Harold Hillery: Last of the Lucky Men

Left: Capt. David Bisset of Savannah, Georgia; LT (later CAPT) Harold Hillery (USAF), New York City; and LT Arthur Clarke, Boone, Iowa.

July 20, 1950.  Taejon, Korea.  The city in which the U.S. Army's 24th Infantry Division made its headquarters on this day was becoming systematically overrun by North Korean Forces. PVT Philip Hughes was fully occupied with his part in the combat withdrawal of the 34th Infantry Regiment from its defensive position north of Taejon.  In the city, however, the headquarters was still staffed by men operating with little sleep and poor lines of communication with its field units.  As the day progressed, these men would prepare to abandon their post under the command of Major General William F. Dean. 

Attached to Dean's headquarters was 28-year-old U.S. Air Force LT Harold A. "Tank" Hillery of the 35th Fighter Interceptor Wing. Rasied in Harlem by a widowed mother, Hillery enlisted in September 1942.  He lucked his way into pilot training with the famed "Tuskegee Airmen" of World War II.  Like so many other officers, Hillery was now fighting his second war in Korea. He did not suspect on that day that he would become a historical footnote.

As with other U.S. military units in Japan, the 35th FIW was rapidly mobilized for wartime activity. Harold Hillery was based with this unit at Yokota Air base on Honshu.  Like so many other officers, Hillery brought his family with him to on-base housing in Japan. In the newly-integrated U.S. Air Force, Harold, his wife Ginny, and two kids would cautiously navigate the social millieu as his squadron's only African-American family.  The advent of war imposed new hardships as the 35th FIW would relocate its base of combat operations to Korea.  Its forward base at Po'hang offered rough accomodations, but greatly reduced the time-in-transit to the war zone.          

On July 20, Hillery complied with his duty rotation by commanding a tactical air control party (TACP) - a handful of U.S. Air Force personnel who functioned on the ground as liaison between combat forces and the USAF's airborne assets. To do this, Hillery swapped his F-51D Mustang for a jeep with a powerful (if somewhat unreliable) two-way air to ground radio.  His role as TACP commander put Hillery in direct contact with the officers on Dean's staff.  As commander of the TASP unit, Hillery oversaw not only the life-line to combat air support assets, but also a channel for General Dean's communication with command levels above the 24th ID. 

The day did not go well for the U.S. Army in Taejon. Enemy blockades and ambushes forced the Americans to dismount their vehicles amidst vicious urban street fighting.  Those who survived the battle took to the hills. Fortunately, neither General Dean nor LT Hillery were killed that day; rather they and many other Americans went missing in action. From there, their fortunes diverged. After three weeks of wandering the countryside by himself, Dean was captured and would spend the rest of the war in captivity.  Hillery, who endured similar wanderings, was one of the lucky Americans to rejoin friendly forces.

By the end of July, "Tank" Hillery was back in the cockpit, conducting dangerous ground strikes on NKPA forces. On August 10, his F-51's engine quit during a mission.  Hillery bailed out, splashing into the Sea of Japan.  Luck accompanied him once again: he was picked by a U.S. Navy submarine which would host him for a few days until the sub made its scheduled berthing in Japan. Luck, however, did not accompany Hillery on this cruise as he ended up losing a lot of money to the sub's poker players.

Harold "Tank" Hillery, one of the last of the lucky men to escape Taejon, would advance to the rank of major before retiring from the Air Force.  He died in 1994 at the age of 72, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

A Triple Whammy: The Newton Lantron Story

Major Newton W. Lantron, Sr. Photo courtesy of Lacy C. Barnett

At about 0930 hours on July 20, 1950, U.S. Army Major Newton W. Lantron disappeared during the Korean War’s Battle of Taejon. Army historians claim that he neither gave notice nor instructions to his staff. Lantron simply departed his command post by driving away in his jeep.

Lantron’s exit was curious, to say the least. He was the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry regiment (3/34), which, after only two weeks of combat in Korea, was being thoroughly routed by enemy forces. At first under the command of Lt. Col. David H. Smith, the 3/34 had already suffered formidable casualties in a delaying action at Ch’onan on July 7-8. Whereas the third battalion’s understrength rosters counted about 525 men before Ch’onan, only 175 would emerge from that engagement. Among the losses was Lt. Col. Smith, evacuated due to physical exhaustion.  This made Maj. Lantron the senior officer available in the battalion, and thus its commander.  

By July 20, the U.S. Army’s combat presence in Korea was committed to a tenuous front line defense just north and west of Taejon, South Korea. The 3/34 was an integral component of that line.  By this point, the men – and especially, most of the officers – had been functioning for days without proper sleep. This would become evident in lapses of judgment and decision-making. This situation was made worse by poor communications between command levels, a consequence of worn, broken, or otherwise unreliable radios and signal equipment drawn from World War II surplus stocks.

Regimental headquarters became aware of Lantron’s disappearance about two and a half hours later. But by that time, the headquarters staff had more pressing distractions to contend with.  A number of North Korean T-34 tanks had by then infiltrated the grid of Taejon’s streets.  Clerks, cooks, mechanics, medics and other rear echelon men all became riflemen as they encountered enemy infiltrators. Those troops not already fighting for their lives were now preparing a hasty exit, either packing up their trucks or setting fire to what they could not readily transport. In the midst of this confusion, the disappearance of a battalion commander was of no immediate concern. A 29-year-old captain, Jack Smith, was regimental command’s emergency choice to lead 3/34 after Lantron’s disappearance. 

Newt Lantron, a tall and lanky 35-year-old Alabamian by birth, joined the Army before World War II. He entered combat as a company commander with the 36th Infantry Division in Italy, only to be captured by the Germans on September 9, 1943. He was interned at Oflag 64 in Poland for the duration of the war in Europe. 

The post-war continuation of his Army service placed him by 1950 with occupation forces in Japan, and subsequently, with combat forces in Korea. The enervating crisis in Korea was only exacerbated by the U.S. Army’s unpreparedness, as it lacked reliable and effective equipment, while its men lacked sufficient spirit and physical fortitude for combat. Field-grade officers like Lantron were further stressed by their awareness of top commanders’ impossible expectations. On July 7, division commander Gen. William Dean sacked the original commander of the 34th Regiment’s Korea deployment, Jay Lovless, for an apparent lack of aggressiveness.  Lovless’ replacement, Bob Martin, lasted all of 15 hours as he, armed with an ineffective 2.36-inch bazooka, lost a duel with an enemy T-34 tank in Ch’onan. 

Now on July 20, Lantron’s orders were to hold the defensive line north of Taejon until notified to do otherwise. Lantron was in the same fix as Red Ayres, his counterpart who commanded the 34th’s first battalion.  While obediently holding his position through the previous night, Ayres, detected the ominous clatter of enemy armor and troops bypassing his position in the dark.  But without proper command communications, mission assignments were not forthcoming. Like Ayres, Lantron would have to react to rapidly evolving events on the ground around him. A lack of sleep ensured that his decisions did not always comport with sound military doctrine.  These were the circumstances that immediately preceded Lantron’s sudden departure.

The Army suffered staggering losses on 20 July. Lt. Col. Red Ayres managed an effective escape for a portion of his command, which would regroup and continue the fight later that summer along the Pusan Perimeter.  Newton Lantron, however, would not return to duty until September 1953 – three years later.

The U.S. Army would learn, several weeks after the battle in Taejon, that Lantron had evaded the enemy for two or three days before he was taken prisoner by the North Koreans. Other American prisoners would later testify as to Lantron’s heroics in saving the lives of several of his fellow captives, both on the forced march to North Korea and by his food scavenging efforts in the prisoner of war camps. 

Having endured two separate wartime internments, Lantron suffered yet again when his son, Netwon Jr., age 24, died of a brain tumor in 1964 while serving with the U.S. Army in West Germany. Newton Lantron, Sr. died in 2003 at the age of 88.