Eligy for Duane

PVT Duane E. Wilson was the third of nine kids born to Edward Wilson, a carpenter, and his wife Nellie. Born in Mt. Vernon, Illinois in 1928, Duane enlisted in the army in 1946. By 1949, Duane was in Japan with the 25th Infantry Division's 65th Combat Engineering Battalion.

Duane apparently had difficulty adjusting to army life, even in the comfortable billets of occupied Japan. He drifted through a series of duty assignments without finding one at which he could excel. Duane committed a number of minor infractions along the way.  His record compelled a commanding officer to consider a discharge from the service.

Sergeant Major Poon Tom decided to intervene. It was February 1950. Tom, born in China but raised in San Francisco, called Duane into his office at battalion headquarters. Tom found that this six-foot-tall, mild mannered kid did not want to part ways with the army. Duane continued to bounce from one duty to the next.  He became a driver for the bridge-building platoon. Tom, keeping a watchful eye, asked Duane how he was doing.  Duane responded positively. More importantly, Tom got no negative reports from the bridge platoon. Then Duane got a clerk assignment in the Headquarters Service Company.  Duane's company clerk role allowed him to see Tom regularly as Duane delivered morning reports and daily dispositions sheets up to battalion HQ. Tom noted that Duane seemed happy and satisfied with his job.

Then came the Korean War. The 65th CEB was shipped to the war zone along with the 25th ID.  Combat deployments reduce the volume of paperwork, so Duane was reassigned to a position serving as the Colonel's orderly. Duane became disenchanted with this task, and requested a transfer to a line company.

Like so many other U.S. Army infantry units in Korea in 1950, the 25th ID was understrength. By August, this unit struggled to hold its share of the Pusan Perimeter from North Korean encroachment.  At its darkest moments, the division had to call up its rear echelon men - including its combat engineers - to join the ranks of rifle companies. 

On September 12, men from the 65th CEB supported a two-platoon attack formation attempting to take a hill near Saga.  A North Korean machinegun nest raked the flank of the formation.  PVT Duane Wilson was hit multiple times just below the chest. He died instantly.

The next day, M/SGT Poon Tom wrote a letter to the company file that outlined Duane's experience with the 65th CEB.  Many years later, Tom's son Michael came across a copy of that letter in his father's estate documents.  This blog post draws directly from the document that Michael Tom found and shared on koreanwar.org.     

Howard Odell's Last Dogfight

TOP:  An F-80C Shooting Star from O'Dell's 36th Fighter-Bomber Squadron.
BOTTOM: A Yak-9U of the North Korean Peoples Air Force

Wednesday, July 19, 1950, northern outskirts of Taejon, Korea. U.S. Army PVT Philip Hughes's 34th Infantry Regiment dug in on the slope overlooking the Kapch'on River. Hot but clear weather had prevailed for days. This allowed the small but stealthy North Korean Peoples Air Force to take to the skies.

American military forces were only three weeks into their commitment to the conflict in Korea.  Caught off-guard by the "wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place," the U.S. Air Force was particularly beset by shortages and mismatches of assets. The Air Force could at least draw upon a deep cadre of pilots with World War II combat experience.

Captain Howard E. Odell was such a pilot. The 30-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York was a veteran of air combat over China, where he flew a P-40 Warhawk with the 23rd Fighter Group. After returning home, he maintained a reserve commission until rejoining regular service in the late 1940s. The Air Force trained him to transition to the new jet fighters just entering service. Capt. Odell was then billeted in Japan with the 8th Fighter Group's 36th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, which was still adjusting to its new mount, the F-80C Shooting Star.

The USAF's sudden commitment to the war in Korea posed immediate challenges. Like all the early jets, the F-80 was a fuel guzzler. There were no suitable airstrips in Korea during the early weeks of the war, so the F-80s had to operate from bases in Japan. Pilots had to traverse the Sea of Japan before entering the combat zone; this left precious little fuel - and time - to enjoin the fight. This was Odell's situation on July 19, 1950, when he participated in a flight of four F-80s performing combat air patrol over Taejon. Fate placed an equal number of Russian-built North Korean Yak-9U fighters in the same skies that day.

Philip Hughes and the other ground troops had a front line seat for the aerial battle that ensued.  The USAF F-80s had an advantage in speed, but the propeller-driven Yaks had superior turning abilities. In addition, the Yak's cannon armament was more lethal than the F-80s' .50 caliber machine guns.  Pilot skill would be the wildcard in this match up.

The swirling dogfight was quick, but lethal. History records the USAF as the victors, as the four Yaks were blasted out of the sky. But the victory was not without cost. We'll never know the details, but at some point during the fight, a Yak pilot found Howard Odell's F-80 in his gunsight. It took only a couple of hits by the Yak's 20 mm ShVAK cannon to disable his target. Odell fought the crippled aircraft's controls, attempting to take it down for an emergency landing on Taejon's dusty little air strip. The damage proved to be too much; Odell went down with his aircraft about a mile west of the airstrip, behind enemy lines.

Capt. Howard E. Odell's remains were never recovered.  He is recorded as missing-in-action to this day. 

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. 

Don Schmincke: Korean War POW

YouTube screen grab 

Don Schmincke joined the U.S. Army right out of high school.  He grew up in a working class neighborhood on Baltimore's Federal Hill, just a few blocks form the docks of the inner harbor. After basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Don reported to a billet with the 19th Infantry Regiment in December 1948.  That posting, at Camp Chuckamunga on Japan's Kyushu Island, gave him about 18 months to enjoy low-risk occupation duty. His paycheck easily afforded him a number of luxuries in nearby Beppu.  The advent of the Korean War changed all of that.

Within days of the North Korean invasion, U.S. Eighth Army headquarters in Yokohama began committing troops to the defense of South Korea in piecemeal fashion.  Because the scale of the North Korean threat was vastly underestimated, the first Army units committed to the war were woefully underprepared. Within days of his arrival in Korea, Don Schmincke, a rifleman, dug in on the banks of the Kum River on July 13, 1950 with the rest of the 19th.  Their mission was to defend the northern approaches to the city of Taejon from North Korean encroachment.  Because they were deployed too thinly, the 19th was quickly overrun.  A few men escaped on foot over hills; many more were killed or captured.  Among those captured was PFC Don Schmincke.

Don would somehow survive 37 months and 14 days in captivity.  Out of the approxiately 700 men captured with him, about 500 survived the march north to prison camps.  Of those, only 285 would live to be repatriated three years later. 

Don's family knew only that he was missing in action as of late September 1950.  They would not receive notice that he was alive and in captivity until December 1951. When interviewed then by the Baltimore Sun, his mother exclaimed, "I'm the happiest woman in Baltimore today, and I thank God in heaven for taking care of my boy (emphasis mine)."

I'll spare you the details here of the prison camp experience, but if you wish, you can see and hear then-Corporal Schmincke describe it in his own words to reporter Bill Downs in a 1953 video clip now on YouTube. (Warning: the opening segment of this clip is not pleasant; jump to 4:08 to see Don's interview at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC, shortly after his repatriation).  

Don may still be alive as of the date of this post; I'm not sure.  He would be 88 years old.

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.

Fourteen Weeks of Basic Training

U.S. Army Photo

1950. Fort Riley, Kansas.  This platoon of of Army recruits has just completed 14 weeks of basic training.  With the conclusion of basic came three weeks of home leave, then off they went to their respective billet assignments.  A few of these young men might have been lucky enough to draw assignments in the continental U.S. or perhaps in Germany.  Many would proceed to the far east, where they would participate in the hastily assembled defense of South Korea. There, most of them would trade their spiffy garrison caps and Ike jackets for helmets, dungarees, and an M1 rifle. The individual identities and fates of these men are unknown.

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.