Meredith Victory, Hungnam, etc.

["M. Katz" <mmkatz@aya.yale.edu>]

    Thanks for the replies to my queries about Hungnam, refugees, etc.  Tom
Hickcox, thanks for offering to send the USAA article.  I actually have it,
courtesy of J. Robert Lunney, one of the Meredith Victory officers
featured in the story -- well-done, I thought.  As I mentioned in an earlier
posting, I've interviewed Lunney and one of his shipmates and they've been
quite helpful.  I also am tracking down crewmen from other craft that carried
refugees or soldiers.
    Sam Kim asked if I can read Korean.  If only!  However, I'm going to
need a translator for some Korean-language materials I've already been promised,
so leads to other accounts in Korean are always welcome.  (I expect to find
language help at one of the local universities.)
     In hopes of jogging memories, here are some musings and questions some
of you might want to address, or pass on to fellow vets.

Koreans' survival
     There are many references to the persistent refugee tail hindering our
convoys down the Chosin/Changjin MSR and in the 8th Army zone, but few details.
 I was wondering about the particulars of how they followed the troops, and
whether their numbers grew as the troops moved south.  Aside from the question
of infiltrators, were they a tactical hazard and why?  
     How did the refugees survive the cold and privations?  If our boots
and snow gear were inadequate, what were theirs like?  When the soldiers
rested at night, where were the Koreans?  Our rations were frozen; what were
they eating?  Was there any interaction between them and the troops?
    Because the U.S. situation was dire, did we try to drive them away or
outrun them?  Did we cover them from enemy fire?  Did they use our equipment,
like the bridge at Funchilin?  (I guess  that bridge was needed expressly
for vehicles, as there was some kind of footpath there ...)
      What was left in Korean towns and villages as we passed through?  I
haven't yet determined to any degree of satisfaction whether any villagers
remained -- and, if so, how they managed -- in the towns at the heart of
the fighting:  Hagaru, Koto, Chinhung-ni, and so on.  From all the accounts
of demolition, it sounds like our policy was "scorched earth," leaving nothing
for the Communists but nothing for the home folks, either.  Did the Chinese
and NKPA pursue the same policy?   Appleman describes the occasional warm
Korean hut east of Chosin during the Faith fight there -- were they stragglers
left behind after villages had emptied out?  What were they living on?  
      Can you recall any vignettes of civilian existence up north, on the
way to the coast, or elsewhere in Korea during that period of the war?

A-Frames, Korean food ...
    How does an A-frame work?  Did UN troops ever adopt this time-honored
Korean device?  Did our ROKs or KATUSAs use them?  Did U.S. soldiers ever
eat Korean food?  Liquor?  Anyone remember any Koreans' encounters with C-rations
and other U.S. vittles?  I gather our cigarettes were a valued commodity.

Shoepacs
     Finally, and this is rather in the way of a "poll," I want to hear opinions
of the renowned Shoepacs.  I'm looking into L.L.Bean's role in their possible
design and supply, and the shoes' apparent relation to the famed Bean "duck
boots" which, for reasons never clear to me, were VERY popular in the carpeted
hallways of a prep school I attended in the late '70s in "rugged" central
New Jersey. 
     George Rasula gives the Shoepac high marks at Chosin but, of course,
he's a Minnesotan descended from Finns and almost alone in his praise for
the singular footwear.  Even some army historians say the rubber bottoms
caused the wearer to sweat, and then allowed the sweat to freeze.  
     That said, the alternative -- thin, leather (?) combat boots with rubber
overshoes -- may have been just as sweaty and colder, at least, as Rasula
would have it.  Was there a better alternative?  What were the warmest boots
on the civilian market at the time?  In other words, what would you have
been wearing in the snow at home?
      [I don't even want to think about the glove situation.  In D.C.
this week, the temperature dipped unaccustomedly merely to the 20s and every
time I stepped outside in my nice, wool-lined leather mitts and still felt
chilled, I thought about those leather "shells" and other inadequate gloves
the men were stuck with as they marched north toward the Yalu and Siberia.
 And the field jackets.  And the summer weight pants (cotton? wool?).  And
the cold metal of the weapons and equipment ...  Do you still think about
it in the cold?]

     Thanks, as usual, for all the good stuff on this exchange.

--Mandy Katz

Tom Hickcox wrote:
>  At 22:33 12/11/02, Mandy Katz wrote:
>   
> > Well, OK, since this list needs some action, 
> > I'll stop lurking and jump in with both feet.  
> >     
> >  I'm writing a history for children and another for adults of the evacuation
> > of Hungnam, December 1950.  The children's book will cover the civilian experience,
> > with particular attention to the semi-miraculous transport of some 14,000
> > Korean refugees aboard a single cargo ship, the Meredith Victory. 
> > The adult book will describe the entire evacuation.
> >     
> >  As I live in Washington, DC, just a few subway stops from the Library of 
> > Congress, I've had no trouble finding published material on my subject. 
> > And I've done a fair job (I think) of scouring the web for related info. 
> > For instance, the "kimsoft" site run by this group's own YSK, is invaluable,
> > as is his memoir.  The Changjin Journal, edited by George Rasula, is another
> > great source.
> >     
> >  Nevertheless, finding details and recollections about the evacuation itself
> > is a challenge.  There's so much out there about Chosin and the long fight
> > down the MSR that material on the evacuation seems paltry by comparison. 
> > (I've read Cowart, Miracle at Hungnam.)  It seems after the ordeal
> > of the MSR, many survivors just passed out the minute they hit the safety
> > of a truck or cot in Hamhung or Hungnam, and remember very little of their
> > time there.  
> >     
>     
>  Mandy,
>     
>  The current issue of USAA Magazine has an article on the voyage of  the
> Meredith Victory.
>     
>  USAA, United Services Automobile Association, is an insurance company that
> caters to armed services members.  It used to be mainly commissioned officers,
> but I think that has changed.
>     
>  I can mail you the article if you sent me your snail mail address.
>     
>  Tommy
>