Life and Death

August 17, 1951. 121st Evacuation Hospital, Yongdong-pu, Korea. A seriously wounded soldier of the 116th Engineers is stabilized in a field hospital prior to evacuation for extended retreatment and rehabilitation in Japan.

General William F. Dean : Hero(?) of Taejon

Major General William F. Dean upon his release from North Korean captivity.

When PVT Philip Hughes deployed to Korea in July 1950, he did so as part of the U.S. Army's 24th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General William F. Dean. 

In many ways, Dean was the right man for the task of commanding the first American Army unit to enter combat since 1945.  After compiling an admirable record as a division commander during World War II, Dean was appointed to the Far East where he played a pivotal role as military governor of South Korea immediately subsequent to Japanese occupation. He had overseen the 24th Division since October 1949. He had combat experience, he was familiar with the country, and his headquarters in Japan were closest to the Korean peninsula.

Tall, lean and athletic, the 50-year-old son of an Illinois dentist eschewed the pomp and circumstance of high rank. Despite having the privilege of using staff cars, Dean was more inclined to walk to his appointments whenever possible. Aides said he was “his own best shoe-shiner.”

Dean has handicapped by the fact that the U.S. Army as a whole was poorly prepared to conduct war in 1950.  The early confidence of Dean's command quickly gave way to the humbling realization that his forces were overmatched by the North Korean forces that it encountered:   

I am convinced that the North Korean Army, the North Korean soldier and the status of training and the quality of his equipment have been underestimated. - Letter from Major General William F. Dean to General Douglas MacArthur, July 8, 1950

By July 20, not yet three weeks since the 24th Division's deployment in Korea, Dean and his headquarters were forced to hold a position in the city of Taejon. Holding this critical rail and logistics hub would buy time for the Army to transport more men and assets across the Pacific. Dean attempted to defend Taejon with forces that were outnumbered and underequipped.

History will recall the defense of Taejon as one of the U.S. Army's most humiliating defeats. Many observers have faulted General Dean for his role in this defeat, but no one can accuse him of shirking his duty. With his acuity already diminished by days of insufficient sleep, General Dean at one point picked up a bazooka and joined a gang of enlisted men to hunt enemy tanks in the narrow streets of Taejon. After his forces were scattered and diminished that fateful day, Dean was became one of the few Americans who escaped the city on foot, seeking refuge in the hills. Separated from his men, Dean roamed the countryside for 36 days before he was eventually captured. He would remain in the hands of the North Koreans for the duration of the war. He was welcomed to New York City in October 1953 with a ticker tape parade.

YouTube screen grab

Of his 1950 wartime experience, Dean said "There were heros in Korea, but I was not one of them."

Rice Paddies in Korea

U.S. Army Photo

When the Korean War soldier was not scaling hills, he often found himself slogging through rice paddies.  These water-logged flats of land were cultivated by famers assisted by ox-driven plows.  To maximize crop yields, the farmer employed "night soil," that is, human excrement that was dutifully collected and distributed by the bucket-full.  American troops had no choice but to traverse the malodorous muck which often sucked the boots off their feet.  If subjected to enemy fire, troops had no alternative but to drop to the ground and lie prone until the threat was lifted.

It got worse.  Army support logistics were far from reliable during the early weeks of the war. Among the consequences were critical shortages of potable water.  Soldiers' limited access to water during July and August of 1950 coincided with 100-degree temperatures.  Add to this the chaos of battle, and this explains why almost all troops had no choice to drink water from rice paddies.

Disease caused more American casualties than did combat. 

Detente in Action

Cho No, an Korean Orphan, beams at the proposition of receiving an apple from Capt. Ray A. Gusti of Mark, Illinois.  In return for the treat, Cho must agree to a bath.  Capt Gusti was a medical officer at a forward U.S. Army Clearing Company. Eight-year-old Cho would later be evacuated on a 315th Air Division combat cargo aircraft to South Korea where he would be placed in an orphan's home.

T-34: Chariot of Fire

U.S. Army Photo

20 September 1950 near Waegewan, Korea.  Men of the U.S. Army's 5th Cavalry Regiment inspect a disabled North Korean T-34 tank. Manufactured in massive numbers in the Soviet Union, T-34 tanks were fast, heavily armored, and lethal.  The American troops who initially opposed T-34s during the first weeks of the Korean War were terrifyingly unprepared to combat it.

Date Night in Japan

Photo by Joseph Jowell from the Doug Price Collection

Sasebo, Japan, 1953 or 54.  I share this image because its time and place largely coincide with the atmosphere encountered by PVT Philip Hughes in May-June 1950 during his brief billet in Sasebo, Japan, immediately prior to the Korean War.  The U.S. occupation facilitated large scale interaction of American servicemen with Japanese civilians.

The humanity captured in a photograph sometimes speaks volumes.

The young man depicted here, dressed appropriately for off-duty leisure, relaxes with a local companion. He was born during the great depression. Odds are that he was not from a wealthy home. He grew up at a time when Americans were quite clannish, preferring to settle in communities with people of kindred ethnicity or nationality.  Yet here he is (caught?) with a Japanese companion, enjoying a smoke while reclining on a tatami mat. Does his facial expression betray some embarrasment?

His companion looks like she could be a bit older. The young woman is on the front line of Japan's economic reconstruction, testing cultural boundaries with this gai-jin (western foreigner). Their pose suggests intimacy, but the facial expressions are devoid of... joy.  Seriousness prevails. Fatigue may be an explanation. The woman's posture as she hovers over companion suggests dominance, or at least a sense of purpose. She is old enough to have survived the horror and deprivations of World War II, up close and personal.  It's very likely that her family was irrevocably affected in some way by the war.  But that was in her past. Her current agenda is more relevant and enduring.

Both individuals have compromised their respective cultural boundaries for more expedient needs. This is a scene that was replicated hundred of thousands of times in Japan during the late 1940s and 50s. It is really not fair to draw a one-size-fits-all conclusion for this couple. Their relationship might have been ephemeral... or maybe not.

Walk through a national cemetery for American servicemen sometime.  Read the tombstones. You will see a lot of Japanese spouses resting with their gai-jin husbands.  Just sayin'.

James Williams' Not So Easy Ride

1950. Korea. An intrepid jeep driver and crew race their cargo under fire. Photo by PFC Hancock, U.S. Army.

Ward and Mary Williams of East Alton, Illinois may have struggled through the Great Depression, but they provided as best they could for their two sons.  In 1940, Ward drove a taxi, while Mary worked in a munitions plant.  They had enough resources to seek medical remedy for the younger of their two sons, James, who was born with a cleft lip.  Surgery improved the condition, but did not totally erase evidence of the ailment. James joined the Army as a teenager, and was counted among the first boatload of American soldiers sent from Japan to Korea upon the outbreak of hostilities there.  He arrived on July 4, 1950.

"You could tell he was self conscious about it," as Lacy Barnett, age 91, recalled James' cleft lip in a recent email.

Lacy and James Williams served together in the 34th Infantry Regiment's medical company. Curiously, there were then three young men named "Williams" in that company during July 1950. Lacy knew them all.

The Army assigned the occupational specialty of "light truck driver" to Ward and Mary's boy. James was performing this vocation on July 20, 1950.  On that day, the 34th Infantry was trying to hold on to the city of Taejon just one more day as North Korean tanks and infantry bore down from the north. The 34th's third battalion held a tenuous line around the airfield just north of the city.  Outnumbered and surrounded, the battalion was preparing to withdraw, hoping to make it back to Taejon and eventual escape southward by rail.  But first, they had to break through the enemy encirclement. They had wounded to evacuate.

It was James C. Williams' job to drive a litter jeep - a vehicle that bore 2-3 stretchers each with a wounded soldier. The North Korean encirclement of the airfield was not complete, but it was effective enough. James and the wounded comrades he carried were killed at some point on the gauntlet to Taejon. James was not yet 20 years old.

All three of the medical company's Williams boys died that day during the North Koreans' advance on Taejon. Several survivors would later provide written statements that they returned the remains of James C. Williams to a collection point. However, July 20 was not a good day for the U.S. Army. The Americans' withdrawal turned into a panicked rout.  To put it mildly, the remains of James and many other soldiers were hastily abandoned. Nevertheless, James was officially listed as "missing in action." His name was added to one of the granite slabs in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

That was pretty much the end of James' story until January 3, 2019, when the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency news release announced the positive identification of PFC James C. Williams. The boy with the cleft lip will be repatriated for burial at home. A rosette will be inscribed on the slab next to James' name in the Courts of the Missing - to indicate that he has been accounted for.