Korean War Memoir by Robert Gorr

GORR ON NORTH KOREA JANUARY 1994 In July of 1950 we went to Okinawa where I was sent to 29th Infantry, Regiment "C" Company. We were there a couple of hours when we were put on a Japanese cruise liner to got to Korea. In Korea I was reassigned to the 35th. Infantry L Company. I was in the first platoon second squad, I was assistant squad leader. On November 28, 1950 we were overrun by the Chinese and that is the day I got captured. There were five other soldiers with me the day I was captured, the Chinese took us and put us in bunkers, and then at night we were moved from place to place for about five days. The Chinese then turned us over to a North Korean officer by the name of Colonel Kim. With him we went to a place called the Mining Camp, we stayed at the mining camp for about a month. We then went with him and we walked up to a place called Camp Five. I believe that Col. Kim was the propaganda officer for the North Koreans. He took about 15 men out of camp, one of them was my buddy Tippadore whom he gave a Pop Shot; a Pop Shot is an overdose of medicine that is too much for your body to stand. I think there were 15 of us they took from village to village where the natives had a go at us. At night we had meetings in the town hall. While we were going from village to village I saw where they had tied up Americans and doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. Also I saw where they had buried Americans up to there heads and then burp gunned their heads. One night Col. Kim had me come to his hut. He wanted me to marry a North Korean Woman. He said that he would give me some land, an ox, and a home. I was shocked at this. Then from another room I heard the voice of an American Woman. She came out and introduced herself. She was a school teacher from Kansas, who had married a North Korean soldier. She said, "Robert probably has a girl friend at home" She convinced Col. Kim that it was a bad idea that he had, and he sent me back to my room. After months of walking from village to village we ended up at a school house. While at the school house, they brought other soldiers in, some British Australians, and Americans. We were at the school house for a couple of months, when they took us back up to Camp Five. We were at Five for another eleven months and then in August of 53 I was released. When I was released the Americans took us to a place called Freedom Village. We stayed there a while, then by boat, we went to California. We were there a couple of days, and I was assigned to Ft. Sheridan, Illinois. While there I tried to re-enlist. They wouldn't take me back in however. My brain was so scrambled. In November of 1953 I was discharged. FOOD AND LIVING CONDITIONS When we were captured by the Chinese. The first five days after our capture we were kept in barns with the oxen and they fed us twice a day. It was something like pop corn balls and we got one in the morning and another at night. When we got to the mining camp we were kept in rooms about ten by ten feet with about twenty men to a room. We had to lay on our sides with our feet on top of one another, when one wanted to turn over the whole bunch had to do so. For heat we had to go out and cut green twigs, to put in the stove at the rear of the hut. This in turn was just a tunnel under the floor. They twigs were so green, that they gave off much smoke. This smoke would make us blind for short periods of time.