The Graybeards - Korean War Veterans Association

close they would kill
the prisoners. That
night enemy soldiers
took five of the prisoners
away and the others
did not know what
happened to them.
During a rest stop, the
guards rifled the prisoner’s
pockets, throwing
away what they
didn’t want. PFC
Benjamin
knew Rudd could
speak some Japanese. He asked Rudd to
get his fiancée’s picture back from the
guards. Rudd asked a guard, who picked
up the picture and put it in Bristow’s shirt
pocket.
Several other prisoners asked Rudd to
talk to the guard about allowing them to
have a cigarette. To Rudd’s amazement,
the guard responded in English. He had
learned English from missionaries, who
had raised him in North Korea. The guard
said he was a Christian, who had been
forced into the North Korean Army when
the lives of his family were threatened. He
also said that he purposely missed U.S.
soldiers in fire fights.
Rudd remembered that two other
guards came up as they talked, knocked
the cigarettes from the prisoners’ mouths,
and berated the man for his kindness to
the Americans. When the two men left,
the guard relit the cigarettes. The two
guards returned, knocked the cigarettes
from the prisoners’ mouths again, took the
friendly guard aside and shot him dead.
The friendly guard told Rudd his name,
but neither Rudd or any of the other survivors
of the massacre on Hill 303
remembered it. While all this was happening,
back at the scene of the massacre,
Roy Manring managed to crawl away and
down Hill 303, where he was found and
treated. He told of the massacre. Orders
were given for LT Paul Kelly to take his
I&R Platoon and investigate. The platoon
set out in nine jeeps, with Chaplain A. M.
Kiner, who had insisted on coming along.
The little column went through the deserted
and burning Waegwan. At the edge of
town, the jeeps were stopped, the men
spread out and began their ascent of Hill
303. As they advanced, they first smelled
the sweetish odor of the dead. The bodies
Bristow Approach to monument site and location of massacre.
of two dead GIs were found, killed by the
attacking enemy. Then the platoon found
the gully of death.
Charles and Eugene Jones in the book
“The Faces of War”, write a graphic
depiction of the scene: “The boys lay
packed tightly, shoulder to shoulder, lying
on their sides, curled like babies sleeping
in the sun. Their feet, bloodied and bare,
from walking on the rocks, stuck out
stiffly.…”Features were gray-green and
waxen ....”All had hands tied behind their
backs, some with cord, others with regular
government issue Army communication
wire. Only a few hands were clenched.
Bullet holes as if put on with black paint,
dotted and evenly spaced, crisscrossed the
backs.”
Chaplain Kiner knelt and performed
the last rites for the dead soldiers. LT
Kelly and his men looked on grimly,
sadly. Some swore at the enemy, and
wept. One soldier found the body of the
lieutenant he had once driven for. The
fondness he had for the dead officer was
in his face and his actions, as he sat and
mourned. Another soldier came to the
grieving man and caressed the back of his
neck with his hand. The BAR on his
shoulder slipped to the ground. “Ah,
Christ, Harry, he ain’t alone,” he murmured,
consolingly, “they’re with him.”
Three enemy soldiers who had knowledge
of the massacre were captured. They
were Chong Myong Tok, Kim Kown Taek
and Heo Chang Keun. Day and Rudd
were able to identify the North Korean
officer who ordered the killing. He had
been captured by U.S. troops. Rudd had to
be restrained from attacking and killing
the officer.
The execution of American prisoners
by the enemy prompted GEN MacArthur
Fred Ryan (l) and Roy Manring (r) are with
Korean officials at memorial. They are survivors
of the Waegwan Massacre.
Color Guard at Waegwan Massacre Monument
Dedication in South Korea.
to broadcast an announcement to the
North Korean Army and have leaflets prepared,
addressed to the Commander-inchief
of the Armed Forces of North Korea.
The leaflet was dropped over North Korea
in large numbers. MacArthur ended his
message thusly:
Inertia on your part and on the part of
your senior field commanders in the discharge
of this grave and universally recognized
command responsibility may
only be construed as a condonation and
encouragement of such outrage, for which
if not promptly corrected I shall hold you
and your commanders criminally accountable
under the rules and precedents of
war.
(Thank you Dan Harrington for the photos
and letter. I just had to look up a little
history of this event for I remember hearing
about it after I arrived in Korea 16th
August, 1950. The above history came
from Gen Ent’s book called “Fighting on
the Brink” which was reviewed in the
July.-Aug 1998 Graybeards. The book can
be purchased from Turner Publishing Co.
A great book.)
September/October, 2000 Page 35