Korea Between The Wars
A Soldier’s Story
by Fred Ottoboni

ISBN 915241-02-1, paperback, 332 pages including 12 pages of photos.
Price: $19.95

Published by Vincente Books, Inc., PO Box 50704, Sparks, NV 89435. Also available direct from the publisher, postpaid, $19.95.

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Amazon.com readers rate this book as a 4 1/2 star offering. It contains a wealth of information of the conditions during this period.   History books are silent on the experiences of United States Army ground troops that occupied South Korea during the period between the end of World War Two (1945) and the beginning of the Korean War (1950).

Ample material can be found describing the political events and the military strategies of the time, but the realities of life during the occupation, as seen by the soldiers on the ground in Korea, are locked in the memories of the men still living who served there — men now approaching the ends of their lives.

Korea Between The Wars was written by a soldier who served in the 63rd Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division during the American occupation of South Korea. The book includes photographs and many excerpts from almost 200 letters written to his family between 1946 and 1948.

Korea Between The Wars is personal memoir and a history of that time and place. The author, stationed at Camp Hillenmeyer, on the shore of the Yellow Sea near Kunsan, Korea, tells of bone-chilling cold, shortages of fuel, few weapons, dirty bodies, grimy clothes, and hunger to the point of starvation.

The book includes much more than army life. Based on his many letters to his family, the author describes Korean towns and countryside, the people, their homes, their ways of life and work. It recounts the food shortages, the political turmoil, the difficult relations between the Korean people and the American soldiers, and the numerous signs of the war that was soon to come between North and South Korea.

The final chapter of the book looks back, with the benefit of time and study, in an attempt to understand how the military situation in South Korea and American foreign policy might have invited the Korean War.

Appendices include a brief history of the 6th Division and the 63rd Infantry Regiment, a list of references, and recommended reading. The book also includes 12 glossy pages of photos taken by the author in Korea.

The author was born in California in 1927, and grew up during the great depression of the 1930′s. His ambition was to be an engineer. While waiting a military draft call and contemplating his inability to pay for a college education, he enlisted in the army to both fulfill his military obligation and to earn the college tuition benefits of the GI Bill.

He served in the army from late 1946 into 1948. He obtained a chemical engineering degree from Stanford University and later earned a Ph.D. in industrial hygiene from the University of California. His great interest in life was the prevention of diseases of occupations and worked at that profession until retirement in 1995.
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Review by Kalani:

The book is really a fascinating read if you’re a history buff as I am.  And it has a lot of trivia in it that brings the base alive.  For example, the Japanese had a sod field there because the base was an Advanced Fighter Trainer base starting from the Manchurian incursion through WWII.  Fred also provides a lot of background notes the fills in a lot of details about the missing history of the base.  For example, if you walk the perimeter of Kunsan AB along the shoreline, you will see a stone wall of the tidal flats.  That wall was built by the Fuji Company back in about 1932 to reclaim the land from the mudflats.  Fred tells of how the coolies hauled sand in on their backs to build up the sod field on the reclaimed land.

Fred also tells a tale of how things got really bleak for the troops in those days.  Food was short and sanitary conditions primitive.  Things got so bad that Fred relates that they were about to mutiny because there wasn’t enough food.  When Fred refers to the dependent quarters that were built back in 1947, he’s referring to the BOQ buildings that have existed till this day…though they were in much poorer shape back then.  The people at Kunsan think that the base was made in the Korean War, but in actuality the roads that exist today were first laid out by the 503d Utility Company in 1946. 

Fred gives an excellent account of Kunsan City as it was when he first arrived.  But his pictures also tell of the abject poverty that was prevalent in the area.  People were living in the caves because they had no shelter.  Kids without shoes in the winter would be digging through the garbage dump off-base looking for scraps of food to eat.  Try to understand that these were the days when people died on the streets and people would just walk around them.  They were cruel times.  

Kunsan Aerodrome was called Camp Kunsan but later named Camp Hillenmeyer for an officer who was killed in a devastating explosion at the Japanese Ammo dump that killed numerous Koreans and quite a few Americans.  The Japanese ammo dump was in the same location as the ammo dump of today.  

A few years ago, I convinced Fred to donate a copy of the book to the base library.  Unfortunately, it sat on the shelf unread for a few years – simply because the book doesn’t really tell you that it’s talking about Kunsan AB — as it was named Camp Hillenmeyer back then.   Right next to it is John Moench’s Taking Command which is a very popular read. However, it is actually a work of fiction based upon fact — rather than a factual history. And yes, John and I had a few “discussions” about that years ago too.

I recommend those at Kunsan with a love of history, to check out the book from the Library … or buy a copy as it still can be purchased through Amazon.com or the publisher.

BTW last time I wrote to Fred, he was having a heck of a time with a form of “trench foot” that he got while at Camp Hillenmeyer. The VA finally recognized it as from his service there. This will give you an idea of how miserable it was back then.