STORIES FROM AMERICA'S CONFLICTS

Korea

The year 2000 marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.   In 1950, after our enormous sacrifices of World War II, all the nation wanted to do was to get back to normal life.  Yet for too many, it was not destined to be.  Almost no one in America even knew where the far-off land of Korea was.  But more than one and a half million members of our armed forces, with help from 16 UN nations, would eventually go to that distant country, pledged to defend a people they did not yet know.

One of the most brutal battles of the Korean War occurred at the frozen Chosin Reservoir, where the exhausted Tenth Corps of marines and army was outnumbered more than ten to one.  Even crueler was the other lethal enemy: the frigid winter weather.  In temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero, the men still wore summer uniforms under their parkas. Ninety percent got frostbite.  Many simply froze to death in their foxholes.

In this death trap of fire, blood and ice, there was only one road back to the airfield.  As our soldiers tried to make their way down it, the Chinese attacked from every direction, creating massive roadblocks. The soldiers who could do so dragged some of the wounded across the frozen reservoir to safety.  But the totally disabled soldiers were unable to leave the immobilized trucks.  Of our 15,000 men on the plateau, there were 12,000 casualties.  Among the wounded, helpless soldiers was 19-year-old Private First Class Ed Reeves. 

On our 2000 National Memorial Day Concert, distinguished actor Charles Durning, himself a recipient of the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts, shared with the audience Private Reeves’ remembrance of that horrible nightmare.

Private Ed Reeves' story of survival
(As portrayed by Charles Durning)

As my unit tried to flee south in the afternoon of December 1st, we were caught in a savage Chinese ambush. I had been hit by exploding mortar; my legs crippled.  So I was stuck with my wounded comrades in the back of some disabled trucks.  We were zipped into sleeping bags – our only protection against the unbearable cold – while the rest of the troops continued their retreat from the reservoir under heavy fire.

For hours, we waited, wounded, in pain – for support to arrive.  Then, without any ammunition to defend ourselves, Chinese soldiers stormed the trucks.  First they robbed us helpless GIs of our rings and watches.  Then they began to torch the trucks with us still inside.  By fate, my truck was out of gas and wouldn’t ignite.  That didn’t stop our executioners.  Two of them climbed aboard to finish us off. 

One of them started at the tailgate and moved toward the middle; a second Chinese soldier concentrated on the other end.  Each fired a shot between the eyes of every American soldier in their path.  As they advanced toward me, I lay there waiting to die – talking to the Lord and asking for peace so I could die like a man.  I found out you could still sweat when it’s 35 degrees below zero.

Then it was my turn.  The soldier aimed his gun at my forehead.  He fired, no more than three feet away.  The muzzle blast was blinding… but somehow the bullet produced just a scalp wound.  Then I heard the murderers leave, believing that everyone was killed.

For the next three days, I lay among my dead buddies, the only one who had survived.  I burrowed into my sleeping bag, a futile gesture against the numbing, bitter cold. 

Every time I tried to free myself from the truck, I fainted from the pain.  I was trapped.  Then more Chinese came to loot the dead corpses around me.  They were stealing leather boots from dead GI’s.  It was pure luck that I was wearing a kind of shoe that wasn’t in demand.  I kept myself stiff, so when the enemy poked about, they would think I was dead.  More time passed…hours, perhaps days, until a Chinese soldier came along who rifled through my clothes – and felt my body heat.

He knew I was still alive.  He pitched me from the truck onto the ground, where he and several other Chinese beat me with their rifle butts until they were sure I was dead.  Then they tossed me on a heap of dead bodies on the side of the road.  “Jesus, here I come,” I muttered to myself.  But my tormentors disappeared into the driving snow.

I wasn’t walking anywhere.  So I told myself I had to crawl before I could walk.  On elbows and knees, I crept toward the frozen reservoir, each moment waiting for a Chinese sniper to shoot at me. 

To keep myself going, I counted in the cadence I learned in boot camp.  “One, two, one two!”  Then I switched to the hymns I learned when I was a boy in Sunday school.  “Jesus loves me, this I know, ‘cause the Bible tells me so…”  Another night of this hell passed.  I was near death, slipping in and out of consciousness, when one of the “Ice Marines” who had volunteered to search for stragglers found me.  “Tell me where you hurt most, son,” he said, “so we won’t hurt you more.”   “Please watch the legs, sir,” I told him, “They really hurt.”  He gently lifted me up and set me in the front seat.

I was so bad off that when I reached the hospital in Japan, the doctor told the medic not to bother nursing me, since there was no way I was going to make it.  I guess the Lord didn’t want me to die on that road.  But 400 of my wounded buddies in those trucks didn’t make it.  May God bless them and hold them near.

Sgt. Reeves’ frostbite was so severe that doctors had to amputate his feet and all his fingers.  But the courageous young man refused to give up.  While Ed was still in the hospital, he married his hometown sweetheart.  Together, Ed and Beverly have raised seven children – two of them Korean orphans. We were privileged to have Ed and Beverly Reeves and four of their children with us that evening at the 2000 National Memorial Day Concert.  Ed was in attendance in honor of the memory of his fallen friends, who gave their lives for freedom.

World War II Veteran and show regular Charles Durning recounts Private Ed Reeves' harrowing story of survival during the Korean War.

REFLECTIONS

"In the summer of 1950 I was assigned to CO. L, 87th inf. Regt. 10th inf. Div., Fort Riley, Kansas for basic training. While I was not sent to Korea, many of my fellow trainees were and many of them did not come home but they lost their lives in the frozen hills of Korea. I would just simply say to all of them, those that came home and those who did not, thank you for your service. They may call it the forgotten war but I shall never forget the brave men and women that served in Korea."

Al Meyer
New Berlin, WI