Saturday, July 27th 2024 is Korean War Veterans Armistice Day.
Saturday marks 71 years since the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement. This agreement ended three years of fighting on the Korean Peninsula and joined the nation and world in honoring those who served, fought, and died during the Korean War. The armistice established the DMZ, put into force a cease-fire, and finalized the repatriation of POWs who wished to be repatriated.
This Korean War Veterans Armistice Day the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center would like to share a first-person retelling of their military experience in the Korean War by Cumberland Wisconsin native Stanley Smith. Please note the 2 photos in this post are from our Korean War collection but are not from Stanley Smith.
My full name is Stanley Bruce Smith. I was born January 15, 1929 in Cumberland Wisconsin in what is now called “the old hospital” located at 1655 3rd Avenue. It was a private home converted into a hospital in 1918, and then, when the new hospital was built in 1955 it was converted back into a private home.
The date is February 25, 1995 and I am 66 years old so my memory isn’t the best (I wish I would have done this 25 years ago) so some of the dates may be wrong, but they will be close and some of the other facts may not be exactly true, but again they will be pretty close to the truth.
I enlisted in the army on September 11, 1950. I requested the infantry because my father was in the U.S. Army Infantry in Europe during World War I, he was a cook, and my brother was in the U.S. Army Infantry in Europe during World War II, he was a B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifle) man and I wanted to follow in their footsteps.
In trying to recall my time spent in the army I’m using papers I’ve saved such as military orders and records, but mostly I’m relying on some of my letters to Dorothy that she had saved.
There seems to be some conflict in dates when I try to put this together but this would be due to the fact that most of the time we didn’t know what the date was.
I enlisted in the army on September 11, 1950 in Rice Lake, Wisconsin. They sent me by bus to Minneapolis where I had my physical and was sworn in. They then shipped me to Fort Riley, Kansas where I had my basic training from September 11 thru November 14, 1950. I was with Company G, 86th Infantry Regiment, 10th Infantry Division.
From Fort Riley I was shipped to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland for training in Ordinance Supply from November 15 thru December 29, 1950.
After we finished our ordinance supply training half of our company was shipped to Korea and the other half stayed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds as Cadre, I was in the latter half. We were still buck privates but were given the rank of (Acting Corporal) we wore the stripes but were still paid as privates.
Our job was to give new recruits their basic infantry training. My first job was to give classes on the M1 Garand rifle. Later I was given the job of Permanent Detail N.C.O. (Non-commissioned officer). My job was to take out work details and set up permanent outdoor class sites. There would be a permanent site for each class being taught, such as how to break down and reassemble the 30 cal. machine-gun, M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, M2 Carbine, B.A.R. (Browning Automatic Rifle), Bazooka and Recoilless Rifle, bayonet drills and how to use the different kinds of hand grenades and other weapons.
I kept requesting active duty (Korea) but was turned down each time. When I finally did get my shipping orders, around the first of September 1951, somebody had written on them in BIG letters “WHY?”. I don’t know if it referred to me for requesting active duty or why I was turned down so many times.
I was shipped to Fort Lawton in Washington State, then to Pier 91, where we boarded the “Joe P. Martinez”.
This was really some trip; we were packed in like sardines. Most of the men were seasick, the lower decks and gangways were so slick from vomit you could hardly stand up on them. I felt terrible most of the time, I didn’t get sick enough to vomit but I felt like I had a terrible hangover all the time, so I stayed on the open deck as much as possible.
When we pulled out of the harbor from Seattle they had some kind of engine trouble so they dropped anchor just outside the harbor and did some repairs. Then just as we were approaching Hawaii they had more engine trouble and had to pull into Hawaii for repairs. They let us go ashore for six hours.
We then went on to Yokohoma, Japan, where we unloaded for a few hours and then boarded the same ship and went on to Inchon, Korea, where we were assigned to our new units.
I was assigned to the 3rd Squad, 3rd Platoon, Company E, of the 5th R.C.T. (Regimental Combat Team), this was what they called a Bastard outfit, meaning it didn’t belong to any Army Division, and it was sent to any Division that needed temporary reinforcements or replacements. I don’t remember which Divisions we were attached to but I do know that we were with the 24th and the 25th for awhile.
I went out on my first patrol around November 10, 1951, and had my first combat action around the 12th of November 1951.
We spent a lot of time stringing barbed wire and digging trenches and building up our positions with sand bags.
In Korea, and I think as in all the previous wars and since, you spend most of the time waiting, watching, listening and hoping and praying that nothing will happen.
The 5th R.C.T. was noted for their nighttime ambush patrols as this would greatly curb the nighttime activity of the enemy.
I didn’t know where in Korea we were most of the time but according to my military records we were near a place called Kumsong the night I was wounded.
One night around the 18th of November 1951, our squad went out on an ambush patrol and our squad leader screwed up and didn’t set up the ambush where he was suppose to and when we engaged an enemy patrol in a fight, our own” F.O. (Forward Observer) could see where we were at, so they sent us out on patrol again the next night. We again engaged an enemy patrol in a firefight and I received a gunshot wound entering at the base of the neck on the front left side and exiting in the middle of the right shoulder blade.
We were told not to cry out if you were wounded as they didn’t want the enemy to know that they had inflicted any damages. Well the enemy didn’t hear me cry out but it wasn’t because I didn’t try too. I must have been knocked out or stunned for a short period of time, I don’t know for sure, but when I regained my senses enough to realize that I had been hit I was afraid the squad might pull back to a new position and I would be left so I tried to call out but I couldn’t make a sound, so I crawled back to the nearest man and told him I had been hit. He then told the squad leader, who had the radio bearer help me get back to our unit.
The fellow that carried our radio (he was a 16 year old North Korean who hated the Chinese) helped me walk back to a squad sized outpost where a medic met me and dressed my wounds, put me on a stretcher and had me carried to the company sized outpost where I spent the night because the Chinese and North Koreans were all around the outpost, but come morning they had pulled out and I was able to walk to a field hospital where I spent a few days (including Thanksgiving day). They then put me in an ambulance and took me back to a hospital train which then took us to Puson, where we were admitted to the 22nd Evacuation Hospital. This was around the 25th of November 1951.
One of the doctors at the hospital told me that if the bullet had been just a fraction of an inch either way I would have had it, as the bullet had just missed the jugular vein in front and the spinal column in back.
I had surgery on my shoulder around the 28th of November. They removed some small bone chips from the right shoulder blade. I had physical therapy every day to regain the use of my arms.
The Red Cross served coffee and doughnuts every day all day- boy did I pig out.
Left the hospital around the 11th of December 1951, and arrived back with the 5th R.C.T. around the 17th of December 1951, but with the 2nd Squad in the 3rd Platoon of Easy Company 2nd Battalion.
Christmas day, 1951, we spent all day on a company-size probing attack feeling out the strength of the enemy. We captured one Chinese soldier that we figured had been sleeping when his buddies bugged out.
During the holidays the Chinese and North Koreans used loudspeakers to play Christmas music to us and between songs they had American P.O.W.’s talk over the loudspeakers to tell us how nice they were being treated and that we should surrender. They also used airburst shells to drop propaganda leaflets and Christmas cards telling us why we should surrender.
Around the middle of January 1952, I was sent back to a rear echelon area to train on the use of the snooper scope. It was a special scope for night vision. It was mounted on a carbine and had a cable attached to a wet cell battery that was carried on your back. Objects appeared as green silhouettes.
When I got back to the unit they just about ran me to death. Whenever anybody thought they heard something in front of their position they would call for the snooper scope and I would have to go take a look. It was scary because I had to rise up above the trenches to get a good look and I always figured I would have made a pretty good target for anybody who might have been out there watching.
The end of January 1952, the 5th R.T.C. went to the rear for a five-day rest (a chance to shower and get clean clothes). I was assigned as Ast. Platoon Sgt. but was still a P.F.C., so I manned the sound power phones from the squads. Then around the 6th of February 1952, I went back to my squad as Ast. Sqd. Leader but was still a P.F.C.
Sometime in the last week of February 1952, the 5th R.T.C. was pulled off the line and sent to Kojedo (an island) to guard a P.O.W. (Prisoner of War) compound.
Around the 9th of March 1952, Sgt. Paul Hart, my squad leader rotated and I became the squad leader (but still a P.F.C.). When they called me into the C.P. (Command Post) to tell me that I was going to take over as squad leader, I told them I didn’t know if I should because I didn’t have much combat experience and what if I would get scared and bug-out? That’s when Paul Hart said “When things get hot you will be so busy you won’t have time to get scared “. He also said that I had always felt that the squad leader had screwed up the night I was wounded; therefore I should take the job and do things the way I thought was right. Then around the middle of March 1952, I was promoted to Corporal.
We were on Kojedo from the last week of February to around the 21st of June 1952.
We went back on line sometime in June 1952.
Then about the middle of July 1952, I was promoted to Sgt. 1st Class. The reason the promotions were so slow in coming was because the National Guard when shipping men to Korea would give them a promotion and then ship them out. So we had too many non coms with no combat experience. When I took over as squad leader I was still a P.F.C. but I had a Cpl. as my Ast. Squad Leader and one of my riflemen was a Sergeant.
My tour of duty was supposed to be ending sometime the latter part of August 1952, I don’t remember the exact date but I do remember that the day before I was to be relieved of duty, I received orders to take my squad out that night on an ambush patrol. That’s when you really get scared that something might happen to you after making it that far, so I went by myself out into what we call “No Man’s Land” during day light hours and picked the place I wanted to position my men. I strung wire from each position so that we could alert each other by jerking on the wire if an enemy patrol was detected. That night as usual we moved out just after dark and moved into position, we were to stay until about one o’clock in the morning, but just about the time we were to pullout I heard what sounded like a rifle butt hitting the ground so I wouldn’t let anybody move till it was almost day light.
When we were back in the trenches I asked if anybody else had heard it but nobody had and nobody would admit that they had dropped their rifle so I’ll never know if it was for real or just my imagination.
I did receive my orders the next day, that I was going home. I was shipped to Inchon, Korea and from there to Camp Mower in Sasabo, Japan, where I spent several days. Then on to San Francisco, from there I went to Camp Carson, Colorado. Where I received my discharge on September 9, 1952.
I was automatically in the army reserves for three years.
There was a large group of us that were all heading east from Camp Carson so we chartered a bus to take us to Minneapolis Minnesota. From there I hitch-hiked back home to Cumberland WI.
On my return, my dad and I operated a Texaco oil station for about six months. Neither one of us liked it so we gave it up. Dad went back to driving an oil truck and I went to work for Nelson’s Hardware.