By Terry Fisher wrote in August 2009: “I was part of the 6123d AC&W unit that was transfered to K8 in the spring of 1959. I also did one of the four man train guard details from K8 to Inchon, sleeping on the bombs and trading C ration cigarettes for canned beer at Iri and Tajon. My kidneys were screwed up for days. I don’t know if Syngman Rhee was at K8 in 1957 or not, but I do know he was there in the summer of 1959. I had to pull special crowd control guard duty. I asked an AP sergeant why so many people turned out to see that sorry dictator and he said the Korean Secret Police (drove small all inclosed black jeeps and wore civilian clothes) went to every house in Kunsan and ordered that every household would send at least one person to greet their beloved president or else. I still have some pictures and some stories about Kunsan. Like the foggy night POL #1 burned and a man died because all the doctors were drunk or in Japan getting drunker. T.G. Fisher A/3C 18552938″
(SITE NOTE: As to Syngman Rhee (Yi Syng-man), Koreans have a love-hate relationship with their Presidents. In a Confucian society (as it was in the 1950s), the patriarchial figure of the President substituted as King/Father. That he committed war atrocities during the Korean War as President is fact and these incidents are still being rehashed today in Korean society, but back then he was also viewed as the father figure and held in high-esteem. Though Americans only saw the bad, the Koreans saw things differently – a figure hated for the corruption of his regime but at the same time beloved for his position as the “savior” of Korea. Even as he was being driven from Korea in disgrace in 1961 to be sent into exile in Hawaii, cheers of “Mansei” (long life) rang out in the streets of Seoul upon his departure. But the question of whether the “Secret Police” did force people to attend may have a grain of truth.)
Enlisted Men’s Club Card (1959) (Terry Fisher)
Terry related his experience on the infamous Train Guard Duty from Kunsan to Inchon protecting the cargo from the “slickey boys” that would strip a train clean in a matter of minutes — while it was rolling. This train ride started at the Ammo dump spur thus Terry was able to see the ROKAF F-86Ds in the ROKAF area. In Kunsan, the rails ran on the outskirts of Kunsan City to the railroad yard to the west. It then switched to the Iri line. From Iri, it was the main line to Taejon and then north to the Yongdong-po area and switched to Inchon. This run did not take the direct route using the Kyongbu line past Pyeongtaek and Suwon to Yongdong-po, but instead went north and then down to Yongdong-po.
On the morning of 14 July 1959 I was told to report to the First Sergeant’s office. He handed me a copy of orders (Special order NR. SO #B-271 which I still have) saying I was assigned to train guard duty from Kunsan to Inchon and there would be no utilization of government quarters. Because I had always had an aversion to haircuts he noticed the length of my hair. He said, “You will visit the barber shop today.” I replied, “Yes sir, I will.” I went from his office directly to the barber shop. There was one man getting a cut and one waiting. I sat down and picked up a magazine. After about 5 minutes no one had spoken to me so I got up and left. I had been instructed to visit the barber shop, and I did. That afternoon I went to the train depot and met with A/3C Lonnie Long and two black airmen who were on separate orders. We were each given a flashlight, a rain poncho, a case of C Rations, a pocket full of bullets and an M1 Carbine. When the train started moving we climbed atop the 500 LB tritonol bombs. We were not told where we were going or why. We were not told how long we would be gone. I watched the long line of hooded F86D aircraft pass slowly by as we pulled away from K 8. I don’t know what is going to happen, I thought, as I clicked a 15 round clip into my rifle, but whatever happens it cannot compare to the painful misery of pulling guard duty on the alert pad in summer heat. That was before I pulled guard duty on that pad in winter without winter gear and the wind coming off the south China Sea at 30 mph.We were not told the trains could not move at night. At sundown we were side tracked at I-RI (pronounced Ir-dee by the Koreans). The train yard at I-RI is in a canyon like area with a hill rising high on the west side. Dim lights glowed in the mud huts. I turned on a Sony transister radio my brother had sent me from Japan. Clyde McFadder sang a haunting melody that echoed off the low canyon walls. There goes my baby, moving on down the line. I wonder where, I wonder where, I wonder where shes gone. Jesus, I said, what a (explictive) up world this is, as I looked up at the sad huts with rags hanging on low lines to dry. One of the black guys said, This ain’t a (explicitive ) up world. This is a groovy world. I said, You can look at people living like that and say this is not a (explictive) up world. The other black airman, much more dower and withdrawn that the first said, Bothers you to see people live like that, does it? Come with me to Detroit. I’ll show you a bunch more. (SITE NOTE: Iri is now called Iksan about 25km from Kunsan City.)The next morning I woke up to realize the train was moving really fast. It was a rickety coal burner and the noise of the engine and the clack of the rails made it impossible to hear a human voice. Lonnie slapped me on the shoulder and pointed ahead. A narrow tunnel. A long train, coal smoke and a tunnel did not go together real good if you were riding on top and had no place to hide. We covered ourselves with our ponchos and held our breath. Out in the open again we passed bright green rice fields where flocks of white birds moved in a group from place to place. One of the black airmen picked up his rifle and fired methodically at the birds. The empty shell casing made sharp chinking sounds bouncing off the steel bomb casings. Some Koreans working in the field waived and shouted at him. He smiled and waved back. At dust at Taejon were sidetracked again.At Taejon the heat was oppressive. There was the remnants of a bombed out water fountain in the middle of the train yard. A crooked, rusty pipe spouted water away to nowhere. The well water in Korea comes from the snow melt in Manchuria. It travels under ground for about two million years and then comes close enough to the surface to be tapped. It is the sweetest, coldest water right out of the ground on earth. I poured out the quinine water from my canteen and refilled it from the pipe. Lonnie said, Hey, we were told that water has river flukes and they will destroy your liver unless you use quinine. I said, Life is full of flukes. Wet bathtubs. Alcoholic doctors. Jealous husbands.Crazy cab drivers. Sadistic cops. Have a drink.Instead of taking the direct route via Pyong Teak ( a town I knew well) we went up into the mountains. Sangju. Chungju Places where the natives had not seen a GI since the war. In our C rations were olive drab cans that contained another can and three crackers so hard they could have stopped bullets. The can inside was made of steel so hard they were almost impossible to open. In these small cans was grape jelly. These mountain people could not open the jelly cans and could not eat the 1941 crackers so we traded them those cans for small watermelons and the brown paper packs of Phillip Morris cigarettes for canned Budweiser.After three days of riding in the sun and coal smoke I was brown as a Korean and twice as dirty. When we stopped at Inchon some Army guards ran to climb the ladders up to the bombs looking for Koreans hitching a ride. One spotted me. No hat. No shirt. Just brown and sooty. He turned away to call back, Hey, I caught one! When he looked back he was looking down my gun barrel. Who did you catch, I asked? We rested in the transit barracks at Inchon. Watched the Korean Army do some amazing close order drill with M1 Garands with fixed bayonets, like high school drum majorettes twirling, but twirling heavy rifles with big, sharp knives on them, tossing them back and forth between two lines of soldiers. At Seoul we caught a train, riding inside, to Taejon where the Army met us and escorted us to the NCO Open Mess. They had waitresses and a menu and good food. Not canned beef stew and rice.There are other stories related to this trip but they are not pleasent. That was Korea in 1959. Dirt roads. Mud huts with straw roofs. No escape from the heat or numbing cold. But like the sergeants used to remind me, no one asked me to join. I volunteered.
Terry mentioned a POL fire where two people were badly burned — one dying. The POL #1 that Terry refers to is on the north end of base where there are two POL storage tanks near the backside of Gunsmoke Hill. Though the POL is pumped from the outer port through pipelines today, they were transported by tanker from the inner port — where the POL was off-loaded and stored in tanks (now ROK Army) near what is now the start of the Kumgang Estuary Park. Terry said, “Like the foggy night POL #1 burned and a man died because all the doctors were drunk or in Japan getting drunker.”
It was true that the conditions and morale of the officers were very low and all that one could hope for was an R&R to Japan. However, we have no corroboration of the claims on the death. The death in a POL incidentl was not related by Maj Gen Moench (then Col Moench, base commander) in his book, Taking Command, nor in personal emails exchanged on the conditions at the base. Steve Grabe who worked in POL in 1959 also did not mention this incident in our correspondence. There was an “invasion pipe” transfer to the base, but it created many problems — including the deaths of some Koreans in 1957 as they attempted to steal the oil.
Aftermath of the POL Fire #1 (1959) (Terry Fisher)
Terry mentioned the Base Hospital but note that is was a DISPENSARY. As to medical care in general, throughout Korea, all medical staffs were undermanned because of the on-going military fiscal crackdown on spending that the Eisenhower years brought about. At end-of-the-line bases like K-8 in 1959, it would be severely undermanned. Serious cases would be medivaced to Osan-ni AB or Yongsan. He stated, “The sign reads 6043rd USAF DISP CLASS A K 8 Heatth Center “The Walter Reed Of the Far East” There were no doctors on duty the night the POL #1 burn victim died.” The dispensary depicted in the photos are the exactly the same as they were in the Korean War. After the 3rd BW left in 1955, the medical staff dropped to almost nothing as the base shifted into “caretaker” status — a base left open only for typhoon evacuations and contingencies. The structures remained the same until after 1968 when some modest improvements were made to the facilities as the base expanded. The Kunsan clinic is still in the same location.
Base Hospital (Summer 1959) (Terry Fisher)
The chow hall in 1959 was located amongst the stand of pine trees — still standing today — the divided the BOQ area from the rest of the base. The main base billeting area for enlisted was located on the main base about a half-mile down separated by a large field of what is now the base golf course. Later an “auxiliary” chow hall was built on Avenue B that eliminated the half-mile walk to the old chow hall.
Chow Hall Complex (Summer 1959) (Terry Fisher)
Half-mile walk to the Chow Hall in the tree line (Summer 1959) (Terry Fisher)
The APs were housed in WWII-vintage quonset huts on the main base. As mentioned previously, the conditions were sweltering in summer and freezing cold in winter with rats running rampant throughout the complex. Screens were unpatched and mosquito nets were essential if one wanted to survive.
The guard mount was at AP headquarters on main base. Notice that the people all have the M-1 carbines slung over their shoulders. These folks were were going to do perimeter defense. In Nov 2009 Jim Gehlen wrote, “As I posted earlier, I was at Kunsan from August 59 until May 29, 1960. … Most interesting thing I picked up on while reading the latest posts was the fact when we were issued shotguns while working on Pad C instead of the carbines. Took quite a while before someone told us that the shotgun pellets would not penetrate the “things” hanging under the alert planes. (SEE THE SECTION ON NUCLEAR TASKING.) Also, the old 6X’s we used to use to get from the armory to Pad C. Was amazed that it ran at all.”
Court Yard between the Quonset Huts of AP Barracks (Summer 1959) (Terry Fisher)
Guard Mount near AP Headquarters (1959) (Terry Fisher)
As was mentioned previously, in 1959 there is an ambiguous period where the 6170th became the 6175th ABG. The buildings themselves were constructed in the Korean War as the headquarters of the 3rd BW and then transferred to the caretaker base commander. The building remained in place until the late-1980s when it was torn down.
6175th ABG Headquarters (1959) (Terry Fisher)
Terry claimed the Base Theater was a converted Japanese Aircraft Hangar. However, though the original Japanese aircraft hangar was converted in the Occupation Forces days (1946-1949) first into an enlisted beer hall and then a movie theater, this is NOT the same building according to Civil Engineering records. However, we need to make a caveat that there were NO real property listings of buildings until AFTER the Korean War in 1955 — and to be truthful, the buildings were dated as “best guess.” In addition, over the years, Camp Hillenmeyer (63rd Reg, 6th ID) as the people who originally laid out the original roads of Kunsan AB was forgotten — and wasn’t even included in the 8th FW histories until recently. In comparison of photos of the original Japanese hangar and this structure, there are definite similarities and the location is approximately the same (as the Japanese used a sod runway where the main base now is located). We won’t say Terry is wrong, but the OFFICIAL records state that it is NOT the original structure. This structure has been upgraded numerous times over the years and still exists as the Base Theater of Kunsan AB.
Base Theater (1959) (Terry Fisher)
Though NOT Kunsan AB, Terry also included some pics of Osan-ni AB (now Osan AB) and Chicol Village (now Songtan) back in 1959. They are included here as a comparison.
Remember that life at Osan-ni AB was considered “civilized” and the Air Division was the “boss” of the supply chain that fed Kunsan AB. In other words, they got toilet paper at Osan, while Kunsan had to save old newspapers. Use these photos as a comparison. Though these photos show Osan-ni AB and Chicol Village as rather “primitive” by today’s standards, remember that living conditions at Kunsan were twice as worse and there was no off-base “camp town” outside the gates – with the only “entertainment” a “kimchi bus” ride away that included an overnight stay at off-limits bar/brothels in Kunsan City. This created a major problem for the base commander as about 30-50 percent of the base was missing on any given night until the next morning’s “kimchi bus” back to base arrived.
Osan-ni AB: 7th Aerial Port Entry (1959) (Terry Fisher)
Osan-ni AB: Flightline (1959) (Terry Fisher)
Osan-ni AB: BX Snackbar (1959) (Terry Fisher)
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Osan-ni AB: Chicol Village outside the Main Gate (1959) (Terry Fisher)
Osan-ni AB: Main Gate looking into Chicol Village on a rainy day (1959) (Terry Fisher)
8:15 pm on December 2nd, 2009 1
[...] Kunsan 1959, A3C Terry Fisher | ROK Drop [...]
3:43 am on December 4th, 2009 2
I should have mentioned that the train guard duty was suffered through by a select group of misfits/non-judicial punishment servers or simply those with one stripe who got shafted. It had a long history. The first train guard duty started during the Korean War with food and supply shipments coming up from Pusan. Over the years, food/supply shipments were switched to ships to Kunsan and Inchon and then by truck to the camp/bases. This only left the bomb shipments. The train guard duty remained until 1972 when the Kyongbu highway (Pusan-Seoul) was completed and from then on ammo shipments were by truck convoy.
4:01 pm on December 4th, 2009 3
A little more about pulling guard duty at the K8 alert pad. We were never issued winter gear. Just had the same field jackets were issued in basic. By mid-October the windy nights were numbing cold. We guarded B-57s (the old British Canberras). The only way to escape the cold was to stand on a wheel with half your body out of the wind inside the wheel well. One night the Sgt of the guard came by in an enclosed jeep and shined his light on our legs (me and Mason, a Black dude who was the original Max Klinger). The Sgt yelled, "Get off those wheels and back on your post or I'll have you in jail!" Mason yelled back, "Is it WARM in your (explicative) jail? If it is PUT ME in your damn jail." The jeep started to roll away down the flight line. Mason jumped down and yelled, "Hey, come back you lying (explicative)! You said you were going to put me in jail! Hey!" And he chased the jeep for about 50 yards cursing and waving his rifle. The Sgt never bothered us again.
1:17 am on December 5th, 2009 4
That is a hilarious story. How times have changed in Korea.
9:50 am on December 29th, 2009 5
I have a patch, and I think it is from the 6043rd USAF Dispensary Class A Kunsan, Korea. Do you have any more info on the Dispensary. I beleave the patch is earlier then 1959, possably Korean War era. Thank you.
12:00 am on July 3rd, 2010 6
I was a cooks supervisor at the NCO mess in 1958-59.I was a member of the 802nd Eng Bn."C" Company.This was an army unit doing some improvements? to the existing runway,pads.etc.I still correspond with a Korean "go to guy" that worked in the mess hall and attached NCO Club.For some reason the name Terry Fisher rings a bell.There are others (Koreans) that worked at the mess I often wonder about.Your comments about conditions are so true.—–Geo.Leible