It was mid October 1952 and I was an officer’s records clerk in the 99th Field Artillery, a private first class on a Landing Ship Troops (LST) headed towards North Korea. I didn’t even suspect that we were taking part in a big U.N.task force of warships, planes, landing craft and troops making a feint attack in North Korea far behind the enemy lines. I didn’t learn this much about it until just last Thursday, over 67 years later. I did know that something unusual was going on at a port in Hokkaido,Northern Japan when we boarded the ship at one end wearing our full field packs, walked on through the ship below deck, came out the other end, went through a warehouse and boarded the ship again. The rumor was that we were being spied on and we wanted the enemy to believe we had twice as many aboard. We were also told not to be concerned that we had no training for this mission and would certainly not be called upon to use our rifles or do anything but go for the ride. When they told me that the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I’d been in combat in Korea late in 1951. I had experienced how things go wrong in war.
We were ordered to stay below deck and most of us consoled ourselves with a 24 hour penny ante black jack card game. After a long long time my curiosity got the best of me and I worked my way on deck. I saw that we had two small landng craft there in the water waiting and a third was jammed up on the device that puts the landing boats into the water. There seemed to be land just a few football fields away. Then I was ordered back below deck.
There was a rumor that a single MIG had strafed our ship one time but it was a complete miss.
Years later, every now and then I used to make a quick effort to learn more about what went on that day, with little success. Well recently, at a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner I attended I was led by an attendee to this site Trove: National Library of Australia. It was a front page article of The Sydney Morning Herald dated October 16, 1952. It said a lot. You won’t find much else at other sources. Weird, isn’t it? So little information on such a large military operation?
The plan was to draw reserve troops away from the front lines so attacks could be made on a few troublesome hills. That article says attacks were made and a couple of hills were taken but then lost again. The game of seesaw continued as it had on the hills I was earlier involved with when I was in the infantry. Ours, yours, ours, yours. The Korean war made no sense to me and still doesn’t.
I guess the reports on that mass attack were written in the wind and landed in Sydney, Australia. Just maybe they are still a secret here in the U.S.
Please don’t rely on me for being accurate about this. I have my memories of my time below deck and above and I am happy to report that I recall winning $10 in that Black Jack game. At a penny at a time that is a lot of money.
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