Walter Iverson

                 Company B Marines Korean War Oral History Project

                             Narrator: Walter Iverson (b. 1932)

               Interviewer: Gina Temple-Rhodes Cedar Story Services

             Recorded February 22, 2013 At the Depot in Duluth, MN

 

 

GTR: Can you tell me a little bit about your background, where and when you were born?

WI: Born in 1932, in Duluth.

GTR: In Duluth? Where did you go to high school?

WI: Central.

GTR: What was your experience during World War II? What was your life like then?

WI: Well, the day World War II started, we moved from Kenwood to Woodland. That’s what I remember. I remember Roosevelt -- my dad had that little old radio -- telling us we were in war. That’s the day I remember.

GTR: You were too young to be involved?

WI: Yeah, too young. My older brother went, but --

GTR: Did you have any knowledge of Marines?

WI: No.

GTR: OK. So how did you end up in the Reserves?

WI: Jack Nordling was a coach of our football team, and he was a Marine. And so we joined the Marine Reserve when we made the team.

GTR: Oh, interesting. OK. How do you spell his last name? Northing?

WI: Jack Nordling. Jack Nordling.

GTR: So you had to join first?

WI: Yeah. He went with us over there.

GTR: He did?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: Was he in the Reserves as well?

WI: Yeah. He was in the Reserves, and that’s why we joined, a lot of us. And of course, the money. We didn’t have any money, you know what I mean, to speak of, when we were kids, so we thought, “Oh, boy. “

GTR: That’s some nice money.

WI: I forgot how much they used to pay.

GTR: Someone said, like, $250 a week. Does that sound right?

WI: Probably, yeah.

GTR: So your coach, was he much older, or was he just a little bit?

WI: Yeah, he was in the Second World War, so he probably was -- five, six -- oh, God, he must have been 10 years older than I was. Jack, yeah.

GTR: Interesting. OK. So then did you graduate from Central?

WI: Yeah, in 1950.

GTR: Did you think when you joined the Reserves that you would ever get sent anywhere?

WI: No. We didn’t know. We were only kids, you know?

GTR: So how did that happen, then? How did you find out? What did you think?

WI: Well, when the Reserve was activated, then we went to Pendleton. We were placed in three different groups, combat-ready, two weeks’ training, and boot camp. I got two weeks’ training.

GTR: OK. Had you had some, like, summer camps in the Reserve, or not?

WI: Well, yeah, I guess we -- I think went to -- no, I think it was just down to Park Point down there that we went.

GTR: So you’re one of those Marines that never went to boot camp, right? You never went to boot camp?

WI: No, I never went to boot camp. But see, some of them then were all different classified. If you went to more meetings, you got combat-ready.

GTR: So what was the feeling? Were you in that group marching down Superior Street?

WI: Yeah. I got a picture.

GTR: How did people feel about that? Were people excited or worried? Oh, wow. Lots of pictures. Yeah. I’ve seen that picture. This is the one on the monument, right? On the memorial?

WI: Yeah. I think it is, yeah.

GTR: Downtown? Yeah. So you have a few more, huh?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: Oh, that’s on the boat? OK. Did you have -- so, were your parents there? I mean, you weren’t married or anything by that point, were you?

WI: No.

GTR: Did you remember saying good-bye to people?

WI: Well, we went down to the Depot down there. Right here. We got on the train, and we went to Pendleton. That’s when we were classified in different groups. Then we went -- from San Diego we went to Japan, and from Japan we went to -- is it Wonsan? I think it was Wonsan, Korea.

GTR: That sounds familiar.

WI: And then from then on we just went on different patrols and stuff, until we went up the Chosin.

GTR: You were there?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: What company?

WI: Fox Company.

GTR: You were in Fox Company?

WI: Fox Company. The 5th Marines. We were all separated. We went to Wonsan, and everybody went -- we were first replacement draft. That’s what they called it. So we went to different -- all of us. Of course it was -- four of us were in one company, Fox Company from Duluth here.

GTR: Before it started out. You were Fox Company?

WI: Yeah. The 5th Marines, yeah.

GTR: Wow. That was quite an experience. Tell me a little bit about the Reservoir, and the experience there.

WI: Well, we had Thanksgiving dinner, as I remember, and then we headed up with -- trucks brought us up to the Chosin, around the Chosin there. And then they hit us. They wanted us to surrender. And I forget. Within the next few weeks, we took over the front from the 7th, and we were upstream by the Yalu River, and then all of a sudden we went the other way, coming back. We were the rear guard, coming back. Every day we climbed the hill to protect the convoy down below. And of course they hit us every night. I counted five or 600 a night, maybe more. But they’d always come at night. They played a bugle for retreat and a bugle for attack. If it wasn’t for those Corsairs, we wouldn’t be here now. They saved our butt, because we’d throw a flare out there, and what they made a mistake was, they were shoulder to shoulder. Not like us. We’d disperse. So anyway. Oh, every night there for I don’t know how many nights, and we piled them up in front with the help of the Corsairs.

GTR: Then you were -- so you were the rear, as people were retreating?

WI: We were the rear guard, yeah.

GTR: As the retreat. But you had been holding -- the Fox Company, from what I have read -- I’m still learning a little bit, but you were holding back?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: At the top --

WI: Right. And then what they would do when we were retreating, they’d keep us awake all night by yelling and making all kinds of noise, because they didn’t want to push us right then, but going out they did. They wanted to close it because they wanted us to surrender, see. So anyway, we walked out behind 65 miles of vehicles of our own. They were along the side of the road. I remember one Chinese, he was in the middle of the road. He was about an inch in diameter-- flattened out. He had a hat and everything on. Mittens, everything. I shouldn’t tell you these things.

GTR: No, that’s OK. That’s what we want to try to -- if there’s anything that needs recording that hasn’t been yet.

WI: Of course, I don’t know if I should tell you this scene, but they overran the machine gunners one night next to us, so the lieutenant come and got me, and he wanted me to go with them over there. So we went over there, and on the way over there was a big Mongolian. Big head, shoulders, you know, sitting up in one of the trenches that they must have dug that summer or something, and he was holding his intestines in his arms. Of course I don’t know if I should -- but the lieutenant went behind him and whacked him, and he was floored. And all them intestines came out, and he was laying inside -- on top of them, like he was being cooked or something, because it was 20 below.

GTR: “Test things”? You said “test things”?

WI: Intestines came out.

GTR: Oh, intestines. OK. I understand.

WI: He was holding them, see. Well, then the lieutenant told me to go down and get his ID. He had his eyes shut. So I went down to get his ID, and he opened his eyes. I jumped! He was older. He was a Second World War guy, so he knew -- I was just a kid. I guess that’s one of the scenes I’ll never forget.

GTR: Right. Did you sleep some, or how did you guys get through those days?

WI: Well, over 50% -- 100% watch sometimes. We were the rear guard. One night it snowed. We crawled in our parkas with our boots everything on. Snow, everything. There was mummy bags that were really warm. You woke up, and you couldn’t see anybody. But you could see little puffs of steam coming out where they were covered with snow. It was crazy.

GTR: Did you end up with any frostbite injuries?

WI: Feet, yeah.

GTR: It sounds like it was brutal.

WI: Yeah. I got disability for feet.

GTR: What were you eating?

WI: Well, you know, they parachuted us a lot of stuff, canned goods and everything. A lot of the stuff went to the enemy too, because they couldn’t control that. So we were eating whatever we come across. I can’t recall so much, but we’d get it before it was frozen. I can’t remember. So anyway. Then we walked all the way down to Hungnam, was it? I think it was Hungnam where they evacuated us to Pusan. Then we stayed at Pusan for a while after getting out. Exactly how long -- then we went out on patrols and stuff.

GTR: Because you were up -- in the Chosin, you would have been there for a month without any relief? Was that true? Out there, no showers?

WI: Oh, yeah. Yeah. No nothing.

GTR: Nothing. Hardly any food, it sounds like. It’s amazing.

WI: Yeah. Oh, boy.

GTR: And how do you think you survived in that situation?

WI: Well, I wasn’t going to let my feet freeze, so I kept wiggling my toes to keep the blood -- and of course we had rubber (shoe)pacs. When you walked down the road, your feet would sweat. And then when you went up there and laid in the snow bank -- you know what I mean? Then they’d freeze. We had to keep going. Of course I was hit a couple of times on the patrols after I got -- after Pusan. So the dates and everything are in here.

GTR: Injured. So how -- did you end up being evacuated, ever, or did you just have to --

WI: They flew us to Japan. That’s where I met Leroy. Here’s Jerry Caldwell. He never came back with us. And there’s Leroy Hintsa, and this is Don Kjellman, and that’s me.

GTR: Where is this -- this is a copy. Where would this picture come from? Who had that, or how did you get that picture?

WI: This is going to Korea, I think.

GTR: This looks like a lot of good work. You said your wife put this together?

WI: Yeah, before she -- quite a few. The Walker, see. That was the troop ship we went over on. And there’s Leroy.

GTR: Yeah. You showed that picture.

WI: I met him in Japan, and he [was ill with jaundice?], so he went up and asked the sergeant if he could go home with me, and the guy says, “Oh, sure.” Then I went to Bayonne, New Jersey. Here’s all the -- [it’s got the days?] there.

GTR: Yeah. Leroy had a picture. He had a copy of the newspaper that was from San Diego saying that you came back.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: Were you getting mail at that time, or what do you think people back home knew?

WI: Well, you see, they used to smoke opium before they used to hit us, and they had a whole parka full of these silver pipes that they used to smoke from. But walking out of there, I had three different weapons and a pocket full of letters and a pocket full of pipes. The pipes had to go. I should have kept one or two, but I didn’t. Here’s walking out, some other pictures. The 5th and 7th.

GTR: So she tracked these down from various places?

WI: Yeah. Here’s some more.

GTR: When did you meet her? Did you tell her much when you first came back?

WI: Oh, I met her in 11th grade.

GTR: OK. Did you write back and forth while you were in Korea?

WI: Oh, yeah. Well, I didn’t write much, but she --

GTR: She would write?

WI: I would get these envelopes all at once. See, here is (inaudible).

GTR: But you married after the war?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: Oh, wow.

WI: That’s after I first got hit (referring to telegram).

GTR: That was to your parents?

WI: That was to my parents, yeah.

GTR: Wow.

WI: I think this is the second time I got hit. So then I got out. They sent me home. I beat the rotation by a month.

GTR: How long were you in the hospital ships?

WI: I went back there for a couple of weeks. The ship wasn’t that --

GTR: So you have the Purple Heart and some others?

WI: Two Purple Hearts, yeah. Here’s Leroy. No, I forget that guy’s name.

GTR: Yeah, it says, Walton, question mark.

WI: I forgot that guy. He was over in Japan. Here’s Basil.

GTR: Who was that?

WI: From New York. He was with us.

GTR: Just a friend?

WI: Well, my friend Paul Brown had a little camera, and he was taking some pictures. I don’t know if we could show them to people.

GTR: Well, is that where some of those came from?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: There’s some pictures there of you going across on the ship?

WI: Yeah. But he only sent me one. I had guys calling me asking me if he had some more pictures, because we had some -- oh, boy, I tell you. 1950.

GTR: That’s quite a comprehensive book.

WI: She had everything in detail here.

GTR: I wonder if Dan Hartman, with the archives here, I wonder if he has a copy of anything like those telegrams. He might be interested in something like that.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: I’m just doing the interview time. I won’t necessarily take materials, but you should talk to him about that.

WI: Yeah. Here’s the Walker. See the waves? The captain says, “Most ships go down in this kind of weather.” Everybody was sick. The screws in the boat would come out of the water all the time. It would vibrate the whole ship.

GTR: Who was taking those pictures? Where did you get those?

WI: I don’t know where the heck I got them. I think Brown maybe took them.

GTR: Yuck. Were you training -- like, were you kind of trying to get prepared while you were on the ship, even though you were sick?

WI: Well, for a while we did, but everybody was so sick they didn’t do it until the storm was over.

GTR: Wow. And how long did that take, to be on the troop ship from San Diego to --

WI: I’d say a week.

GTR: OK.

WI: I think a week, yeah. Here’s more of the pictures. Here’s walking out, the [coterie?]. That was at boot camp, Pendleton.

GTR: OK, training there. Do you have children that you shared this information with?

WI: Well, my wife took and -- before she passed away, made a book. I had five kids. She gave each one of the kids a copy of the book. That was -- I didn’t know what it was until now.

GTR: Did any of your children go into the military?

WI: No.

GTR: So how did you feel about -- when you were there, did you feel like you were doing good work, or did you just think, “What are we doing here?”

WI: Well, they would hit us all the time. We’d do patrols. We’d have a plane with us. But we didn’t meet too much resistance doing that. It was coming out of Chosin that we hit all the -- you know. But they were older Chinese, Mongolians. They had Thompsons(?) from the Second World War, and they were all doped up.

GTR: Oh. I didn’t think about that.

WI: Yeah. They smoked opium. I had pipes. I should have kept a couple, but at that time I didn’t think.

GTR: Someone else told me about garlic? They would smell people coming up on them?

WI: Oh, yes.

GTR: They could smell that?

WI: When we took over -- we went through a schoolyard, and it was terrible. The garlic. That’s why I can’t stand the garlic today. Everything smelled of garlic. There’s my folks when I came home, and my brother here.

GTR: Tell me about coming home. You said you were on -- you were wounded, so you were able to come home?

WI: Well, they send you home after two Purple Hearts. So this is at home here.

GTR: How did it feel to return?

WI: Oh, great.

GTR: That’s good. You were done, glad to be out of there?

WI: Yeah. This is Fox Company.

GTR: Oh, wow. Who’s that? Nice. That’s good. Did you feel -- was there a good reception?

WI: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We were in the newspaper here. That’s me here.

GTR: Let me see. An invitation. There was a Marine Corps Birthday Ball at the Covenant Club. Warren Grassinger?

WI: Yeah, Jerry Grassinger. That’s his name.

GTR: Warren [Kirsch?]?

WI: [Kruscha?]. No, Kirsch. Warren Kirsch.

GTR: Kirsch, and Corporal Walter Iverson.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: It must have been -- left to right. So you were a corporal? That was your rank at that point?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: What year -- what day was that? That was 1951, later in the year?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: November 1951. “North Koreans are guests at famous 1st Division” (a sarcastic title)

GTR: Oh. Are guests at your -- oh, OK. I understand. I should read that article. That’s an interesting one. November 10th, 1951 (Duluth News Tribune). Interesting.

WI: Well, it was --

GTR: “Celebrate here with (inaudible).” OK. That’s interesting. Sorry. Go ahead.

WI: The biggest Marine museum is down in -- what do I want to say? Out of Virginia there. They had all that stuff from World War II. We went down there.

GTR: And there’s a Korean memorial now.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: Have you been there?

WI: Yeah. I’ve been there a couple of times.

GTR: OK.

WI: Yeah. And there’s me and Ned Hunter. He was the only Texan that lasted with us. The rest of them [froze out?]. Yeah, he’s gone. He passed away last year. I don’t know who these guys are. I can’t remember.

GTR: He looks familiar. I’m trying to think if I’ve interviewed him. Not in this group in Duluth.

WI: The only thing I don’t get is -- we never related with that. We had parkas on. Parkas. That’s all we had. And these capes? I don’t know where they got that. The only thing, you can tell the Marines because they had leggings on the bottom.

GTR: OK.

WI: And you go up there, you’ll see two of them with leggings on. That was representing the Marines. So I says, “I don’t know where they got that design.”

GTR: Interesting.

WI: Well, that was -- we went out there to Washington.

GTR: Washington? And there’s the Chosin Few memorial.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: Where is that?

WI: Oh, that’s in Texas, Arlington. I think it’s Arlington, Texas, where that memorial is at. I think. I’m pretty sure.

GTR: When did you start meeting with other -- with groups of veterans for these reunions?

WI: Well, what’s-his-name started it.

GTR: Vern? No. Vern Fosberg wrote some things, right?

WI: Vern? Yeah. He was with it. He wrote some things, but he didn’t start it. It was -- oh, God, what’s his name? His wife is still around. He’s passed away.

GTR: I’m not sure. Someone might have told me once upon a time. I can’t remember. But did they start way back in, like, the ’50s or ’60s?

WI: Oh, I’m not sure.

GTR: Nice. That’s very nice. I’m curious about that telegram, just the original telegram, if you don’t mind. I’ve seen that. She has that in there. Yeah.

WI: I got hit with two grenades and a mortar.

GTR: You ended up with other permanent disabilities, or just the frostbite is the main one?

WI: No. I got a piece of shrapnel right in the eye, right there. And then the legs, of course.

GTR: I can’t imagine getting one of these as your parents.

WI: Oh, my parents, yeah. They got two.

GTR: “Natures of wounds not reported,” and, oh, just to not know. Is that more -- no, that’s the same one. I want to take a picture of that, maybe, if we could later. So what do you think -- what role did the reunions play for you?

WI: Oh, I’d get together with the guys, see them. McKeever. Ed McKeever. He’s the one that started it. Ed McKeever, and his wife, LaVeryn. Yeah. He lost one son in Vietnam, and the other one dove off the diving board at Pike Lake and broke his neck and was paralyzed from the neck down, I think it was. And I remember when we left, she held them two little babies when the train left, in her arms. Never knew --

GTR: I can’t imagine.

WI: Yeah. Ed McKeever.

GTR: Didn’t know what they were getting into. Duane Booker told me that too. Because you hadn’t even heard anything about Korea much, right, when you left?

WI: Oh, I never -- you know what I mean.

GTR: You didn’t know what to expect.

WI: A police action, that’s what Truman called it.

GTR: Didn’t quite know.

WI: It never worked. But we didn’t know. We were just infantrymen, you know.

GTR: You just do it.

WI: You just did what you were told, that’s all.

GTR: And so then you got back. Did you ever end up in Reserves again, or did you go into the military when you were done?

WI: No.

GTR: What did you do?

WI: When I come back, I was stationed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, then I was transferred to Bayonne, New Jersey.

GTR: And you came back. Then what did you do later when you got back?

WI: Well, then I worked for the power company for a year, but I was out of town every day, and I had just gotten married and gotten home, so I quit, and I went to [Kelly Hough Thompson?].

GTR: Where? Kelly?

WI: Kelly Hough Thompson. It was a warehouse in town.

GTR: OK.

WI: And then I took an apprenticeship in [Tell City?], and that’s where I ended up, in the building trades.

GTR: Do you think your experience in Korea had anything to do with your -- well, how did it affect your later interpersonal life or anything?

WI: Not really. It just -- you realized you’re lucky. That’s what I mean. You’re lucky. Because we lost one whole platoon. Just a [running?] lieutenant got out. There was a hill up above us when they came, and not a shot fired. In our company, Fox Company, we had three platoons, and one disappeared except for the running lieutenant. We tried to retrieve them, but they called us to leave. We were trying to retrieve them, but we couldn’t. There were so many. Yeah. But see, they never hit us during the day, because they had assault -- you know, like, machine guns and stuff. They were no good in the daytime compared to our rifles with bars and stuff.

GTR: So did you sleep during the day then?

WI: Well, no. We just --

GTR: When did you ever sleep?

WI: We had 50%, 100% watch, and we put the sleeping bag up to here to keep our feet warm.

GTR: Someone, Mr. Morrissey, I think, told me you didn’t want to get stuck because you could get attacked at night, and if you zipped it all the way up, you might get stuck in your sleeping bag?

WI: Oh. Well, yeah, that’s true too. But most of the time we just put the bag -- we had 50, 100% watch. You were young. But climbing them hills every day with all that weight on you. The grenades were the main thing, because a lot of times with that 30 below zero, a Browning Automatic, the mechanism has to go forward to start firing, and that wouldn’t slide. But we were kids. We didn’t know, you know? But we carried a lot of grenades.

GTR: And grenades worked better in the cold?

WI: Yeah. And they don’t give away your position.

GTR: I suppose. Interesting. So you kind of had to learn on -- out in the field. You had to just kind of learn as you went?

WI: Oh, yeah. When they tell you to take the point, two things are going to happen to you. You’re going to get killed or wounded. You know that.

GTR: The group that left Duluth had such heavy casualties.

WI: Oh, yeah. I think there was 10 killed, and -- oh, God.

GTR: Anyone you knew?

WI: Two or three -- 200 were wounded.

GTR: Anyone you knew from Duluth?

WI: Well, Gerry Caldwell. He went over there on the boat. His picture is in the book there. Gerry Caldwell. We don’t know what happened to him yet.

GTR: Really?

WI: They haven’t recovered his body or anything. Of course we had -- I don’t know if it shows there or not.

GTR: My cameras here.

WI: Yeah, Gerry Caldwell. He was a nice-looking kid.

GTR: He was in this one down at the bottom?

WI: Gerry Caldwell. Yeah.

GTR: That’s crazy. The bunks there.

WI: Huh?

GTR: The bunks. I just want to see if I can’t take a picture of this better this way.

WI: He’s got Alzheimer’s bad.

GTR: He’s what?

WI: Got Alzheimer’s.

GTR: Who is that?

WI: That’s Ron Kjellman.

GTR: That’s you?

WI: That’s me, yeah.

GTR: Well, there’s the smaller picture.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: That is wild.

WI: Well, we had -- we always took our dead with us. We’d take a truck, and they’d throw them in the back of the truck. You can’t believe it. Yeah. Of course in the morning, after all these enemies are laying there, they’re like wax. They’re so cold. Everything. It was 30 below. They’d say it was 20. Now they’d say down in the museum it was 30.

GTR: Really?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: I suppose it just feels cold. You don’t know when you’re there. Yeah, that’s -- I can’t imagine.

WI: Anyway. We’d put them in trucks. There’s pictures of them. I thought she had one in here.

GTR: Yeah. I’ve seen in a book somewhere. So then they would get actually shipped -- some people were buried there, but then -- did they all -- most of them get home eventually? How did that work?

WI: I know I walked under the bridge one day, looking for food, and there was -- he looked like he could talk to you. One guy was there, his eyes wide open, and curly hair, froze just like wax. I ran up on the road again. I don’t know what they did. They put them under the bridge. We usually took them with us because we usually had some kind of vehicle there we threw them in and stuff, but the ones that we are missing, I don’t know what ever happened to them.

GTR: That’s too bad.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: That’s hard. Quite an experience that you survived.

WI: But they were -- but towards the end, there was mostly kids, you know what I mean. But the Mongolians, they took a whole province of them and just moved them in there. There were older guys. But I’ll never forget their heads and their shoulders.

GTR: And maybe better trained than some of the younger ones?

WI: I don’t know if they trained them or not. I don’t know.

GTR: Well, they seemed -- they were more formidable enemies?

WI: They executed their Chinese general after that, you know?

GTR: Oh, really?

WI: Yeah. Because he didn’t --

GTR: Yeah. I should learn. So it sounds like it was a bit of a surprise to meet all that. Did you feel, like, frustrated with the government that you weren’t being supported better?

WI: Well, the one thing that burnt me up: Truman at the time says, “The Marines are the police force of the Navy.” That burned me up.

GTR: You didn’t want to be the police force?

WI: Well, the police force of the Navy? Come on.

GTR: Oh, of the Navy. Yeah. What is it about Marines? Dan Hartman says this group, Marines, seem to age well. So what is it about being a Marine that might have helped people in life?

WI: I don’t know. A Marine will always help a Marine, no matter what. It’s always been kind of that way.

GTR: Right.

WI: Or he bums money. I remember one guy bummed money off of me. He was probably drinking it, but what are you going to do?

GTR: And then stick together later. What do you think veterans coming home today, what do you think -- would you have any advice for them?

WI: Well, I don’t know why they kept sending them over there. That’s the part that bugs me. How could you send over for two or three times? And they’ve got the highest suicide rate now. I never heard of anybody committing suicide, you know? So I don’t understand it. And now they say they’re going to put women in there, you know what I mean? Some women could maybe hack it, but our conditions? Oh, my God. Put 18-year-old guys and 18-year-old women together? That wouldn’t be good, would it?

GTR: Interesting.

WI: I don’t know. Things have changed so much that I don’t know.

GTR: Yeah. They’re different. So it sounds like you weren’t necessarily -- did you feel -- people say it’s the “forgotten war.” As a veteran coming back, did you feel sort of forgotten because it wasn’t the same welcome?

WI: Well, that wasn’t out yet, you know what I mean?

GTR: It looks like there was a little welcome.

WI: We were just lucky to be alive, you know?

GTR: Right.

WI: And when you think of the close shaves you’ve had. But we lost quite a few guys. And then they’d send the replacement up there. Yeah. I think one of our guys got to be a prisoner of war. I’m trying to think of his name too. He just passed away here not too long ago.

GTR: That’s why we want to talk to people before we lose them all.

WI: He was sleeping in a sleeping bag and didn’t hear the enemy coming, and they dragged him with the sleeping bag on, and that was it.

GTR: And he was held for a while, but obviously got home?

WI: I think he was in the 7th Marines. I think that’s where he was. What the heck was his -- that’s one thing I can’t remember.

GTR: That’s OK. We can look it up. We’re just curious of your stories. So you were Fox Company, 5th Marines?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: I’m still learning about all the designations. So there’s the battalion. There’s the --

WI: Yeah. In a company, there’s usually three platoons in a company. In a company there’s three fireteams, consisting of four members of the fireteam, and then they’d have a lieutenant or something that in charge of the fireteam.

GTR: What battalion were you, then, in the Fox Company? You were Fox Company, 5th Marines, but battalion or fire --

WI: Oh. The 5th Marine division, I think it was. I believe it was.

GTR: Was there a battalion name, numbers?

WI: No.

GTR: Just Fox Company.

WI: There were companies.

GTR: OK.

WI: Yeah, there was battalions. It was the 5th Marines.

GTR: Oh, it was the 5th Marines. Sorry. Forgive me. I don’t know a lot. I’m still learning about the military designations. OK. Great. Well, thank you. Any other things that I didn’t ask, or anything that you’d want to --

WI: Well, I guess Leroy Lilly and I, and Jerry Caldwell carved our initials on the railing of the General T. Walker, not knowing that one of us wasn’t going to come home.

GTR: I wonder if they’re still there.

WI: Leroy Lilly, he lives -- he’s down in Minneapolis, I think.

GTR: Great. Well, I might take a picture or two of this. Can I take a picture of you too, here? Let’s see if I can try and put my camera back up. Oh, come on, camera. Nothing high-tech here today. I can do it with this camera for a minute. We’ve got funny cameras here. I don’t know for sure if Dan is here --

WI: Hartman?

GTR: Yeah. I don’t know if you’d be interested in showing this to him or leaving him any parts of that or anything. I don’t know. We could ask him. Thank you. And then this one -- this camera is better, if I can get it to turn on. Come on, camera. There it is. Thank you. Your book, there. Thank you. And then where was that? All right. Let’s see. Is there anything else in here maybe that we --

WI: It’s down a little bit farther, I think.

GTR: Your Purple Heart? There was some -- the boat -- I hadn’t seen pictures of that, the storm and the waves and the boat.

WI: Oh, yeah. That was me on the General T. Walker.

GTR: That’s you on the General Walker? And then the storm. Oh, yeah. There’s the waves. I’ll take that too, maybe. All right. It’s just easier this way. Someone could scan it at some point. Where was that one about the ball? That surprised me. I didn’t think that there was these kind of -- oh, there we go. So they were just being sarcastic here about the party. But then they did have a party here, it sounds like.

WI: They had kind of a club.

GTR: Yeah.

WI: The Chosin Few Club here for women and stuff.

GTR: Right. Were the women -- oh, it was the founding of the Corps, the anniversary of the founding of the Corps there.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: Armistice Day. So there was still people in Korea at that point. Interesting. There’s a copy of the picture.

WI: Yeah.

GTR: That was in the paper. All right. Well, thank you. So there was a little bit -- I haven’t looked through the Duluth paper to see how much coverage was there in Duluth, but it looks like you have a bit here. I keep hitting the wrong button. Somebody could scan, I suppose, at one point. Who was that? Why was there a woman in front? That was when you were marching down the street? There was a woman there?

WI: Right here, you mean?

GTR: Yeah. It looks like she’s marching with you.

WI: Oh. She was a BAM. A woman Marine.

GTR: Oh. There were some from Duluth?

WI: I don’t know where she --

GTR: I would be really curious, actually, to talk to some women who had been involved. So there was no band. I heard somebody said that you guys were just marching?

WI: I don’t know. We were in Bayonne, New Jersey. Of course we were the guard of the gates. And we had to take and chaperon women over to Brooklyn with the payroll stuff. And she was about 6’5”, and we looked like a couple of kids while we were chaperoning her.

GTR: Wow.

WI: The BAMs were always big.

GTR: Really? But I didn’t know that there were any from Duluth. What did they do?

WI: Well, they’d do a lot of office work, you know, like, they booked payroll all that stuff.

GTR: When did your wife pass away?

WI: In 2002.

GTR: I’m sorry to hear that.

WI: Cancer, you know.

GTR: She liked to do genealogy? She did this kind of book? Did she like genealogy?

WI: Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention to it. She just kept all these notes, all the stuff. Now that I think of it, it was a pretty good thing she did that.

GTR: This is a nice book. Yeah. It looks like it has a really good binder -- pieces to keep it nice, and all that. My mother-in-law does some of that.

WI: Oh, does she?

GTR: Yeah.

WI: She gave it to all the kids.

GTR: Yeah. That’s great. Well, I can give you a copy, too, of this, if you want any more recording, and we could share that with the kids or grandkids if you want.

WI: Sure.

GTR: It will take me a little while to make a copy, and that will be on CD that you can put in a CD player. And then we’ll type it all up, and then that will be in the archives here, but then people could have that too. Because sometimes -- I mean, it’s nice to have the audio, but people don’t always sit down and listen for an hour and a half. People like to flip through things more. But this is great. So did your children ever ask you things or wonder about the military?

WI: Yeah. Of course, one of my daughters has passed away now, at 52.

GTR: It’s interesting that your wife at least wanted to share all of this with your kids.

WI: Yeah. It was pretty good.

GTR: So they know more about it than a lot of the children, it sounds like.

WI: Yeah. She got all the dates of everything in there, the things that happened. Where does the writing start?

GTR: I don’t know. I haven’t seen a whole lot of narration. There’s this.

WI: Yeah. And then there’s --

GTR: You have the little blurb there. It looks like she might have gone to the library or something, to get all that, some of that stuff.

WI: Yeah. Some of it.

GTR: Some articles there. Who wrote this one?

WI: Here’s a bunch of -- here it is. Started here, I think. Did it start there? Yeah.

GTR: OK. Yeah, that’s just a little bit that’s kind of mixed in, maybe. There’s the -- I’ll take a picture of this, of the Walker. Come on, camera, wake up. You even have your notes from the hospital?

WI: Yeah.

GTR: The 1st Medical Battalion?

WI: Yeah. One time when I was going back to the field -- they had a field hospital behind us. I was [walking through our camp?]. I had a piece go through my toe, too. I was walking back there. Out jumps a Chinaman, and he says in English, “I surrender.” I didn’t have a weapon, because I gave mine to Ron, because he got hit at the same time I did. He threw his weapon down. Of course there was a big cliff, rocks and stuff. So I gave him mine, so I didn’t even have a weapon. I went back there, and Don Kjellman met me there, and he said, “Where’d you get that guy?” I said, “He jumped over the rock.” Isn’t that crazy?

GTR: Yeah. What did you guys do with them, then?

WI: I gave him to the handler. I don’t know what they did with them. I went to --

GTR: You took some prisoners? There were some prisoners? You had prisoners also?

WI: Oh, yeah. We had a few, yeah.

GTR: Interesting. Lucky thing, I guess, right?

WI: Yeah. Wasn’t that crazy? He was eyeballing me, seeing I didn’t have a weapon on me. I just had a stick to walk with.

GTR: But he had a weapon?

WI: No. He just says, “I surrender.” English.

GTR: He didn’t have one, either.

WI: Just kind of shocked. I said, “Get going.” A lot of crazy things happened.

GTR: Yeah. It does sound like it. And you never know why some turned out well and some didn’t. It’s crazy.

WI: I know it.

GTR: Well, thank you much for sharing this, definitely, and sharing all the stories.

WI: OK.

END OF AUDIO FILE

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