 1950. having just arrived from germany and having infantry training they wanted infantry people. so i was one of the "lucky" ones because i was one of the first ones moved to the provisional battalion. when i first reported to the new unit, i was assigned to the position of squad leader for the third squad of the first platoon of company c first provisional battalion. within 7 to ten days, we were at full strength. i had a full nine-man squad under me. we were preparing for movement. we had an orientation and that was the gist of the talk that we got. the battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel, he was a world war ii veteran. he called the whole unit together as a battalion and told us that we were preparing to move to korea. >> when was that? >> that was at fort devens massachusetts in july 1950. >> the date? mid, early, or end? >> it was mid to late july. i dont remember the exact date. we started out our medical screening, dental, health checks to see what shape we work in. we had people assigned to our unit, some of them had just completed basic training and they had no infantry training. we had people from military police units, ordnance units, we had motor mechanics, cooks, assigned to us as an infantry unit, issued a rifle and told you are going to war. we were not prepared. >> what were you thinking? >> wow. what's going on here? >> you were already a more advanced soldier than others you were a sergeant and you knew that in war you might be killed. >> absolutely. >> you were not scared? >> i was concerned. i would not say scared. i had, i always kept in the back of my mind i enlisted in the army for adventure. i want to do something. i want to go somewhere, i went to see folks. if i'd say i wasn't afraid, i would not be truthful. i was frightened of being killed. my father had already died, he died while while i was in germany. my mother, who i was not raised by, had died while i was in germany. i had one sister that i was still in contact with. and i had a stepmother that my father had married just before his death. and that was the only family i had. so i had no one really to hold myself to in my family. so i was not concerned about others. i was kind of a loner. one of the sad parts of my military career, for a long time, i did not have a home address. my home address was "u.s. army," wherever i was at. that was all i had to worry about, me. having enlisted, i was not bitter when bad things happen. i just accepted them. that's life. this. for some weird reason, i liked it. it said some inner feeling that i had. i did not do anything heroic. but i think i did my job. they assigned me as a squad leader and we had all of these people that were assigned to us untrained. the battalion commander was a lieutenant colonel harold k. johnson. he later became chief of staff of the army. he organized the battalion at fort devens, massachusetts and we traveled to korea with him is our command. in our first months, he was our command. they saw his talent and a move 10 to a regiment. -- they moved him to a regiment. he took over the 50 caliber regiment. >> weren't you concerned that these people, hurriedly put together without properly military training, weren't you concerned? >> yes, very much. i was more concerned for my men than i was myself. it's difficult to try to train people when you're under the pressure of unarmed combat. their safety was my concern. a squad is the smallest of organized military units in the infantry. i was a small unit leader. i was a sergeant first class at that time. they promoted me on the ship on the way over. i took the rank within the job. i was tremendously concerned about them. i was trying to be a father. i was 21 years old but i was trying to be their father. several of them were like 18 or or 19 years old. >> when did you leave for korea? >> we left in late july. took us 14 days on the ship to go over there. we went across on the usm is john pope. -- usns john pope. they told us we were going to stop in japan for a couple weeks of training to try to build some unit cohesion. we were out about a week on the water and we got word that we were going directly to the part -- the port of pusan. we did not stop in japan. we steamed right onto pusan. arriving there in early august. i cannot give you an exact date. i'm going to save may be second week of august we arrived. we disembarked at the port and we stayed off the ship -- we had to go back on the ship and eat. we did not even have a mess fall. we were there for the better part of the day. they took away all the equipment we had with us except what we needed. we took gas masks with us. they called it making us combat light. late that afternoon, some trucks pulled up. two and a half ton trucks. we noticed they had the first calvary division on the hood of the thing. that is the first indication we had that we were going to be part of the first calvary. we were a provisional battalion, we had no unit designation. that afternoon we found out we were going to be assigned as the third battalion of the 8th calvary regiment. >> third battalion and what? >> third battalion of the eighth calvary regiment. >> eighth calvary regiment. >> part of the first calvary division. since i was in company c of the first provisional italian, we became company l because of the alphabetical way that they align the units, what they call lettered companies. we were transported to a rail station, put on trains. along with korean civilians. there were women, children, men, boys aboard the train. they just piled us in it. here we are, fully armed and ready to go. we had no ammunition, we had weapons. and we went to a town called taegu. we arrived there, maybe an hour or an hour and half train right. -- train ride. we disembarked and trucks picked us up. we went out into an orchard of some kind. apple trees, fruit trees of some kind. this was in august, they did not have any fruit on them. we set up a bivouac. we put up tents. we were ready to stay. the following morning, i am sorry, that afternoon the issued us ammunition. they brought out the rifle ammunition. and told everybody not to load your weapons. it was a safety device. but, soldiers do not always listen. some man loaded his weapon stumbled and fell, a round went off and it went through the tire of one of the trucks. the battalion commander had all the ammunition taken away. the following morning they took us north, i don't know, 34 miles. we were going to watch a marine unit attack a hill. there was nka on the hill. we were going to sit and watch this. we could see them, they came out and they looked like little animals working their way up. we could see them moving back-and-forth. in the meantime they had an hour or more preparing for fire. artillery, airpower, aircraft came in. they sprayed, rocketed, bobbed. we thought no one could live on that hill with all that going on. and we saw these marines get maybe a third are halfway up the hill. then they came out of bunkers and holes and drills the marines right back up the hill. we are sitting there, no ammunition. we could see these people going around us. so someone finally gives the order, get on the trucks and get out of here. so we got on the trucks. we weren't lying down in the trucks. the trucks were flying down the road as fast as they could go. we could hear small arms fire but we did not know where it was coming from. my particular truck, the truck i was on was stopped a lieutenant. he waved us down and the truck stopped. we got off and got in a ditch. we got in a ditch and he says gives us all your ammunition and get out of here. we said we do not have any. he gave us a few choice words, get out. we went back to our units. we stayed all night. the next morning we went across the road and into a field than out. there were some hills. we were at the base of the hills and we began to receive fire. the first time we were fired on. someone was wounded. all i remember is his last name was johnson. he got a wound in his upper leg. we were quickly given ammunition. it never was taken away from us again. we went through night after night of being fired upon. it seemed like around dawn every morning, before daylight, they would come up the hill screaming and yelling and scare the pants off us. we would just shoot back. we did not know what we were shooting at, we would just shoot back. that was our baptism of fire. that is when we first got fired upon. the next two weeks to three weeks, always seemed to do was retreat or fall back. we would go back to the next hill. the next day we would hear them fighting in front of us and they would give the order and we would get up and move. we just kept going back, back, we got into september. then we received word that general macarthur was going to attempt a landing in inchon. >> did you hear about that from people? >> our commanders told us this was in the works. they planned this invasion. that should relieve some of the pressure on us. i remember in order being given, i was just a squad leader. i was not really given the big picture. i did not know what was going on, i just knew what was happening in our unit. i remember we got the order to hold at all costs. this is it, you stay here, you defend or you die. that was one of the most scary moments i had in south korea. then on the 15th of september, the invasion took place. within 24 hours to 48 hours, the north korean army seemed to fade away. >> in how many hours after the inchon landing? >> 24 hours to 36 hours. we stopped receiving any fire. shortly after that, we began to move north by truck. we were going up the roads now. about as fast as we could go. we saw some of the north korean soldiers surrendering by units. 20 people or 30 people at a time standing there and holding her -- their hands up like this. they would leave someone there to take charge of and process them as prisoners of war. we traveled day after day, i don't know how many days it took. i remember going through seoul. we went on until they reached the 38th parallel. we did not receive any resistance. we would travel in the daytime. when we reached the 30th parallel, we stopped. we did not know why but we were told later to wait until the united nations approved the crossing of the 38th parallel. it was given a couple days after we arrived there. we started our move into north korea. the first time we went through. the first time we went through was called kaesong. i might not be pronouncing this. we continued to move northward and the third day we were in north korea, our trucks did not show up and we began to move by foot of the road. late in the afternoon we received some incoming small arms automatic fire. eventually someone determined it was a tank that had been camouflaged and sitting beside the road. it was using machine guns to pin us down. we were pinned down. they brought in some aircraft and quickly took them out. then we got back on our trucks again and we did not stop. we would drive into the night. and stop and eat and resupply and get on our trucks and go again. we went on and in early october we arrived in the north korean capital, pyongyang. we were not the first unit there. we were the second unit. i think the republic of korea army was there. we came and beyond them. we stayed there just about the whole month. the remainder of the month. we had a formation, we stayed on a hospital building. they had rooms in there. one man injured himself. he had taken a russian made pistol off of a north korean officer that had been killed. in an attempt to manipulate it he fired it. it went through his leg. that was the only casualty we had while we were there. we had a formation and the issued us our combat infantryman's badge. we had been in combat every 30 days. we did some house searches looking for ammunition. we did some roadblocks where we stopped people to see if they had any weapons. that is all we did for the next two weeks or so. on the 30th of october, we had been told that the war was all but over. we were going to do an armistice day parade for general macarthur in tokyo on the 11th of november. we were planning on that. on the 30th of october, just after lunch, they had a formation in front and told us to pick up all your gear, we saddling up and get ready to go. some units had run into some resistance. we were going to knock that out for them. we traveled on night by truck -- we traveled all afternoon by truck and stopped that night and slept alongside the road. we went on for sometime in the afternoon. we arrived in an area, we did not know what it was called. we found out it was called unsan . we got out and we set up a defensive perimeter. being in the third battalion we were assigned as the reserve battalion. i was in the first platoon of l company. they sent us up on a ridge to the southwest of our battalion area. we were on a listening post. listening and not allowing anything to slip up on us. we were enjoying ourselves nothing going on. airplanes would fly over once and a while. there was smoke in the air. lots and lots of smoke. like the forest was on fire. we did not give it concerned because we had seen fires the whole time we had been in korea burning up the hillside. around about 10:00 that night, we would collect 2200 hrs. we got a call on our telephone telling us to pack up and come into the cp. that the entire regiment was going to withdraw at 2400 hrs, which was midnight. i was acting platoon sergeant at this time. our platoon sergeant had wounded himself, shot himself through the knee. i was acting as a platoon sergeant until a new one was assigned. when we went down the hill, our platoon leader, we got to a bridge along the road on the nammyon river. this lieutenant keyes, he called for me to come forward and said have all the men sit down on the side of the road. i will find out where they want us and come back and get you. i said fine. the moon was shining. bright that night, november 1, 1950. i had everybody sit down on each side of the road. and a man i knew very well, he was not in my squad but he was in my platoon. his name was luther and he had fought in world war ii. he was a little older than i was. he came up and was talking to me. he started to light a cigarette and just as he started to light a cigarette, everything broke loose. fire and everything. they had infiltrated our area. firing was coming off the same hill we had just come from. i just rolled down the hill and yell that everybody to get under the bridge. that was all i could think to say. from then on, our organization was lost. confusion reigned supreme. no one knew what the other man was doing. i did not know where my squad members were. i did not know where my platoon had gone. i told them to get under the bridge but some of them went the other way. it's nighttime, the moon is shining. when i get on the bridge i hear rounds hitting the bridge and the water. there's firing in the cp, the command post area. we did not what to do. we had no leadership and we became disorganized. people just went in every direction. it was a terrible night. i saw several wounded. we just sat there, they set all of our vehicles on fire. it sounded like fireworks going off in the truck area. >> was this near unsan? >> near what? >> unsan. >> yes. >> that happened in unsan. >> that was our final battle with the third battalion. we were overrun there. this happened on the night of november 1, that is when they first hit us. the following morning, the firing ceased. by the time daylight came, i looked around and i could not see any more. i was lying in a ditch. my two men that had been with me work on. -- were gone. during the excitement, we fired at anything we saw that did not have a steel helmet on. we still had some are in a forms -- uniforms on. the chinese we were fighting, we did not know they were chinese. we thought they were north koreans. they had on these caps. that was my means of identifying who we were fighting. i'm thinking still that they are north korean soldiers. so i would shoot at anyone with caps on. the following morning when i looked around i did not see anybody moving. i raised up to take a look thinking i might be the only survivor. when i raised up a little bit, i heard the crack of a shot. it went over my head. i ducked back down really quickly. i hear somebody yell in english, "are you gi?" i held my helmet up, they shot another time. i yelled out "i'm a gi." i heard this voice say stay low income across the road. i said this many times, this has haunted me -- excuse me. it still bothers me. i saw more dead people -- than i ever have before or have since. on that road. i'd hate to venture a number but there were many. from both sides. >> both sides. >> there had been a light machine gun set up just in front of me on the side of the ditch. and the people either did not know or they were trying to rush them. because i saw bodies lying crossways. with american uniforms and chinese uniforms. i cannot get over that. i have had many, many troublesome nights. when i think about that scene. this happened when i was 21. now i am 85. and it is still painful. i was able to get across the road. and i was told to get into this hole someone had dug, a foxhole. are you familiar with the term katusa? >> yes. >> there was a katusa there. they had only been assigned to our unit three weeks or so. i did not recognize the individual. i had two or three in my squad but i did not know where they had been. the men i got into the hole with had been wounded. there was a carbine, a canteen which was empty, and a pair ofbinoculars. what happened to the person that had them -- the man i am talking about, this katusa, he had a rifle with him. the guy was holding his stomach. i could see the blood. i knew he was wounded. i could not understand him at all. i had no idea what he was trying to tell me. he was saying something to me which sounded like he was saying "mule." which is an animal like a horse. >> yeah. >> i had no idea why he would be saying that to me. he looked so painful. i said, buddy, i would love to help you but i do not know what to do. i later learned after i was captured someone told me that the word "mool," something to that, is water. he was wanting water. had i known it, i could have given to him. i did not know what it meant. he succumbed to his wound. i saw him fall over. i stayed there for half an hour and then i was told to come over. there were going to form a perimeter in the field. we tried to gather all the wounded. i helped digging holes to get people into the holes to try to defend themselves. we did not see any enemies, we did not know who our enemy was until after dark. the sergeant i mentioned before, luther, he was a little bit more experienced than the rest of us. he had been in world war ii and fought in italy. he was the one who told us do not fire. we could see them moving towards a spirit we could see these figures coming towards us. in large numbers. he said do not fire until i fire. we passed the word on. do not fire until you hear firing on your right. he was on the right end of our southwest side. so we waited until he fired. he waited until they got 40-50 yards from us. then everybody started firing. a lot of them asked did you kill anyone? my answer is i do not know. probability is yes. but i do not know that for sure. all i know is i fired at figures. in the moonlight. they came at us in great numbers but we beat them back. this went on for half an hour or more. then everything quieted down. then all we could hear was crying and moaning out in the distance. the following day, we had little to no action, but we had some aircraft come by. light aircraft, they dropped some medical supplies. that night, we had some more frontal assaults. we again fired on them. the third day, we were out of food and out of water. it was getting pretty cold. we all had our summer uniforms on. we were told that the fifth calvary was coming to get us out of there. the way we were communicating was through five tanks we had attached to our battalion. they were there in the perimeter. aircraft flying by, they had radio contact. we had some hope. later on in the afternoon of the third day -- >> november 4? >> this is going to be on the third. we were there the first, second and third. >> november 3? >> late that afternoon, i was close enough to this tank -- they had the hatch open. i could hear the voice on the radio. i heard them say something about they had run into stiff resistance, the fifth calvary was supposed to be coming to our rescue and was unable to break through the roadblock. 30 minutes or 45 minutes later we got word that the decision had been made that the third battalion would be left to its own devices. the order had been given that you are now on your own. i heard the word, "godspeed." which to me meant -- >> death. >> you are abandoned. you are not going to get any help. that is what it meant to me. somehow i did not get frightened. i just thought i am going to do my job as long as i can. we stayed there through that night. the next day, up into the middle of the day, we heard a strange explosion. it was not like the crack of a high explosive. it was a thump sound. then i heard people screaming. then i heard people screaming. something. i have heard of these chemical rounds and what they will do to you. i heard a sound that i did not know what it was. there was a wall of soldiers running to the northeast. i yelled at my two men to go. we had been on our knees so long -- i was unable to run at full speed. we ran. we could hear small arms fire through that smoke. i fired into the smoke, but i did not see a single person get hit. that's how we made our exodus. 150 of us made it out of there. we wandered through the hills. on the morning of the sixth -- but i'm not sure these dates -- we were struck again. these 150 men were from all the companies. the wounded stayed at the battlefield, where we had been. a catholic chaplain was uninjured, but he stayed there. we made an attempt to escape. we wandered through the hills. we were trying to go south. on the morning of the sixth, we were again struck by unknown forces, chinese. myself and one man, pfc. from raleigh, north carolina, people just scattered like flies. we got on a rock ledge and laid there until dark. we wandered for four days. -- for days. we would stop at these abandoned houses, they were few and far between, but sometimes we would find a vegetable, a beat or turn -- a beet or a turnip, sometimes half frozen. i wanted everything i could get to eat. we stop in an abandoned house and stay there all night, very cold. an old korean man came to us, so we decided to trust him. he had gone 10 minutes or more. he came back with a broth or soup or something. he took us over this hill into a field into this little dugout. it was straw lined inside. we stayed that night. why he was doing this, i don't know. if i knew, he was older than i was, but if i knew his family and knew him, i would try to repay him. the man i was with became claustrophobic and he could not stay in the hole anymore. we decided we would climb to the top of the hill and look at the river and use it as a guide so we could go south. as we were on our knees looking over that thing, we were spotted by some chinese soldiers. they blew a whistle and we lay down quickly in the grass, about 20 of them walked in front of us. one man walked to our rear and we're laying on the hillside and he yelled at those others. as best of my knowledge, that was the 10th day of november. they took both of us as prisoner. as best as i can calculate, that would've been 10th of november late in the afternoon and we were taken right back to the house we stayed in two nights before. they had set up a sort of a headquarters, maps on the wall lanterns and things, and we were kept there that night. we were kept out there. the third day of captivity we were marched up a road and we were joined up there by seven more americans. they were all from the same battalion, the third battalion and there was about 20 south korean, rock army soldiers. we were cap segregated. each night from then on for about the next week, we were marched northward every night. we marched until daylight in the morning. mid december, we arrived in a place called the valley. >> valley? >> we just called it the valley. there was a village in this valley. they come and put us in them. we stay there for three weeks or more. we were not allowed to go outside during daylight. at night we would carry water from the creek. in early january, they lined us up on the road and we marched across the river over the ice. about a month after we were there, all of the in ceo's, sergeants, were taken and placed in the company and moved to the other side of the camp. we started our daily lectures. we went through that until august, 1952. all of the sergeants were put on river barges and told by motorboat to a small village or town. that became cap four. we were split into two different companies. we were put in old school buildings. that's where i remained until we were told in august that the armistice had been signed. we were sent back to our company to wait. we waited until august 20, and that was the day they had trucks lined up out there. they announce that everybody who wants to be repatriated get everything you own and come back outside. i think about four stayed there, and all of us went out to the rest of the trucks. we ran into a big rainstorm to we had to sit there for a couple of hours while a thousand more chinese soldiers got out shovels and picks and they took us over one truck at a time. we went down to a railhead. we got on a train. we were near ken yang, they told us it was pyongyang. we arrive near caisson -- caisson, and i remain there until the night of august 31 and that's when my name was called, and we were taken down to a temple and we stay there that night. the next morning we put on these real shiny, clean, new-looking trucks and taken southward to what they call freedom village. we were welcomed back. i was told at that time that i had been promoted one grade. we went down there by ambulance. that's where we went through a debriefing, where they showed names and those people that were missing and ask if you knew them, and if you did, what circumstance. i did not know their names. i was never bitter. i'm still not today. i am sad. i enlisted. i asked for it. i did the best i could. i would love to have had the opportunity to go back and see that area again just for my own satisfaction. about six months ago, i received a book that was published by the government of south korea, korea reborn. which, i appreciated it. i showed it to my son. i have had the opportunity several times now to talk about this, this experience i had. for 54 years, i would not mention it. when somebody asked me if i was a prisoner in korea, which is answer, yes, but that was it. in 2007, a lady asked me about her uncle who was in my company and i began to dredge up all these old memories and try to remember everything i could. my children asked if i would put that in writing as best as i could. i did. i just entitled it, memoir of the korean war. by my name, charles ross. then i began to break down and talk about it. i've had several people ask me. the lions club in a neighboring town. the school. it was on armistice day. they were young children. i just tried to explain that there were now two koreas, one country, but two koreas, what the difference was, and we went to the aid of the south korean government. that was the way i approached it with them. i did mention the fact that i participated in that war. i had eventually been captured by the chinese. i realized there was a lot of mistreatment. i say i was maltreated, but i was never mistreated. i was never eaten. have i not gotten captured, i would have perished in those mountains for ahead no water food. the water we got was out of rivers, creeks, streams. we were running out of houses to swipe these vegetables. many houses were bare. there was nothing there. we did not see anyone. we were evading the enemy. i have to credit the chinese army with my survival. there was a painful thing. it lasted for 34 months. >> that is a very ironic characterization. >> had it not been for them, i would not be sitting here talking to you today because my skeleton would've been out there in the hills somewhere. >> what was the most difficult thing in the camp? what was the most bothering? >> in the prison camp? >> yeah. >> the first six months, 1951 camp five, we just arrived there. we had deaths by the hundreds. people were dying daily. the worst part was we did not know their names, most of them. we had to take those folks out and bury them. that had to be the most painful time. the most difficult thing was the lack of food. we were so hungry all the time. >> what made you get through it. what made you survive all of it? >> the will to live. i just wanted to -- i tried to talk to these people. they would say that they didn't want to live like this could were never going to get out of here. eat everything you can. >> there was some people who refuse to eat? >> yes. >> why? >> they would say that i don't want to live like this pit i can't live like this. we called it giving up. they just quit trying. >> what is korea to you now, after all of those years horrible memories, what is korea to you now? >> south korea is a beautiful place. from the pictures i have seen. very progressive, as far as the democratic movements of the government. they are productive, just look at the automobiles are putting out. i went to korea in 1950. i thought i had never seen such an impoverished place. horrible how people had to live. i spent a second to her there in 1964-1965. there had been many improvements. i took one week in passing went to so, korea could i thought this was a modern city. it did not look like it did when i came to hear in 1950. over the years, there was a modern airport. we came out of the airport. i thought it was very modern. i thought, what improvements have been made. i just see the people on the streets as we go through dressed mostly western instead of the old, traditional that i had seen in the 1950's. over the years, i've always tried to keep up with the news on the koreas. we always read about the north. kim jong-un. he is always making the papers. there is a female president now, which i think is progress. which i think is progress. i have a very favorable opinion of the south part of korea. they have progressed since world war ii. faster than japan did after world war ii. after the korean war, i mean. >> would you be willing to revisit korea? >> i don't think i'm physically able. i'm having some difficulty now especially with my feet. the chinese walked us through a river, but they did not want us to take our boots off. i did, some didn't. my feet were numb for two days. i can't walk too far. i don't know if i would be able to. i would love to make the trip. i met a man last night that had been back him and he said they treated him great. my second tour, we were new the dmz. we were not on the dmz. >> again? you are on the dmz? >> it was near where we were at. i was with the seventh calvary on the last trip. the nearest village was right outside the gate. somewhere near there. it is in that area. that was our last two, and i -- our last tour, and i spent 13 months on that tour in that area. in 1965, we went to campo airfield, and that's where we flew out of. that was 1965, 41 years ago, a long time. i have a very favorable opinion of south korea. that's been my story for for my time in korea, the, been in korea. we did have some difficulty when i first arrived. we were untrained. our commander, lieutenant colonel johnson, described us as an untrained unit, a thrown together unit. we had people's -- people from all types of mos is. when we arrived and got fired on, they were brave. i did not see a single man run from it. a lot of them lost their lives and several of the remainders have been found in that area. every time i see returns from korea, my ears perk up. one man was from bowling green kentucky. his last name was mcmanus. was it mcmanus? i can be sure of the last name but i call the television station when they announced it. they said he was found in the area. i called and asked them if i could get the contact information from them for his brother. they listed his name as the next of kin. he was taking care of the business because his parents at already died. i was sent an e-mail back by the station manager that they don't give out contact information. i had no way of contacting person. the next thing i saw was where they had actually bury the remains. all i wanted to do was go say that i was there and tell them what happened there. i was not given that opportunity by the television station. >> why did it happen to you? you have any idea? >> i have no idea. i was an individual alone in the world. i was not married. my mother and father were dead. i had a sister and had no idea what she was. i was not in contact with them although we had maintained letters through the mail, but i have not heard from her in a long time. i did not know until i wrote her and told her that i was in combat in korea. i wrote her a letter and got an answer from her peerage was living in alaska the time to -- at the time and she had married a soldier and was living in alaska. i was a single individual who had enlisted in the service seeking adventure, and accepted my fate. i still do today. there was some sadness, a great deal of sadness. i described the scene to you. i have been unable to shake that from my memory. for 54 years, i did. i completely -- thought i had completely wiped it out of my memory, refused to talk to it. in 2007, when my half-brother who lived in florida contacted me and told me he had seen my name on the internet and we began to talk about it. he told me it was on a website called the korean war project. i went to it and found it. it was a casualty list showing that i had been captured. it have my name, rank: zero number on it. that was me. while i was there, i found the page where they were asking, do you know these people, anyone on this list, and i saw "ed potter." i responded that i knew him. he was in the war with me. it was the ed potter. this guy's name was edwin potter. that was the man they were looking for. i corresponded with his nephew for over a year and told him the story that i told you today. his uncle was the man we're talking about, edwin potter, and he had started to write a book about his experience and he asked me to help him confirm some of the information that were taken from his handwritten notes. he sent the notes to me. as i begin to read the notes there were things things that i had not witnessed. i e-mailed him back and told him that i had read the notes, and there were things in here that i cannot confirm because i did not witness them. one of the examples was he had been placed in a hole in the ground and had his hands tied behind him. i did not see that. he was not with me when this happened. i was in camp five with him and then we moved to camp four together. but i did not see that. i told him that i cannot confirm is because i did not see if i can only say what i saw. he quit writing me. he just dropped me. he did put me into contact with a lady whose uncle was in our unit. she's the one that got me talking about my experience. she asked me to give her my perspective on what happened there during the battle. her uncle was killed. his remains were found there. i was able to find his squad leader, who lives in thailand right now. he was in a company with me. he was wounded in september and sent back, but he was this guy so i put them together. she wrote and asked me to tell the story. if you don't tell it, it won't get told. >> right. >> so i agreed. i told her that it was painful and i've had a lot of sleepless nights trying to dredge up these memories, but i'm going to try. i'm going to try to tell what happened. >> did you publish your book? >> no, it was just a written memoir for the family. it's about 16 pages long. i started off telling that i had just returned the united states after a three-year tour of duty. i explained how i moved to massachusetts and got my order to go to korea, korea, and what happened after we arrived there. one incident that i put in there was when we got off the ship. we were allowed to wander around the docks to exercise. we were allowed sound, yelling and screaming, coming from a building over the far ridge. we wandered over there to see what the sound was all about. there was two guys getting beaten to death. they were beating the fire out of them. we quickly left there. there was none of our business what they were doing. we were told by some people by the warehouse that they were north koreans that they had captured and they were working them over down there. that was their words. we don't know who they were. four men eating up two men in this building. we got back on ship, got out got in the truck. we were taken to a railroad station. i told them that it was written primarily using military terminology. i was given several suggestions on how to make it more understandable to civilians. they did not know what the words meant. i explained after the first use of every word what it was. several have told me that that she started off -- it brought tears to your eyes. i had some of her friends who read it. they would say that this is terrible. a grandson that read it said i can't believe my grandfather went through this. i said i defy anyone to prove me wrong on any of the facts. i clarify that these dates are as close as i remember, but the facts of what happened to us and what we were moved to and from i defy anyone to tell me that this is not true because i was there. i did not exaggerate. i did not enhance the story in any way. i heard a lot of stories about the korean war, but everybody tells it differently. i tried to make that clear in there. this one is my story. this is what i experienced. i don't dispute. if they say that their hands were tied, maybe they were. mine were not. i was never beaten. i called it maltreatment because they had food available and would not give it to us. many men starved to death, wounds untreated, no medical treatment. that is maltreatment to me. >> right. >> sanitation supplies, we had no paper for sanitary purposes. relieve yourself, go out there on the hillside somewhere and cleanup the best you can, rub your hands in the dirt if you have to. that is it. that is cruel. mid-1951, when they started lecturing, life improved. we were given tobacco. we were not given cigarette paper, but we were given newspapers, the shanghai news. i remember one man saying if it -- if they ever x-ray my lungs they would be able to read the shanghai news. >> when they began to indoctrinate you, they treated you better? >> much. they allow this to go down to the river, which was just a short walk down there to the bay and washer clothing. we had on the same clothing in 1951 when i was captured in 1950. when i took my socks off, they came apart. one of the worst things that happened in captivity was body lice. we were absolutely infested with body lice. we would sit around during the daytime and squeeze these little critters, and we would be bloody all over the house they suck the blood from your body. i can remember guys lying at night in these rooms sleeping and someone would be saying, i'm getting another transfusion. in march or april, we would take our clothing, the outer clothing, and where then, and take the inner clothing and lay it in the sun to try to deal ice -- de-lice ourselves. >> it didn't work? >> not very well. the waistline, around, we did not have socks until late 1951. the chinese began to give us the blue uniforms. i was offered to keep my uniform. one of the g.i.'s asked me if i wanted to keep my uniform. if so, we will launder it and package it for you. i said that i never wanted to see it again. would that not have been great to come to this reunion wearing that uniform? >> no. you are ok with it. don't look back. >> i wish i would have kept it. one of the guys i talked to said he was given the opportunity to keep his. i turned them down. i was so tired of it, i did not want to see it again. >> it would have been interesting now to see one. they were on the internet, pictures of how we were dressed. after we left camp five, i have seen pictures. they added a basketball court. we did not get to see camp five again. some australian put a picture of it on the internet. i just purchased a book today there. it had a picture of it in there. i said there is camp five right there. most of the people in this reunion that i talked to last night, they were all lower rank, because i moved to camp five in august of 1952. the people i took to last night, one of the guys told me they were taken out of the camp that morning into the village and brought back that afternoon. >> what is going on? >> i did not know that they had hidden our departure from the rest of the camp. we were put on barges very openly, i call them tugboats or motorboats, we went up the river, it took us most of the day to get up there. we were marched from the river over to our school building where we stayed in it until the end of the war. >> you have an amazing memory. for 54 years, you are trying to wipe it out, but you are very -- >> how many months and i started to try to get it back together. several months i went through trying to dig up these memories and i would add detail after detail. that's the reason i put it on a computer because i can go back and add in or take out. it is exactly as best as i can remember. there are some funny things that happened while we were up there. we made our own entertainment. we were sometimes castigated by the chinese for some of the things we did. we tried to strike. they were lecturing us to death every day, at least tries -- twice a day, two hours long, and then we had to go back to our buildings. we would discuss what we had been told. we had a squad monitor. i was monitor for six months. we had to take notes, what everybody's opinion was and turn them in. they would read over them. if somebody did not have the right attitude or something, they would come and talk to us. we got angry. we really got mad, they made us learn a song in chinese. we had no idea what we were saying. it was all phonetic. they told us and we would repeat it. then they would add a melody to it. that's the way the song started. we had no idea what we were singing. then they got to a point in their were part of the song -- we had no idea what it was. that was part of the song. they said the name of the song was a chinese volunteer march. the beat was on marching timing. one of the progressive -- and we would call them rats -- who joined in with the chinese. they would tell them about it if we said anything. they called them progressives. one of them was talking one day and told us that one of the english speaking chinese, which had been educated at the university of california berkeley, american english to as well as i could. he had told this man that that it was, death to americans. the other part was chinese. we refused to sing it. two or three times they would call us up, a company of us, 100, 120 men would stand up and they would have us sing this chinese song. we were singing away and they would laugh. they would clap their hands for us and everything. these were visitors or something. we had no idea what we were singing. we would not sing it anymore. one person said let's just strike, let's not go to the lecture. that lasted a very short time. there was someone he was a , chinese officer because he had the red piping on his uniform. he said if you refuse to obey the orders we give you, you will lose your standing as a prisoner of war and you will become our enemy. we will go to war with you. that was just one of the things that i can remember and camp five that was alarming to me. we would stand in formation and some guy had been captured. he had attempted escape. they made him criticize himself. you may have heard of that. he would stand up and tell what a bad person he was an somebody broke out and started singing god, bless america. -- god bless, america. there was never such a feeling in my life. we'll chimed in. -- we all chimed in. i decided that if they kill me i'm going to sing. they did not interfere. they stood there and let us finish the song and then we went about our business as if nothing ever happened. we had been prisoners for a year and a half and here we are standing in the middle of north korea under the command of chinese soldiers singing -- but we did it. >> that must have been an amazing moment. >> it was a strange thing. i will never forget that. they did not visit us as individuals while we were prisoners. they came around with a form one time and said that you will sign this form where you joined the side of the people who are against the capitalist warmongers, we will serve you with a sumptuous meal. everybody signed it. they gave us a better meal than we had in a long time. they brought and fish and stuff like that for us that we had not had in ages. they called it a sumptuous meal. it wasn't sumptuous, but it was better than what we had. some funny things happened up there. the sadness was always present. one of the funniest things that i can remember is they put me on trial. >> trial? >> the camp was right on the river and it was just a short distance from where i was sleeping to the river. after they started letting us go down there in may of 1951, we were free to go anytime we wanted to during daylight. guards were up on the higher ground. they did not bother us. they issued us cotton underwear, boxer shorts, and i would wash mine and come back and hang them and i went to get mine and i picked the wrong one and you said, where my drawers -- who you guys said, where my drawers? somebody in the audience yelled, theif. everyone started in. they decided to try me, very figured out a courtroom and got a guide to act as judge, it was for fun. you might have heard me mention sergeant potter, he is dead now bless his heart. he was going to act as my attorney. [laughter] it was a fun thing on a sunday afternoon, we were not doing anything, just sitting around. is altogether -- they oput us all together -- and he was sitting there swinging around and said, bring the guilty ba stard in. there was a reed shot down by the river. it was all play, something to do, we were so bored. while we started to walk in, they took a rock and market out and said, this is the courtroom -- marked it out and said this is the courtroom. they have the righttrial. i think the first question he asked him was, using this man is capable of stealing? capable of larceny? it was just for fun. everybody is laughing about it. some of the guards begin to yell and holler in the posts. some of the instructors, we were required to call them comrades, they thought we were plotting something. we were just playing. that was one of the funny things. everybody was having a good laugh but they would not allow it. a fellow named henry