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Boy Soldier: Coming of Age during World War II
Russell E. McLogan
Hardcover - 432 pages (December 7, 1998)
Price: $29.95
Reviews
Publisher Comments
…a fascinating account of an 18-year-old rifleman who joined K Company, 63rd Infantry Regiment during some of the 6th Infantry Division’s bitterest fighting…Read this story by putting yourself in the place of this patriotic, dedicated youth who was motivated to perform his duty in this battle hardened rifle company…Russ McLogan was a member of the few among millions of soldiers–the combat infantrymen who spearheaded the war–dragging along behind them the huge, often cumbersome superstructure of the reat of the Army. [This] is the story of the elite, the combat infantry, and he was one of those who survived to tell us about it. Colonel Arndt L. Mueller, USA (RETD) 3rd Battalion Commander during World War II
On April 14, 1945, Russell E. McLogan joined Company K of the 63rd Infantry…one of the many youngsters coming into the company…to fill the void left by casualties. Many of these boys, hardly out of high school, were soon shot. McLogan himslf got it on June 21, but fortunately survived to return home, have a family and in retirement write a history of his war experiences….He is a born researcher, a peruser of archives, an historian. John L. Munschaer, K Company Platoon Leader and Author in World War II Cavalcade: An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse, Sunflower University Press, 1996

Many people have been aspiring writers, but few have become real writers. Russell McLogan is a real writer. John Klein, Publisher, Community Plus+ Magazine upon awarding him first prize for the best short story in the 1996 fiction contest.

Book Description

It is said that in order to completely understand a man you should probe the world as it existed when he was 19 or 20 years old–at the moment he became mature and autonomous as a man. Russell McLogan has done just that in this well-written autobiography. Drafted out of college at age 18 in 1944, he was trained as a rifleman and then sent to the Philippines as an infantry replacement. There he joined the battle hardened 6th Infantry Division on the Shimbu Line near Manila. Wounded in combat in northern Luzon, he spent 89 days in Army hospitals on Luzon and Leyte. When the atomic bomb abruptly ended the war, he was returned to duty just in time to sail off to Korea where he served in the Army of Occupation. Boy Soldier is about a young man’s coming of age during this period of tremendous historical change. It includes much well-researched history of the Army’s replacement training system, the Liberation of the Philippines, the dropping of the atomic bombs, the American-Russian occupation of Korea, and the Army’s post-war demobilization–the people, places, and events that shaped a young life. Although written in a scholarly mode with endnotes, bibliography and index, it is very readable with the humor, violence, sexual situations and sometimes raw language as it actually happpened. Text is supplemented with 72 illustrations and 15 maps.

About the Author

Russell E. McLogan, P.E., was born in Detroit, Michigan May 10, 1926. After graduating from the Henry Ford Trade School and finishing his first semester at the University of Detroit, he was drafted Sept 15, 1944 and received his infantry training at Camp Hood, Texas and Fort Ord, California. Russ joined the 6th Infantry Division on the Shimbu Line near Manila where he served in Company K, 63rd Infantry Regiment. Wounded in combat in Northern Luzon, he spent 89 days in hospitals on Luzon and Leyte. Returned to duty after the war ended, he served in the Army of Occupation in Korea and was discharged Nov. 2, 1946. Graduated from the University of Detroit,B.B.A., cum laude, 1953 and a Registered Mechanical Engineer in Michigan, he held engineering and management positions with major auto and aerospace companies for over 40 years and retired in 1989 to pursue a writing career. He has been published in the Emerald Coast Review, Catholic Digest, Purple Heart Magazine, Community Plus+ Magazine, and the Hillsdale Daily News. Russ married Terri (Lilly) McLogan in 1950. They have six children and ten grandchildren. Home has been Hillsdale, Michigan since 1964 with winters spent in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

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Review by Kalani:

Only one or two chapters at the end deal with Kunsan AB. The 6th Infantry Division was sent up from the Philippines via LST to handle the surrender of Korea. Shipped directly from the warm tropics to frozen Korea, the troops had to use discarded Japanese uniforms to stay warm. The book was well-received. Margaret Everett from Destin, FL , March 11, 1999 wrote, “Boy Soldier is well written and realistic. Boy Soldier vividly gives the reader insight into the thoughts and emotions of an eighteen year old boy thrust into the infantry in World War II. The author is remarkable in his ability to recall the feelings of the “Boy Soldier.” Each chapter flowed into the next chapter connecting the events of this great war in the Pacific and capturing the interest of the reader.”

The chapters dealing with Korea provide some insights into the conditions in Korea at the time by a young 18-year old soldier. Starting his journey in Inchon (Jinsen) where they off-loaded from the LST he proceeded to Kunsan. The 63rd Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division were to take over the provinces in the southwest. On pg 300, he states, “It took all day to make the trip from Seoul to Kunsan, some 130 miles. It was dark when we arrived at the Japanese Air Base near Kunsan where the third battalion was billeted in wooden barracks.” He described the barracks as “very long and constructed of wood. The interior walls were made of paper-tin plywood. A long, narrow, central hallway ran the length of the barracks some 250 or 300 feet. There were small rooms on both sides of the hallway housing offices and sleeping quarters of the men, six or eight to a room. They were unheated and veritable fire traps.” He went on, “Apparently the Japanese military were hardy souls who could live in that climate without heating the barracks. We Americans, who had just arrived from a tropical island, were always cold. We had available for our use small portable kerosene stoves. They were about six inches in diameter and eighteen inches high, about the size of a kerosene lantern, with a single burner on top. We used these little stoves mostly to keep warm, but also to make tea or coffee or to boil fresh eggs which we obtained from the local Koreans. Later one of these stoves was accidentally tipped over and the whole barracks was destroyed.

Later he wrote, “I was back into the routine of an infantry rifle company: close order drill, long marches, calisthenics, training and guard duty. … It was rice harvesting time in that part of Korea. I spent many cold nights pulling guard duty in the fields. We would be trucked out to the rice paddies for four-hour stints of standing or sitting by piles of harvested grain. I was apppalled when I saw soldiers burning the rice to keep themselves warm.”

He added, “When we were not occupied with military duties, we spent time looking around the place. There were hangers and Japanese airplanes to look at. Also a complete machine shop and maintenance stores.” This statement is interesting as by 1946, there was only ONE aircraft that was methodically stripped by the Koreans.  The other operational aircraft had been flown to Kimpo to become the rag-tag start of the ROKAF. 

He went on, “One building, which must have been officers’ quarters, had a mini-swimming pool in it which turned out to be a communal bath tub. … The Yellow Sea was within walking distance and we often walked down to the shore. The tides in this part of the world are enormous, sometimes running as high as 30 heet. When it was at low tide we could stand on the beach and look out over miles and miles of mud flats with the ocean barely discernible on the horizon. … We could also catch a ride to town, which was a congested, smelly place of mud houses with thatched roofs. The shops were full of junk that we weren’t interested in buying. Hair pomades, for instance. There seemed to be hundreds of jars of the stuff in every other shop. They were also overstocked with incense and equipment to burn it. Some soldiers bought some but got a lot of complaints when they tried burning it in the barracks. … We were forbidden to eat or drink any of the native foods because they didn’t have much and needed what little they did have to keep from starving, and their standards of public health were much lower and the prevalence of communicable intestinal diseases, principally typhoid fever and cholera, was very high. This was because they used human excrement as fertilizer on their farms.”

One humorous statement was the combination of human excrement and KIMCHI was the reason for the rank smell of Kunsan. He went on, “Actually, Kunsan was a fairly large city of some 40,000 people at that time. It was Korea’s sixth largest port and could accommodate ships of 4000 tons. However, a ship drawing more than eight feet of water could reach the harbor only at high tide. Kunsan was being used to ship out the Japanese and bring in the repatriated Koreans. I heard some medics talking once about how they had to meet the incoming ships, mostly LCIs and LSTs, and spray delousing powder on the Koreans before they were allowed to board trains for their home towns.”

He went on to describe the explosion in the Japanese ammo dump on the South side of the base on Nov 30, 1945. (NOTE: This site remained the ammo storage area for Kunsan AB (K-8) during the Korean War and is the current location of the 8th FW munitions storage area.)  Col. Arndt Mueller wrote that Capt. (Henry R.) Hillenmeyer, the S3 Operations Staff Officer along with another officer was killed in this explosion. Col Mueller stated, “There were numerious Korean casualties. Some were the brave firemen…the rest were in the neighboring village. Most of the houses were flattened. A fierce fire broke out. The figure of 300 Korean caualties is not out of line and may even be a low figure. … This was a tragedy waiting to happen. Every time I went into that dump, my skin would crawl … Ammo, black powder, picric acid explosives, fuses and blasting caps were all mixed up. Black powder had been spilled on the ground. The Japs did not obeserve the strict ammo storage procedures that we did…” He stated that “Division sent us an explosives expert who was to supervise the job of reducing the dump … An engineer Lt. in charge of repair of a nearby bridge said that the last he saw of the expert, (just before the explosion), he was standing on top of a pile of explosives directing the Korean firemen in their attempt to put out a fire in the rice stubble inside the dump.”

McLogan described how they disposed of the Japanese munitions by dumping them into the sea from flat-bottomed barges. Requests to use the Japanese regiment to do this labor was denied because of the fear that Japanese treachery would create a disaster. After the explosion, Col. Mueller stated, “Division said it was OK to use the Japs to dispose the ammo at sea. They did it without incident … gave me no trouble — followed all the rules I laid down to the letter. I even took my guards off their compound.”

Later the 3d Battalion’s camp would be unofficially be renamed, Camp Hillenmeyer, though the records indicate that it was officially called first Camp Iri and then Camp Kunsan. McLogan wrote, “The Regimental Headquarters had moved from Kunsan to Chonju on November 24. With the regiment spread out over Cholla Pukto province, it affforded a more central location. Chonju, population 47,230, was the provincial capital and like Kunsan was a crowded mass of houses and unpaved roads. The only significant industries were a hemp textile mill and a large tobacco factry and warehouse.” He was reassigned as a clerk and later switchboard operator in Iri.

He wrote, “It was a time of transition for the Regiment. Confusion abounded because the regiment had suffered a massive decrease of 715 men in November (70 officers and 645 enlisted men). Apparently a fourth of the regiment had arrived in Korea, served a few weeks and then gone home on points. They were the oldest and most experienced soldiers left after had gone in September. Everyone was new on the job and I don’t remember getting much direction.” He goes on to relate various incidents of the NCO leadership being completely lacking.

An interesting note about the 63rd’s history is on pg. 313. “The Unit History also says that by December 31, 1945, the 63rd Infantry had accomplished the following (abridged) missions in Korea:”

• a. Completed the occupation of Cholla-Pukto Province.
• b. Completed the disarmament and evacuation of 3,751 Japanese Army troops to Japan.
• c. Military Government in Cholla-Pukto Provice down to all 14 Guns (Counties) totaling 1,700,000 in population.
• d. Completed the evacuation of 22,095 Jap civilains to Japan.
• e. Established a processing station at the port of Kunsan. At total of 33,845 Koreans from Japan were unloaded and dispatched by rail to relocations centers in Korea. A total of 251 Chinese were dispatched by LST to China.
• f. Approximately 600 tons of Japanese ammunition and explosives were destroyed.

The book is well-written with many vignettes of life in Korea at the time though information dealing specifically with Kunsan — which is the focus of our website — is very sparce. However, as there is very little first-hand eye witness accounts of Kunsan, this book becomes a significant piece of historical literature.

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