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- Baseball: A Way of Life
- Chuck Taylor Hightops: WHS Basketball
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- "Mrs. Everywoman"
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- Nightlife Up in Smoke: The Mansion Inn
- Not-So-Fast-Times at Wayland High
- The Sirens of Wayland: The Police Department
- Cold War Wayland: Nike Missile Site & Raytheon
- Keeping Up wit the Joneses: Consumerism in the Town Crier
- A Sense of Community: The Strawberry Festival
- Newsletters to Those at War: The Bugle and the Jeep
- A Quieter Life: Coming Home from World War II
- Duty Calls: Veterans of the Korean War
- A Simpler Time: Growing Up in Wayland
- Old Meets New: Dudley Pond
- Flash Movie
Michael Levy Interview (Unabridged Version) - 05/25/2005
Interview by Glenn Altshuler and Jacob Kravetz
Q: When and where were you born?
Mr. Levy: Boston in 1930.
Q: Did you grow up in Boston, too?
Mr. Levy: I grew up in Boston, yep, and lived in Brighton and Brookline, those towns, growing up. And there I took my high school for half my high school career and then I went to a private school, Worchester Academy. By that time I was seventeen years old.
Q: So you were fifteen at the end of World War II?
Mr. Levy: I was fifteen at the end of the warÖsixteen, yeah sixteen.
Q: And what was your impression of the U.S.S.R. at the end of the war?
Mr. Levy: Well, during the war it was more or less favorable, you know. I mean, in other words they were an ally and had suffered greatly during the European war and it wasnt until after the war really, that the policy of containment was created, in terms of geo-political terms, and then things turned into the Cold War. The hottest point in the Cold War was obviously the Korean War because that was the only time that there was armed conflict during the whole period of the Cold War.
Q: How did your attitudes towards the U.S.S.R., you said you started out favorable, and then how did they change, when it began, from the beginning of World War II. Did you feel strongly at the time?
Mr. Levy: I think, during the fifties and the late forties, first of all, you had what was a big unifying force in the country, there was a common purpose in the whole United States. After the war, the fifties and the post war period was largely a very big economic growth period, from about 46 on when everybody came back, when the veterans came back and then started to go to school, one of the big trends was they had a really great GI bill back then, at that time, and so therefore a lot of people went to college and it was a quiet time in society. You didnt haveÖI mean I would tell you the average high school kid Öassuming my memory hasnt faded too badlyÖthe average high school person in the fifties was a lot less conscience of the world then you are. Number one; remember T.V. was not worldwide, even when you talk about the Korean War it wasnt covered by T.V. It was the last war that wasnt covered by T.V. I mean you didnt get the same kind of daily dispatches and looks as you do at Iraq or parents saw during the Vietnam period because there wasnt the global communications. You just didnt have it. It was a quiet time. More insular. So basically, foreign affairs were something distant that showed up in the paper once in awhile. You didnt really concentrate on it. You didnt get the same kind of, as I would describe it, the same kind of coverage you get now.
Q: In that light, what was your concept of the U.N.? Although you said that you werent really that aware.
Mr. Levy: Well, the U.N. was different. At that time the U.N. was considered to be the great hope of man kind. This was never going to happen again, the U.N. was going to move in, Security Council was going to take care of things from then on and the usual old-fashioned power politics and fights between nations were going to be adjudicated in the U.N. The U.N. had a very positive image at that time.
Q: Did you, personally, believe the U.N. was going to be an effective organization?
Mr. Levy: Yeah, I think at that time, if I think about it, I certainly thought it was going to be effective.
Q: You spoke earlier of the containment theory, did you agree with it?
Mr. Levy: I didnt know what it was, I mean, I know what it is know, especially since Kennen. The author of that theory, you know around the idea of a containment theory and not a hot war theory, was George Kennen. Over the years, particularly given my experience later on in Korea, I sort of learned a lot more about the political truth then I knew at the time, at the time youre asking about. I was relatively innocent, is the way I would describe it. A naÔve innocent time.
Q: In 1950, at the start of the Korean War, what was your interpretation of the state of affairs in Asia?
Mr. Levy: Well, it was a big surprise. What most people knew was MacArthur was basically the emperor of Japan in the occupation and any awareness that people had was of the Japanese mainland and some awareness of China and around there but certainly, yknow, didnt even know where Korea was.
Q: Had you ever heard of Korea before this?
Mr. Levy: I would imagineÖYes because I had an uncle that actually served there during and right after World War II. But I still didnt know where it was geographically and didnt know what it looked like on a map.
Q: When did you join the military?
Mr. Levy: I joined the military right when I got out of college in 1951 and if you ask me why Im gonna tell you it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Q: Which branch of the service was it?
Mr. Levy: The Navy.
Q: How did your family feel about it?
Mr. Levy: They thought it was nuts. I was young. Like a lot of people at that age, its not flattering but I think I was pretty aimless. More interested in having a good time and running around than being serious. I was twenty-one years old.
Q: During Korea what was your rank?
Mr. Levy: I wasÖin the end I was a lieutenant junior-grade. I was an officer and I was on a destroyer.
Q: What was your job?
Mr. Levy: On a ship, a destroyer is basically a ship roughly, at that time, three hundred and some odd feet long and maybe forty five feet wide, carried about three hundred people, there were twenty-one officers. You had a specialty and basically you also were a general watch officer in which you were responsible for manning the ship in certain conflicts. My specialty was combat information center and electronics. Basically I was responsible for all that stuff on the ship and later on I became an officer of the deck.
Q: How did you get to Korea?
Mr. Levy: On a ship. (Laughs) The path was, when I got out of college, when I volunteered, I went to OCS in Portland, Rhode Island, Officer Candidate School and graduated from what was the second class, the second group of people that graduated from there. And almost all of us, what they were doing at that time because the war had started and was ongoing and basically they were taking ships out of mothballs and were bringing them up to date and putting them out into the fleet and they had to have manpower for it. Basically what happened was almost everyone that graduated from OCS went out to sea.
Q: Did you feel that they rushed you through training?
Mr. Levy: No, theres a lot of things I could say about it but basically no, I dont think they rushed us through training, I think that they had a pretty clear idea of what they wanted us to know. Now, whether it was sufficient and whether it was reality in terms of what you found when you went to sea on a ship is, its mostly classroom experience and some discipline and some training in naval customs and the way things worked and everything so that you understood what you were supposed to do and where you were supposed to go. But there isnt any substitute for actual training and/or what happens when you actually get shot at.
Q: What was your first assignment?
Mr. Levy: My first assignment was, I was just on the ship trying to learn my way around and what happened was, its a funny story, yknow family waved tearfully good bye to me as I take off and the ship was on the west coast, it had been taken out of mothballs on the west coast. I got half way across the country and I get a telegram from the navy saying turn around and come back home, the ships going to be in Newport, Rhode Island. So the ship was coming around through the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and up to Newport. We get to Newport, I get on the ship for about a month or two, and we were just operating in and out of Newport doing anti-submarine training and they take the ship and say okay youre going to get updated, this was World War II so it was five years later now and they want to put a lot of new equipment on the ship. So they send it to the Boston Naval Shipyard and I find myself going home by MBTA at night after everyone had waved tearfully good bye to me. But after that, once we got out of the yard after about four or five months, we never came home for three and a half years.
Q: What were your feelings for the South Koreans during Korea?
Mr. Levy: Well, we were pretty sympathetic to them. Its one thing that sticks into my mind, even fifty-five years later. There was a blockade and there was a siege, literally, in some parts of Korea there was a siege, and its recorded in naval history as a siege. One of the things, we as U.S. armed forces today were woefully deficient in anybody that had any language skills. When you had to talk or do anything with, particularly when we were up on the line, the dividing line between the north and the south or up north of the dividing line, the navy at that point was largely operating on both sides of Korea and was operating largely in the sea of Japan. What we had on board was we had a series of South Korean naval ensigns who spoke some English but were basically on board to help us translate because we were boarding ships and playing, as I describe it, some military version of pirates, boarding ships and trying to blockade the coast. What happened was it was sort of one of the first times you saw someone from another culture up close, a really foreign culture and one of the things was the poor guys would come onboard ship and almost starve because they could not accommodate to western food and we didnt eat rice and they dont eat a lot of fat and grease and things like butter made them nauseous. So it was really an incredible sort of educational thing in the way of a culture class because you had never seen people like this. These were educated people who spoke some English, its not like you were talking to ignorant peasantry or anything like that but it was basically a totally different culture. We of course were heavily in favor of supporting the South Korean government. A lot of these guys even though they were naval officers thought that it was a dictatorship and didnt much like it. Sigmund Ree at that time was the old iron man of South Korea and they thought he was a dictator and didnt like him so offline when you talk to some of these people you got an entirely different thing. It led me to learn something because at that time I was twenty-two, twenty-three years old. I had traveled some when I was sixteen or seventeen. I had been to Europe once, been to France but I had never been out of the western world. And it taught me something, you can read in the papers anything you want, you can watch on television anything you want, but youre not going to really understand anything about places like the orient or anything unless you go there and talk to the people. If you want to talk about reaching from a small town into the world, there it is right there courtesy of the U.S. Navy. I mean, I never would have gone there. We had a favorable impression but it was more of an educational thing, religion, society. But the thing that struck me was these poor people couldnt, they were on the ship for months at a time and they almost starved to death. We had a lot of problems if we were out on the ocean for thirty, forty days at a time, which we were, we got our supplies by replenishing at sea, by coming along a supply ship and taking supplies on. They didnt have any rations or anything else like this for people like that and that was the first time in my life that I had really seen somebody who had a completely different culture and in that effect it was sort of like ìWowî, the world is different. Its not made of the things I think it is.
Q: Were your feelings for the North Koreans really a contrast towards that?
Mr. Levy: Well, first of all they shot at us so youre not going to like them. How can I describe this? Basically, one of the things that happened was, Won Son Harbor which is still a major seaport of Korea, of all the things fifty-five years later when you look at the international situation this situation really hasnt change anymore than it did around 1953. You still have the border, still have this mad regime up north and they were brutal, they were brutal to their own people, particularly to the South Koreans there was no quarter given. They talk about Abu Graib, let me tell you that thats minor compared to some of the things they did. They would shoot somebody for no reason at all. What happened was, when we were in this area, when the Chinese swept south, the United States retained a bunch of islands that were off the North Korean coast. Basically, they wanted to use them as bargaining chips in the armistice talks which were going on. People dont really understand this but when the stalemate was reached really about the same place, there were more casualties in the last six months or a year than in the whole previous couple of years. It was the bloodiest time of the war. What happened was, we had these islands [in Wonson Harbor] that we held and one of the problems was there was like 300,000 Chinese 1200 yards away from these islands and they could have just swum across and overwhelmed the six or seven hundred marines that were on each island. What the navy did was they kept two destroyers inshore around the islands at all times to prevent any kind of invasion.
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As a metaphor Ill give it to you this way, you have a bucket or a barrel, you cant leave the barrel because we couldnt leave the islands and youre sailing around in the middle of this barrel filled with water. Somewhere maybe ten yards away from the bucket, farther then you can reach with your weaponry, they have big guns, and what they do, so you can look at your ships as corks floating around in this bucket and steaming around in circles and various ways and these guys that are ten yards away are throwing rocks into the bucket. Now theyre not likely to hit the corks because its very hard because the corks are moving and everything else like this but if youre a cork its nerve racking. (See audio excerpt of this above) And that was our situation and we did not have friendly feelings towards either Chinese and/or the North Koreans.
Q: Did you have any specific different feelings for the civilian population for North and South Korea as opposed to the military people?
Mr. Levy: We saw some, not very much, once in a while wed go down south. Much of the protein consumption in Korea is fish because theyre next to the ocean. One of the more effect, what was proven to be the most effective in the blockade was they kept the North Koreans from fishing. So we knew that they were starving but it was probably, in terms of military effectiveness might have been the most important thing they did. We had underwater demolitions team that destroyed their fish traps. In fact, they think that the settlement came because the Chinese had so many casualties that these casualties had worked their way back into mainland China to decide there was a willingness to concede a stalemate. One of the things that always struck me, that theres a parallel today, is that were not very patient as a nation, we want immediate effect, we want things to happen right away. If you have an opponent whos willing to think in ten or twenty year terms wed have a real problem with that, sustaining an effort over a period of time. You can see it now with people getting upset and tired about the number of troops and the number of casualties were taking in Iraq. We had something like 32,000 people killed in Korea, on and off, whatever the totals are, it was almost equivalent to Vietnam with a lot less publicity
Q: How did your feelings towards the North Koreans and Chinese differ from during World War II with the Japanese and Germans?
Mr. Levy: Its a hard question because the Japanese and Germans were demonized during World War II. You look at any of the printed posters of the Japanese and Germans. Certainly, the record of the Germans in terms of the Holocaust and the stuff after the war, lets put it this way, it didnt do their national reputation any good. The Chinese were more of a mystery, and remember they were an ally in World War II. There wasnt any, in my mind, I may be typical, I may not be typical, I dont have any feeling one way or another. Once I got over there my feeling was there a hell of a lot of them and they just kept coming. I dont think they were demonized as much. I think what you have to understand, Korea was the first limited war, was the first really geopolitical war, that was determined by the united states to try and limit it to the peninsula and almost got out of hand when MacArthur went up north and threatened the Chinese and they intervened and if they hadnt it would have been even more limited than it was. Once the Chinese came into it then you had to worry about the Russians. I think what happened was we looked at them, in my point of view, as a military opponent. There wasnt a whole lot of propaganda it was sort of like whats happening tomorrow morning rather than anything, a general attitude. We had a healthy respect, very tough, very courageous. All during the Vietnamese war, I think it was Maxwell Taylor and some of the other people said we dont belong here, we dont belong in Asia, we dont understand how these people think about us. One of the things I realized built really on, looking at the Japanese at the time that we went there, we were based in Japan actually, and when we went over towards Korea was that, the united states prefers to fight with machinery, not with people, with technology if you want to look at it. We would prefer to stand off and bomb somebody rather than getting in close hand to hand. This is why urban warfare is so different. In Asia, around that time, they had much more regard for the safety of equipment, a truck was a very valuable thing, people were not valuable, there were a lot of people. When youre up against that its very frightening. Its almost like they dont care. And that may not be accurate but thats the way it seemed.
Q: What did you feel the justification for the war was?
Mr. Levy: It was pretty simple. They had invaded; the North had invaded the South. If you look into the geopolitical history of it was a little murkier, it was a little bit like the Iraq war, did we say something that led them to believe we wouldnt react if they came south? There was always this argument, I dont remember exactly what it was, somebody made a statement, the secretary of state made a statement that was misinterpreted, a lot of people say it was misinterpreted that we didnt really have any interest in the southern part of the Korean peninsula so the north said okay and went down south. It was an invasion; somebody crossed the border with armed force. Thats a lot clearer, in terms of a cause for a defensive war than the current situation.
Q: Did you ever anticipate Chinas entering the war.
Mr. Levy: When it first happened, no. I think if you look at the official history of it, one of the sort of fascinating things about this is that when youre in the middle of something you dont really realize what the big picture is. I guess one of the wilder lessons is whatevers going on in the local thing, when they talk about fighting, combat, places, when they talk about that kind of thing, what theyre basically saying is all battles are small units, its your own unit, your own people, your own ship, so really dont, in general, have much of a geopolitical view of whats going on, particularly if anythings going on thats threatening you, youre worried first about that. I think one of the things that happened was, it was totally unexpected, I think it was a miscalculation on MacArthurs part. I do know that David Halbostam, the author, is writing a book which is going to come out in a year or so, I had an opportunity to talk with him, hes writing a book about the Korean War, which he thinks is the pivotal geopolitical event in the Cold War period. He, of course, is looking at cause and effect and more of a big picture kind of thing. After about thirty years, when I went to do this, this is just a personal note on the side, my wife said do you really want to do this cause its going to stir up a lot for you and I said I guess Im sort over it now. Basically, about thirty years after it, I started to think about what was there? What was going on? What happened in some places? What was the big difference in some of the events? There are things that have happened along the way, in terms of the big picture, that you dont really understand. Its very hard to answer. We didnt know, all of a sudden they were there, nobody knew, they came down south, they almost drove everybody off the peninsula. They always refer to it as the U.N. forces, well it was no more U.N. forces than Iraq is a coalition, it was 95% American, there were a few people, the Brits were there. The Koreans were absolutely terrified of the Turks, they had some Turkish infantry, they werent scared of the Americans but they sure as hell were scared of the Turks. Cause they were equivalently nasty. But it was no more of a coalitionÖthey almost drove the forces right off the peninsula; it was down in this little tiny triangle down in the bottom.
Q: What was your reaction to Chinese victories over U.N. forces?
Mr. Levy: My reaction, remember when we got there they had already driven down and been driven back. I got there in late 1952, early 1953, roughly six months before the armistice and that was a very important time. One of the things was the Chinese were attacking at what they call the bomb line, which was the present-day boundary, they were attacking there. People didnt really understand, they were suffering horrific casualties and people said what do they do this for? One of the things that came out of this when you think of this, this one I always try to talk about, what were peoples motivations? Was the perception was the Chinese were doing this just to show us that it didnt matter, the casualties didnt matter to them, that they would attack and they would attack well-fortified positions and they would sacrifice people, basically just to demonstrate to us that they would do it, that no place was safe and it was very bloody at that time. The equivalence in terms of casualties was soÖMy perception of it was this huge, massive humanity just sweeping out of China. And remember, there was always this problem that the Russians were right above there. We were concerned with Russian submarines, that we would do something that would upset the Russians. One of the things the Russians did was they obviously helped supply the North Koreans and the Chinese, not as much the Chinese but the Chinese acquired Russian weapons that were very much like in Vietnam. I suppose a simple answer to how did I react was ìhere they come againî. We would fire support for the entrenched U.N. forces, American forces. We would go up close to the beach and fire naval gunfire support for these people when there was an attack or they received word of massed troops that they thought might be setting up for an attack we would try to destroy them.
Q: what were your experiences in combat like? You talked a little about firing for support.
Mr. Levy: Ive thought about this a lot. The first thing is theres a sense of unreality. The first couple of times it happens, Ill take a few minutes and explain what happened to me. I was an extremely junior officer in terms of being given a heavy responsibility, the ship, like a lot of parallels, we had a lot of reservists, when they were trying to repopulate the ships, to man the ships because they were pulling them out and trying to get more ships out on the ocean, cause they didnt have enough, what they did was recall some reservists, mind you this was five years after World War II, these guys never expected, they were mostly young guys just in training, they got out and they got married and had kids and the Navy comes along and says you went to college courtesy of the U.S. Navy and youve been recalled and have to go to active duty. Unlike myself, who was a volunteer and a younger, these guys were roughly late twenties early thirties. The rest of the ship was made up of young kids mostly, there were in the officer corps, like our executive officer had been with the kamikazes off Okinawa, in World War II so he was a veteran. Our Captain had been a tugboat captain Australia during World War II and had never seen a shot fired in anger in his whole naval career. The exec was really the guy, he was the only guy that when we got in had any experience and knew what was going to happen. One of these guys who had been recalled was third in command of the ship, you have the captain, the executive, and he was what you call the operations officer. First time we got into combat he got very upset, he didnt like getting shot at and he got very upset. He went to the captain afterwards and said I cant do this and Im going to do something different pertaining to the ship and the reason he said this was, first of all operating in the middle of a mine field and second of all the Chinese were shooting at us. What you cannot understand, what people cannot understand even if you see it in the movies, you have no idea in our particular group what the noise is like, what the muzzle blast of a five in gun is, what the muzzle blast of a three inch gun is or anything like that and they go off like eighteen inches from your head. Theyre loud enough to knock you down. So this guy went and said I cant do this and they looked at it for awhile and they said okay will you be okay if you go down below where you cant see it? And he said I think Ill be okay down there as long as, so kind of like putting blinders on horses so they wont get yknow. And so people say well was that a courageous act? I think it was a very courageous act because he just felt he couldnt do what it was. The exec came along, looked at me, and says I dont know how bright you are but I dont think youre scared too easily, and that was his description of me. So up I went to the officer of the deck and general quarters. So its just like in the movies, you hear the Bum Bum Bum and everyone rushes to close all the water pipes, man the guns and everything and the Chinese were basically lobbing shells at us. We were trying to get a couple minesweepers that had basically been trapped inside the harbor and needed cover to get out. So we sailed in behind them and laid a smoke screen so the Chinese observers couldnt see where the shells were landing. But they could see us which left us wide open and a destroyers an anti-submarine vessel, its not meant to be an inshore bombardment vessel and one of the things we had one deck was you have torpedoes on deck, you have racks full of depth charges which carry six hundred pounds of TNT and all you really need is a very strong wack from a rock to set the whole thing off. If someone had hit one of those things with a rifle bullet with enough of a shock to set of one of the depth charges just would have blown the whole thing up. The destroyer has a lot of armament but it has no armor, no protection and operating a thousand yards or twelve hundred yards off the beach was nerve-racking. So up we went and I remember looking at this, I still remember one time, its not something youre going to forget. Its a very bright day, very cold, the ship was keeled over, the guns were going off, and I remember sitting there looking at it and thinking ìMy god this is like a John Wayne movie. What the hell am I doing here?î That was my first reaction, the second reaction was ìOkay I hope I can do what Im supposed to do so nobody gets killed.î After a while you kind of get used to it, believe it or not. So we were there, in this particular area, for a month. We were the only East Coast ship that ever got combat pay. Combat pay was about fifty bucks extra a month if you got shot at more than ten times. It wasnt worth it.
Q: When the armistice and the peace talks began did you expect the war to be over soon?
Mr. Levy: No, as I said, one of the problems is youre concentrating on what youre doing and you dont have much sense of whats going on around you, you just know operations that are going on in your terms. Youre bussing and fuming about some mines in the water up above and youre more worried about ìAm I going to run into one of these things and blow the whole ship up?î, than you are aware. You knew that the armistice talks were going on. We didnt really know why they were keeping the islands. They were keeping the islands as a bargaining chip with the North Koreans. I think part of it has to do with, what do you know? What facts are you given? What do you see? I think if youre military, in the Iraq war today you know whats going on back here, you know whats going on over there, you can see satellite T.V. and whatever the hell you get mixed up in is going to be in T.V. the next day.
Q: So, given the fact that you said you didnt have a very good idea of everything that was going on around you, but as the peace talks dragged on what little you did know and then among the crew on, what was the morale like as all the casualties mounted?
A: Well one of the things that happened, remember for a long time even in some of the history books it was called a police action. It was not called a war; it was and still is referred to by some people as a conflict you know not as a war, but it was a war and what happened was is that we resented you when they because you know there wasÖafter the Chinese came down on of one of the things later on in combat geo-politically, Eisenhower was running for office at this point you know it was 52 so at that time the campaign was on you know lets say spring and summer of that time and he said ìif elected I will go to Koreaî and so one of the things that happened was that everybody was very angry at the time and one of and one of the things that, I guess one of the concerns that we had is that we were running short of ammunition and we were rationed as to what we could utilize you know and so the issue was this you know, I mean one of the things I remember is people saying, ìthis is a hell of a thing you know were policemen, whoever saw a policeman with eight inch and five inch guns.î You know I mean this is no police action you know this isnt you know something like that, so the morale after a while was kind of bitter because we couldnt see it was going, we really couldnt see I mean you know even locally we couldnt see it was going anywhere and you know you were exposed so just you could imagine something bad could happen and you know, so you dont particularly want to be here and you know after a while.
Q: Did you ever question the validity of the U.N. having forces?
A: No you know I want to cover this because I think this is something that came up. You know the first time that there was a question in the United States, I believe, about fighting you know in any kind of combat action; was probably Vietnam. That there were doubts about the reasons for going in there. There were doubts about you know did you have a clear objective, you know stuff like that. I think in Korea they had a cause for action the question was when were you going to quit. The Chinese werent going to tolerate having the North overrun which should have been obvious to everybody but it wasnt. You know, I mean if that is what you want to call a miscalculation, they really miscalculated. And but in essence you know, if you talk to a marine today ,OK, he doesnt have any doubts, OK, you know I mean if you talk to people that areÖ cause you cant, I mean you cant and survive, I mean really you cant do your job, I dont mean necessarily in combat but you cant have a lot of doubts about what you are doing in terms of conflict or you wouldnt be there. And remember most of the people at that time were you know there were draftees but in the navy it was all volunteer corps. It still is and in some of the elite groups its a volunteer corps so you dont get much doubt, quote on quote ìDoubtî about the reasons of doing it. And there was a clearer you know violation, the North you know crossing the Armistice line down and invading the South and we had promised to defend the South so it was a pretty clear thing, it wasnt like Vietnam it isnt like IraqÖ. Also a simpler time.
Q: Well, other than what you mentioned was your first time in battle and you said it was like a John Wayne movie were there any specific events that transpired during the war that had a significant impact upon you personally?
A: Well, Ive said this, I mean, people ask you questions lots of times, not necessarily about that. For a long time I wasnt really interested in talking about thatÖ quote on quote, I hate to say Im old but Im certainly elderly (laughs) but I guess there are a couple of things. I remember one day we were out there andÖ People say where did you grow up usually that is meant to be a geographic question like what town did you grow up in or something that. Well, I grew up on the bridge of a destroyer, thats where I grew up, I grew up going down the middle of a mine field at 25 knots, worrying that if I turned right or left I was going to get 300 people killed. And that's basically where I grew up. (See audio version of this above) And so, Ive always remembered that and people have said to me later on you know I can tell you some specific incidences. One day, the exec used to decide which way to turn the ship right or left and it was up to me to execute the order, and you would decide that you know, that you saw a shell burst in the water what we would try to do is follow a strategy that if in fact they were coming closer to the ship we would steer, not obviously, this is something that was developed during the Napoleonic Wars called chasing salvoes. But we would, you know the tactics didnt change that much. We would steer towards the last splash, you know but not obviously, so the theory being that if the guy was correcting to his error, he wasnt going to shoot in the same place that he shot before, you know so the theory was if you kind of edged over there not in an obvious way by the time he got around to making all of his corrections he would shoot of in some other direction, you know. So the decision was always sort of are we going to turn port or starboard? You know what are we going to do? Which way are we going to go? So he always used to tell me which way to go, you know he would say ìgo starboardî or something like this. Somehow, I dont know what was going on, but again, you know I keep trying to, this is not a calm conversation, you know all this machinery is rumbling and the ship is doing, you know, like 30 mph through the water, you know its heeled over like this, because you are turning, you know or something like this, guns are going off, the way it works is they were computer controlled you know and they would turn and obviously they wouldnt fire when they were pointing at some part of the ship, because they had cutouts in the firing circuits so that this wouldnt happen. But they would fire within 18 inches of the ship. OK, so if the ship was turning, muzzle was turning, if you were turning right and the ship was pointing the guns left, you know this thing would swing right into what we call the stops and then fire and you could have your head practically, you know knocked off by the noise and everything, so these conversations were not necessarily what I would call calm and collected, you know and everything. And he would basically say, you know things like you know ìgo a little bit right, go a little bit left,î or something. Something happened, and I dont know, there is a terrific racket, a lot of noise or something. I said to him which way, you know because the rule was the helmsman could only listen to me, OK, because there was so much yelling and shouting going on he couldnt listen to a number of people, thats the way it has always worked, since you know John Paul Jones. The helmsman listens to one person, OK. You know my job was to get the right orders to tell the guy which way to turn. You know and, guns are going off, rackets going on, and at this point I said to him, ìwhich way, right or left?î And he said ìI didnt see the last one, make up your mind!î (laughs) I sort of froze, you know like, you know, up until now this has been OK, I just did what he said, you know. But that was one thing Ive always remembered. ìMake a decision god dammit.î and I had no choice. Well Im still here. But it was, its an experience. People have asked me would you want your kids to go through something like that. I said absolutely not.
Q: How did your relationships with your comrades and people you worked with change as the war progressed?
A: Well small units, get cohesive, ships are cohesive units, any kind of unit, anything like that, is unified by the experience, you know I mean, in other words you might be angry as we were at Harry Truman, you know we used to keep arguing about this business of police action, you know, I mean this is what they talked about, it was just, you know people tried to damp it down because what they were trying to do was to not create a big swell in the United States for offensive action against the Chinese because they had already tried that once and it didnt work. OK and it wasnt likely to work. As a historical moment when Eisenhower went over there and one of the, he being a very experienced general he thought there wasnt any sense in trying to do anything else offensively, we were fighting defensively, you know a stalemate war at that time, and he just said that you know ìsign and Armistice.î I mean you know when he took over as president.
So he, his position, you know was useless, OK. We on the other hand were looking at this thing, and grumping and everything but basically we were unit cohesion, because you think that the people with us, you know you depend on them for life or death. And if you have doubts about something, you have a real problem. I remember, I dont know how much use this is, I mean I dont know if it is useful for what you are trying to do, but I remember another combat experience: I was looking over the back of the bridge one day, we had three inch guns and the best way I can describe what they look like, I can show you a picture of them hang on. But we had three inch guns, and these guns were, they looked like for all the world like Anti-Aircraft guns in Star Wars. The first Star Wars movie. You know the ones with the two barrels, and thats what these things looked like. And I saw them years later in the movie and I said ìwow, I know where they got that from.î And these things looked like that, and they had them fast loaded. What they did was they had a cylinder outside the gun, if I could describe it, and the three inch shells, about this long (makes measurement), you know with a bullet on the end of it. It looks like nothing more than a huge massive bullet. OK and we used to use these things to you know to shoot at the shore to try to shoot at the artillery observers, the Chinese artillery observers. This kid panicked down there one day, I dont know what happened but there is a chief gunners mate down in the gun mount. I look down in the gun mount and I see this guy they jammed one of the guns, you know the guy didnt put the shell in this loading bay right so it went in kind of crooked or something like this and it jammed the gun. And they wanted to get, obviously they wanted to get the hell out of there. You know, first of all they didnt want it to explode outside of the gun, second of all its a little nerve racking thing. So the guy is down there, the gunners mate is down there and this kid he was just a kid, 17, 18 years old, probably his first time too you know. So what happened was they finally got the shell out of the gun and he wanted him to throw it over the side. OK, and he didnt, he went around to the other side of the gun and he fed the defective shell into the gun a second time from the other side, the other barrel and it jammed, again (laughs). OK so, the gunners mate, the gunners mate, you know, was beside himself, as you can imagine, you know this is an old guy that spent his whole life in the navy around guns and things like this I mean this was just unmentionable. And I happened to be where I could see this, OK, so he just wound up, and he just kicked this kid in the rear end, he almost kicked him over the side, you know, I mean, they pulled the shell out and threw it over the side or something. After being secured and let out, you know I cant let something like this happen you know, or something, I mean as young as I was you know it wasnt you know you dont do this, you dont physically abuse, you know somebody. So I was, I remember calling him up and calling him up to the bridge and saying, ìWhat the hell did you do that for?î or something like that, and he said ìDid you see what happened?î You know he was a real tough guy, and I said ìYes!î you know, so he looks straight at me and he says ìIf he did it again,î he said, ìI would kick him twice as hard!î (laughs) You know, like you can tell me whatever you want, Im not going to deal with this. You know, but, you know, those are the things that happened. Still clear 50 years later, 55 years later.
Q: What was your reaction when you heard the news that the peace treaty had finally been signed?
A: We were out of there by that time. You know we were out of that particular area that we were in where we were being shot at or something like this so, I think, you know, basically it was that summer, you know I think it was 53 when the armistice was signed, I dont know the exact date, but we were out of that area and had started back, and we were, everybody was happy, you know, I mean, you know, glad that its over, you know pretty much because it had been such a bloody stalemate for six months to a year, nobody wanted to continue this thing and it was clear that we were not, this was the first war, I think in the United States history where we didnt attempt to win. OK and that was, when you keep referring to morale, that was kind of a leaden feeling overall, we just knew we werent going to win. You know.
Q: So you as of, so you were atÖ
A: Korea at the time that the Armistice was signed.
Q: You werent there.
A: No.
Q: So you arrived in 51?
A: Right at the end of, November, December 52.
Q: 52, OK. And then you stayed through the spring of 53?
A: Yeah basically through January and February, through January. December and January was when we were there.
Q: And then after, after that you left did you, where did you go? Did you go home orÖ?
A: Well we were. (mumbles) We sailed completely around the world. OK we started and went out and through the, you know, the Panama Canal and then sailed the rest of the Pacific to Japan, When we came back we went to the Philippines, down around the thing. So what happened was I got to see, its a joke ìJoin the navy, see the world.î You know or something, but it isnt a joke. I got to see the world, we went all the way around the world. We went to Hong Kong, which was still a British possession at the time, you know, we went out through India and Calcutta. We were the first ships to go up in that area since WWII navy ships had to go up through that area. Since WWII. WE went all the way around the world so I got a, what I would call a significant geographical education, you know. When I was in the Suez Canal, you know, we went out into the Mediterranean and came back and eventually we came back to Newport. I knew the world was round before satellites because I know we went out one way and came bake the other. It wasnt flat.
Q: So it took you a couple years to actually get back home.
A: Well no, no we came back, I dont know exactly when it was, I can probably find it in my notes but we came back, we went back, we then came back and went to the Mediterranean a couple of time because the 6th fleet was operating you know in the Mediterranean area in terms you know trying to keep the Russians out of there. And so the 6th fleet was operating out of there on some intelligence missions up there in the north near the Baltic Sea when they first started over flying the Russians over flying them on intelligence missions and stuff like that. So we were up there providing radio contact. But you know the rest of the time we were mostly in and out of the Mediterranean.
Q: And, so when you finally got home, and got off the ship and went home, what was it like after having served in the war and having been around the world?
A: I, you know I think its an interesting thing, you hear a lot about people, you know having adjustment problems after getting out of the service. I mean its pretty wild, I drank a lot, did a lot of things, I mean cant tell you that I was this nice gentlemanly person, I certainly wasnt, you know, and I think one of the things was at that time, you know no matter how you felt you were sort of imbued with the idea that you pick up one foot in front of the other and you did what you were supposed to do no matter what you were up against, you know. I can certainly see how people get out of the service they have had combat experiences, could essentially have a real problem with integrating back into society. If you spent a lot of time on board a ship which is a totally different atmosphere than society, however you want to call it, was just not like society in general and so when I got out I went back to school for a while and then I got married and that basically changed my life as you would expect. But up until that time, you know I would never describe myself as being a model citizen with a lot of purpose and I had a lot of problems, you know sort of like, I guess the best way to describe it since the kind of question you asked is like people would tell you something and you would sit there and look at it in reference to what you had been doing and you would say this is not important, you know why are people concerned with it. Its not life or death, its not even dangerous or something like that so why are they interested in it? (laughs) So you know, so you know, if the question is it likely that people had adjustment problems getting back into society, the answer is yes. Some had more problems than others, somewhat like where did you start, you know where did you start with. You know if you had a marginal problem to start with this isnt going to help.
Q: Upon arriving back how were you treated by the general public, because like you said it wasnt like the war was won?
A: Not well. People number one didnt know anything about it, I can remember coming back and youd say where you were and theyd kinda look at you. I mean, I would describe it probably not as bad as they treated the Vietnamese, because they, the Vietnam Vets, you know because what happened was that you came back and there was still a respect, you know what I would call an intrinsic respect for the military you know, but you know we werent being accused of atrocities or anything else like that so there wasnt a large segment of the population that thought we were bad but it was indifference, total indifference, you know to what wed been through and where wed been and everything else. It sort of like what the hell were these people doing while we were over there doing it. So there was a lot of, I would describe it as indifference. People just didnt know, I attribute that to the fact that you didnt really, you know the newspapers covered it the newsmagazines covered it but there was no real big deal and thats what people got.
Q: What was it like saying goodbye to the men you had served with for the last time?
A: Difficult, difficult. For a number of years I would run across them one way or another and gradually you know people spread out and now a lot of them are dead. They were old and a lot of them have died off. Ill tell you one thing about it. It was a microcosm of the United States you grow up and you talk about things about small towns and what does the service do to you. Interesting things, I can remember going across the middle of the pacific one time you know being on watch at 4 oclock in the morning, the suns coming up right, you know over the wide pacific or something and I go down mid-ships and we had torpedo tubes above deck torpedo tubes and they were big, you know, just what youd expect. The torpedo tubes were you know four in a rack you know the mount and everything else like this and I remember going by one night and the sun is coming up and there were four Navajos sitting on top of the torpedo mounds, sitting on top of this mound chanting as the sun was coming up. And I was sitting looking at this thinking ìman, you dont see people like this in Boston,î you know or around a small town or anything like this where I grew up. And what you did learn when you say what did you learn was you saw people from all over. Rich people, poor people, from different areas of the country and they were thrown into this situation where they basically have to function together and you gain a healthy respect for people who come from different backgrounds. I think that was one of the biggest things that the service gave me. I dont look down on anybody, let me tell you , I dont care what there job is or what they do they can do the equivalent of a damn good job if you give them the chance.
Q: Would, just out of curiosity, would you consider the statement that the military is the great equalizer sort of a statement do you consider that true?
A: I think so. I mean you are what you are and you are what you do. OK and so I think that it is a very big equalizer. You know I think, you know people ask me, Ill give you a sort of minority view, I think that eliminating, I dont want to see people get killed OK, dont get me wrong about that, Im not much of a war mongerer. I dont think that anyone who has ever been in a situation where they have been seriously shot at is much of a war mongerer. OK people who generally tend to be that have never been in combat, but I do think that the draft, the elimination of the draft was not a great idea, because what happens is you now have marginalized, basically to the lower middle class part of society are the people who are fighting wars. And the rest of you people with college educations, call them the elite call them whatever you want dont get to see this part of the world, they really dont, so what it has done, what the elimination of the draft has done is create a class division in the United States. I think it is a serious problem. I dont necessarily think it should be the military, but I definitely think that there should be some type of a program you know that people get credit for thats either peace-corps type work or something like that. Something that does the same thing. I mean we dont really have it, we have it in some programs .
Q: How do you feel now knowing that the Korean war has come to be called the forgotten war?
A: I wont forget it (laughs). I guess would be the way that I would describe it. I think, as the thing that I described about a fact that I think people will be a lot more interested once Habistan publishes his book. I mean hes very very critical of some of the strategy that we followed and some of the decisions that were made. But I think it would be interesting because it will bring about sort of a recognition for it. I think it was a pivotal thing during the Cold War as far as the Russians were concerned. You know because nobody, the problem is international stuff, international geo-political stuff is basically a game of chicken and it can be very dangerous. I think that you know the Korean War at least made the Russians understand that if you cross the line in a certain way that we will react.
Q: And why do you think that the Korean War is called the, is a forgotten war?
A: Well to my mind, it was partly the structure of society partly the fact that it was a simpler time and mostly that there was no media coverage. I mean one of the reasons why you see all the stuff about the Vietnam War is that we have all these pictures of rockets and these pictures of people fighting, WWII you have the newsreels and movies but you dont see any of Korea. But you dont see, and it went on for a long time so you dont see this in terms of the Korean War you know. But it was the hottest part of the Cold War if you think about the sweep of it, you know and the end of WWII is the only other area of direct combat.
Q: What do you believe that people should learn from looking back on the Korean War?
A: I think one of the things is you know. I think Colin Powell is kind of a brilliant military strategist you know aggressive. And Powell has always said you know ìif you are going to use force, use overwhelming force.î This is one of his things I believe that there are some reasons for not using overwhelming force you know, Im talking about nuclear force or something but in regard to if you get into a situation where you think that you need to use force try to be well prepared for it, try to have enough people, try to have enough equipment try to have the rest of it or you shouldnt do it or the result wont be what you want. And the other thing is you shouldnt do it unless you have the national will behind it you know the United States has never been great at fighting in a place where you know its remote we could lose troops. You know you can see this in Iraq today, there are parallels between Iraq and the First Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea. Therere some lessons to be learned all along the line whether politicians learn them or not I dont know. It serious business, its not for people who want to simply strut and make statements, people get killed in these kinds of things. I think that probably the biggest lesson is if you are going to draw lines be clear about where you have drawn the lines so that people wont misinterpret what you are doingÖ.You know Robert MacLemere has said that war unfortunately is, that one of the kinds of things about the fog of war that he puts out and I have always appreciated is that it is a huge collection of unintended consequences and you dont know what is going on. So um thats I guess, make sure you know what your objectives are, make sure you dont end up in Worchester basically carries out.
Q: I think that youve touched on this one but looking back what would you say was the general atmosphere of the 50s?
A: I keep describing it as a simpler time, a much simpler time, in other words the economy was expanding, if you wanted a job you could get a job, if you wanted to get a good ob you could get a good job, if you wanted to get an education you could do that. I have two sons and theyre about 40 years old, and there lives are far more difficult, not in terms of their accomplishments or something but they have a lot more choices that they have to make along the way that have an affect on what their life is going to be like later one, you didnt have that many choices. You know you got married had kids you got a job you worked, you know you expected to do better than your parents did. You know, I mean it was a simpler time; the American dream was very simple there werent as many things to think about.
Q: Yeah kind of what you were just saying but how would you compare the atmosphere then to the atmosphere now and looking now at the war on terrorism and Iraq and stuff?
A: Well I think one of the ways that I describe it you know when you look at the war on terrorism or something is that maybe you know that certainly there was some ìwere attackedî. There was certainly some kind of response that was required, along the way to do this. If you were to ask me if I think that it is what I call extreme numbers of incidences of stunning incompetence in terms of the execution of this you know that they might have the right objective but you know you sit there and you talk about policy issues and Rumsfeld sits there and says ìwe dont need any new troopsî and your professional military who does know what they are talking about say that in order to do the job in Iraq we are going to need twice as many people. So how do I describe it, a little bit the same as Korea in terms of the fact that they seemed to be saying that we can only fight with this limited manner and we are going to incur a certain amount of casualties because we are going to do that. You know if you look at the parallel it is the same. Not going to go all out not going to go past a certain amount we are going to fight in this one place and not necessarily at our choice or something so I look at it and say we arent going to win this way. I mean you basically have, its not a fixed set piece war, you know in other words you dont have it bounded by geography, or certain conventional military tactics, so I think it is different but in terms of instruments of national policy Im not sure that, I may be in the minority about this but I want to tell you something if I was the parents of somebody who was killed over there because we didnt have the proper armor on our Humvees or something like that Id be pretty damn agitated.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to say?
A: Yeah, I, you asked about geo-politics. I mean theres a couple of major themes that I could go through. You know one of the things, there was a particular thing that happened, and its interesting from the standpoint that I did something that you werent supposed to do when I was in the service, which is, I kept a diary of sorts. You werent supposed to because the theory was is that if the unit got captured information like this could be of value to the enemy. So you were never supposed to do that because they were very valuable in terms of what people say about moral. I found this thing and I could show you a lot of things, but one of the interesting things was that there was a particular event. It happened November 18 1952. There was this huge task force alright? The interesting thing was I just would refer if you could read my scrawl handwriting. Can you read from 55 years ago on November 18 what it says?
November
I can read it for you. My handwriting is so terrible. It says 'Up south of Siberia more fun and games. Score 2 migs one damaged to our one damaged.' OK so this was the only thing I wrote. About, a number of years later, and this is just sort of, you want to talk about geo-politics a number of years later I kept thinking about this I kept thinking this wasnt part of where we were. We were way up north you know, alright? The way I would describe it, it would be as if the whole damn Russian fleet arrived off Providence one day, OK people would get pretty excited, Im talking about the same distance you know maybe 35-40 miles. I said off of Siberia, we were actually roughly maybe 40-50 miles south of Valadikistock with this huge task force many carriers, 21 destroyers you know the whole monopoly of the United States naval power nuclear armed OK. It was like, what were we doing there? You know what was the point you know I mean we werent doing anything you know what were they trying to do? You know what was the United Sates trying to do? I wrote that at the time, it didnt dawn on me and its always, it had puzzled me for 20 or 30 years as to what the hell we were doing, you know this wasnt a small unit thing this wasnt anything. One of the things that really got me was when we got up there theres a description in this book about this particular action in which they say and I remember getting up there and we got word from the radar that there were 150-200 Russian migs flying a barrier patrol halfway between where we were and the beach. They only referred to them as migs but there were no North Korean migs, most of them were piloted by Russians. We were on the inside of the task force you know this thing spreads out over 15 or 20 miles of ocean if you think in the destroyers, all these destroyers are in a ring around the major ships and the carriers are on the inside. We were on the inside of the thing, and we get a radio message cause we have these planes flying back and forth that we were pretty sure were Russians cause you know we were right near Valadikistock OK and they were clearly under radar controls of the Russians, they werent coming beyond a certain point, OK. But they were coming within, you know, five to seven miles of where we were, OK, I mean this is you know, they can go ten miles a minute you even in a World Ö you know a mig. So what happened was, they started to get closer and we got a radio message which essentially was ìGuns free!î You know which meant ìif they come in your range, shoot em!î (laughs) You know, I mean dont think about it. You know, this is from the task force commander. I thinking about this and I remember thinking about this being up on the bridge and saying ìthese are Russians, this isntÖî you know or something, like that. So what happened was is that we had planes in the air and we had planes in the air, and there was this momentary, you know, 600 mph this way and 600 mph that way, we shot down two of theirs they damaged one of [ours] and we damaged one of theirs and the rest of it, everybody turned around and went home. OK, and I kept thinking about this later on and Im like ìwhat the hell was the point of this?î Alright, you know, what were we doing up there with that amount of force and that amount of stuff. I dont care, they said we were bombing a power plant; it wasnt true. You know, what was this about? OK and when I thought about it many years later I realized what had happened, OK and I just think that when you talk about geo-politics this is an interesting point. No body ever admitted it, but the election had just occurred, it was November or whatever it was in 52. Eisenhower had just been elected, hed been elected on a promise to go to Korea to solve this thing, OK, Harry Truman was still in power, but now he is a lame duck because Eisenhower doesnt take over until January right? OK. They did not want the Russians to misinterpret the United States position between the time he was elected, and the time he took office. And they wanted to make sure that the Russians understood that we were still serious about doing what we were doing in Korea. And this was the way they made them understand. ìHeres this huge fleet, off of one of your cities. And if you do anything to destabilize this more than its already been your city or the rest of it is gone.î And I sort of at the time, you know you sit there and you say you are a small unit, and youre looking at that and I said ìwould anybody ever admit this?î You know, I dont know that they would. Theres a history book that essentially says the same thing that I wrote that day. You know, but basically it doesnt say why they were there. You know, what they were doing. So if you want to talk about people using force as geo-politics there was an interesting exampleÖ. I guess that was the one other thing I really wanted to say.