Lacy C. Barnett: History's Witness

The following was provided by Lacy C. Barnett, age 91 - alive, well, and corresponding via email.  Mr. Barnett was a 23-year-old U.S. Army corporal in July 1950 who, along with Pvt. Philip Hughes, was among the very first American soldiers sent to Korea. Photos courtesy of Mr. Barnett.

The U.S. Army’s ranks in the late 1940s contained a lot of teenagers, especially in post-war Japan. Too young to have served in World War II, many of these boys had older brothers or fathers who did.  These boys were often high school dropouts from humble circumstances worsened by the Great Depression. For many, the post-war Army offered structure and security that their families could not. I was one of those boys.

 “The Battle of Turkey Thicket,” by Christopher Russell, follows the story of another of these teenagers, Philip Thomas Hughes of Washington, D.C.  The reader does not get to know much about Philip, but instead gets to see what Philip sees as he uses the Army to escape a disintegrating family life.  By following Philip’s adventures in Japan and Korea, this true story effectively gives voice to the many boys who sacrificed their lives in a war that is now relegated to an obscure corner of American history.

Traditional history books provide the “big picture” story of conflict between nations and the choices made by their leaders.  “The Battle of Turkey Thicket” follows the opening phases of the Korean War from the view of an individual soldier. These pages reminded me of the chaos of those days: the first alert of our deployment from Sasebo at 0100 hours, 1 July 1950; steaming to Korea aboard the Takasago Maru on 2 July; the six-mile hike from the dock in Pusan to Camp Hialeah; and the train ride to front. We used equipment, uniforms, and even food left over from World War II. Unprecedented stress on the Army’s logistics created episodes where the only meals available to men in combat was baby food diverted from commissaries in Japan. 

We engaged not only enemy forces, but the discomforts of a swampy climate in an impoverished nation. We endured heat, insects, and water supplies tainted by human excrement used by the locals as fertilizer.  The countryside smelled foul, and within a matter of hours, so did we. As the North Koreans overran our positions one after another, our trucks weaved through masses of southbound refugees who travelled by foot. We shared unpaved roads that were maddeningly susceptible to either dust or mud. 

Our beloved 34th Regiment was deactivated on 1 Sep 1950 due to heavy losses. Both Philip Hughes and I were among the regiment’s 184 survivors (out of 1,981). We were then reassigned to the 3rd Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment. 

Philip was an infantryman with K Company of the 19th. That company took a lot of casualties between 8-12 September in engagements on Hill 300.  After surviving the fearsome days of July and August, Philip made the ultimate sacrifice on 12 September 1950.  At that time, I was a member of the medical platoon supporting Philip’s battalion.

Part of my duties were to identify the remains of our boys for subsequent handling by graves registration.  It is very possible that Philip Hughes was among the remains I handled.  Unfortunately, I don't have photographic memory, but I distinctly remember one man brought to our aid station there who was still gasping for breath. Our doctor worked on him, but to no avail. The doctor turned and ordered us to place his remains under a tree.  The man, clinically dead, continued to gasp every 30 seconds or so. For us young medics who had already seen so much, this was still alarming to watch.  Was this Philip Hughes?  We’ll never know for sure.

Devine intention so often distills good from the ills of life. It is my firm belief that without God in heaven looking over and caring for me, I would not be available to relate these thoughts in 2018. Had it not been for my deployment to Japan, I would not have met Alice in April 1949. By early 1950, we were engaged.  I was a 23-year-old kid form the Appalachian foothills of Alabama. She was a 24-year-old clerk-interpreter, the daughter of a Japanese mother and French father.  While not strictly forbidding such unions in those days, U.S. visa laws plus the Army’s deliberate bureaucracy imposed many hurdles intended largely to defeat all but the most determined of couples. Our relief came with U.S. Congressional action in 1951.

After raising two children who themselves are now entering retirement, Alice and I recently celebrated 68 years of marriage. 

Can anyone argue that God in heaven has not watched over me?

Once Upon a Time: Comrades Lost in Korea

May 1950. Sasebo, Southern Japan.  From left: Cpl. James R. Williams, age 23, Santo, TX; 

SFC. Daniel J. Cavanaugh, age 29, Groton CT; Cpl. Russell D. Talley, age 32, Mexia, TX; 

and Cpl. Lacy C. Barnett, age 23, Empire, AL.

Although they did not know it at the time, these four young American soldiers were just weeks away from life-altering events.  An early death awaited two of them.  But in June 2018, one of them is alive and well, busily compiling a written commentary on the U.S. Army’s involvement in the opening weeks of the Korean War. More about him will follow below.

Several hundred thousand soldiers of the U.S. Eighth Army were tasked with the post-World War II occupation of the Japanese home islands. Budget austerity ensured that Army resources were optimized either for occupation duties or for war.  It could not excel at both.  

This was an idyllic garrison for young Americans in early 1950. The impoverished Japanese population welcomed these soldiers – or more specifically – welcomed their disposable income.  As members of the U.S. Army’s 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, these four men were assigned to the regiment’s medical company. Based in the southern Japanese port of Sasebo, they were ten miles from the regiment’s home base at Camp Mower.

They served as medics, albeit with varying specialties such as “surgical technician” or “corpsman.” The medics’ duties included clinical support to doctors tending a litany of mundane peacetime ailments and injuries. Perhaps the most frequently encountered maladies were sexually transmitted diseases. These were sufficiently endemic to hamper the Army’s overall mission.

The sudden onset of the Korean War on June 25, 1950 would change everything for these men.  By July 5, these medics were among the 1,981 members of the 34th Infantry Regiment sent to the front lines of a “police action” to defend South Korea.  As a whole, the U.S. Eighth Army was understaffed and deficient in combat training, weaponry, and supplies. Many infantrymen entered combat with rifles that were tagged “combat unserviceable.”  

The Americans were shocked to discover that they were outmatched by the more numerous and aggressive North Korean People’s Army. The American combat strategy during the opening weeks of that war was to stall the invaders as best they could, trading land and lives for the time required to deliver additional troops and resources from the mainland U.S.

The role of a medical company was radically transformed by combat.  The corpsmen provided immediate treatment to wounded soldiers on the battlefield – and often under enemy fire. Others worked in aid stations just behind the lines, performing the initial triage of men awaiting medical remedy. Stated differently, the medical staff attended to the ghastly wounds of war, attempting to save lives, reduce potential disabilities, or shorten the wounded man’s rehabilitation times.  Per physicians’ direction, medical corpsmen carried out excruciating decisions about if, when, and how and they would treat each wounded soldier. A shortage of time, space, and supplies too often prevented or compromised the quality of care that wounded men deserved. 

The July 20 battle for the communications junction city of Taejon tragically exposed the weakness of American forces committed to the earliest days of the Korean War. After penetrating the Americans’ porous defense on the outskirts of Taejon, North Korean troops effectively infiltrated and surrounded the city. The better part of 5,000 Americans – mostly non-combatant, rear echelon troops such as medical company personnel – would have to fight their way out through Taejon’s gridwork of streets. The four medics pictured here had mixed success in escaping Taejon.  Cpl. Williams was killed in an ambush. Sgt. Talley died as the result of a truck crash after enemy marksmen killed his driver.

Both Dan Cavanaugh and Lacy Barnett survived the Korean War. They would go on to enjoy what their colleagues could not: careers, families, and time to reflect. Both men watched the American cultural landscape change over the following decades.  They saw how America changed its attitude toward soldiers, alternately reviling then embracing veterans of the Vietnam War, followed by the vacant platitudes offered to the Iraq-Afghanistan vets. But what of their old colleagues from Korea?  History would make scant record of them unless veterans themselves took the initiative.

From the mid 1980s onward, Dan and Lacy took that initiative.  Not satisfied with the official histories promulgated by the U.S. Army, they joined forces with other Korean War vets to assemble a gritty truth from a disparate collection of archival records and personal recollections.  Theirs was a race against time as the years began to take their toll.  Dan Cavanaugh passed in 1997.  Today, at age 91, Lacy Barnett is one of a handful of survivors who can provide first-hand knowledge of the chaotic days of July 1950. His vigorous research of official records has uncovered numerous permanent facts that have yet to be published. The omission of such facts from official histories, he asserts, could not have been accidental. Mr. Barnett promises that a publication, “Criminal Deployment of U.S. Forces to Korea in July 1950,” is forthcoming.