Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans

COMBAT STORIES FROM Korea

Andy Smith | unknown - Marines

2:56 | Colonel Andy Smith talks about his time in the Korean War as a Marine pilot. As a pilot of the AU-1 Corsair, Colonel Smith's job was to observe the movements of North Korean and Chinese soldiers crossing the border. Colonel Smith retired from the Marines after 30 years of service.

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Showing : Korea Videos

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5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division

Nearly everyone in his unit had frostbite to some degree, Marty Letellier had been very careful to take care of his feet, so he avoided the misery that many were feeling. As the Marines withdrew to the coast after the retreat from Chosin, they were followed by thousands of refugees, who were also evacuated to the South.
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Ron Clark remembers when the Chinese would attack and how the strategies between American and Chinese differed. He also explains one detailed account of an American casualty during battle and his own major injury that permanently disabled his eyesight.
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Marine boot camp was a shock. The DI wasn't nice. Nothing he did was right. To Marty Letellier, the rigors were all mental and the physical part of it was no big deal. At his next stop, Camp Pendleton, he became a gunner on a 60 mm mortar crew.
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When it was time to act, Bill Minnich came through. On a night watch, as he caught sight of a Chinese patrol, the only question was, rifle or grenade? When the unit was pinned down and no one responded to the order to move out, he cussed them all out and charged forward. And when he fell wounded, it was a sure thing that he would get up and scramble through the bullets landing at his feet.
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Allyn Johnson - Air Force +8 Total Videos

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When Ed Fulghum got to Korea, he found out that the Inchon invasion was well underway. The notorious Inchon tide had gone out, so he had to slog a couple of hundreds yards through the mud flats to get to the shore. Was he scared? Not in the least.
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