Reminiscence of a Forgotten War

Chapter 8 - Combat Infantry Duty with 40th Division, March, 1952

A big event occurred when Betty Hutton arrived at the Division rear area for a USO (United Service Organization) show.  E Company sent 20 men back to enjoy the show.  The officers had to remain at our post, but one man in my platoon, a machine gunner named Tettro, had been a holdover from the 24^th Division and had been here since December 9th, and I sent him back for the USO show. 

One of our main missions was to support the artillery forward observer, Lieutenant Gene Aldrich from Oklahoma City, who would direct the fire of most of the division artillery.  He would sit in his OP watching the Chinese walking down a trail some 3,000 yards away, would zero his artillery to where he estimated they were going to be in the next 10 minutes, and arrange an artillery barrage timed on the spot just as they arrived.  He had been on the Hill (400) 45 days and had been very effective in breaking up Chinese work parties and patrols and killing a lot of Chinese.  He told me that one day he was looking out with his binoculars and saw a Chinese soldier looking back at him with binoculars.  He waved but the Chinaman did not wave back, so he fired a few rounds at him, which was not very courteous but this was war.   

My platoon had so many Mexican-Americans that I acquired an accent.  My platoon CP (command post) always had Pedro or Ferrarro Gonzales, Pedro Venturo, or Modesto Muerrittio sitting around talking about the “good old days” in Southern California.  They were good soldiers and I got along well with them.  One day the Gonzales brothers were stringing trip wires for white phosphorous grenade booby traps when I heard the burst and saw the fiery cascade of a white phosphorous grenade exploding.  I ran out the trail to where the brothers were, expecting to find one or both of them writhing in pain with white phosphorous burns over their entire body, only to find them rolling on the ground whooping in laughter.  It seems they had accidentally tripped one of the grenades and when they heard the fuse ignite, they ran as fast as they could until it exploded, and one dove on top of the other to protect him from the white phosphorous particles.  Fortunately, they had on so many heavy winter clothes that the searing white phosphorous burned through three or four layers of clothing, but died out before it touched their bodies.  They were both howling with laughter and thought this was one of the funniest things that ever happened to them.  I was not as amused, but was relieved they were not injured. 

A great deal of time was spent speculating about the truce talks in progress at Panmunjom.  The status of the truce talks had a direct bearing on the demeanor of the Chinese forces.  If the truce talks were proceeding according to the Communist plan, there would be very little activity at the front unless we started an attack or major artillery barrage.  If, however, the talks were not going well, the Chinese would stage battalion-sized attacks on likely positions not expecting to hold them, but merely to inflict casualties and inflict havoc in our lines.  This created an intense interest among the troops in the progress of the peace talks.  What happened in Panmunjom affected our lives and we anxiously read The Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper, and listened to Armed Forces Radio on short-wave receivers in order to pick up the latest news. 

On March 11^th, we were out blasting new trenches in the frozen ground, which was finally beginning to thaw out.  It was a funny war when you could stand out in plain view of a vast array of Chinese positions, containing hundreds of concealed Chinese soldiers, and they would never fire back, but if we fired one round in their direction they answered us with a fusillade of fire.  Our artillery fired over the main line into the rear areas all day and all night, and no matter what we seemed to destroy with the artillery fire, in a few days time the Chinese had rebuilt it and it seemed like no damage was ever inflicted.  They were much more industrious in their entrenching than the American forces. 

One of our platoon sergeants invented a weapon he deployed as a massive sniper weapon.  He took a 50-caliber machine gun and built a special tripod, and mounted a 20-power artillery observer’s telescope on the gun.  He modified the action so it only fired a single shot.  A 50-caliber machine gun bullet will travel over two miles, and he had mounted this sniper device in the Company OP where he was attempting to pick off Chinese soldiers.  To my knowledge, he never made a direct hit but he broke up a lot of work parties with his fire. 

I made my first patrol into Chinese territory when we took the 3rd Platoon about 1,000 yards in front of the Hill to set up an ambush for Chinese patrols that had been coming close